BIke stolen- nasty trick
Hey bikers
Let my little story be a warning to you!
My bike was stolen last night outside the Delta Chelsea Hotel. I'd only planned to leave it locked up for 10 minutes, but when I came back outside someone had locked his bike to mine! I left, came back in an hour-- still locked. I came back hours later-- still.
I called HOtel security to see if they had any tools to help me free it but they did not. I called THE POLICE and they refused to help me-- they said I should cut off his lock (It was a HUGE Kryptonite U-LOck) and that they would not help me since there is no proof that I am the owner of my bike. BTW, when it was new I registered it with the POlice BIke registry.
I went back this morning. Both bikes were gone, of course. I called the Police to report the theft and the guy told me again that I shoudl have cut the Kryptonite lock. Who has that kind of equipment??!!
Anyway, everyone, be warned that this is apparently a new scam to steal bikes. I guess they come back later and take both of them away.
BIkeless and sad (and new to the forum)
CG
How did they get your bike if it was locked? Sorry if that's a stupid question.. I'm kinda new to the world of biking..
THey simply cut off the lock with tools. I do not have such tools as I am not a bike thief or mechanic!
I think the police would do something if someone put a lock on your car or prevented you from driving in some way.
Anyway, thanks for warning us of this type of crime.
I do not in any way endorse any of the following:
You could try the yellow-pages for mobile locksmiths, more expensive though. Sorry about your luck.
So the point of this trick is that thieves can ride around the city, and when they pass a bike that would be profitable to steal, they can put them on "lay-away"?
That's a nasty trick, I can see it working especially well when people are too polite to try removing the 'parasite bike'.
Electric's non-endorsed approach sounds like it would make any false alarms very exciting. How to tell when you're about to be robbed as opposed to an honest mistake?
The Bike Union has a lock cutting service, listed on the benefits page.
Not sure if they would cut someone else's lock in a situation like this, but it might be worth trying.
Why did they say they had no proof of ownership when you registered with them? (or did you not print and keep the confirmation)
More importantly, why in the world would they recommend you do something illegal like cutting off the other bike in order to get at yours.
Bizarre.
p.s. bike shops usually have a cutting service, and if you have a good rapport with your lbs, they might have helped you for this one too. (the bike that was cut off would just be turned into the hotel lost and found and you leave a note at the scene)
anyway, lessons learned for next time I guess.
Thieves will often lock your bike to something with another lock.
Usually they don't bother to put another bicycle there, this just creates pretense and gives a plausible excuse when the thief or innocent appears while you're destroying their $100 lock.
If a person locks a bike down, accident or not, they have no right to other's property such an act is basically a claim on the other persons property.
Probably why the police just advised her to cut the lock, though that is pretty lazy.
Yes I kept my registration. I suspect they were too lazy to look it up.
I also agree thta they would help you retrieve any other kind of stolen/held merchandise.
Yeah, that seems to be the trick... of course, being an honest person, my husband and I both assumed this was an honest mistake. Silly me, and expensive mistake.
rip:
I would sit there for days if necessary to meet the meat head who locked his bike to my bike. Let the beating begin......
This is not uncommon.
Back in June some one did the same thing to me in Yorkville. It was a new, and cheap Canadian Tire special with a basket and a bike friendly brochure in the basket, locked to my much more expensive Trek.
They wait til night because they think that you will wait till the next day thinking it was an honest mistake. Then they come in the shadows of night with a pickup truck or van and take both bikes.
I called a friend with a work van, who was able to come and pick me and both bikes locked together up. I brought them home and broke the lock. I called the police and they suggested dropping the other bike off at the police station, which I did. I also left a notice on the post where the bike was locked to mine, saying if you locked your bike to mine by accident then to call me. But I took this down after a day because the police officer I spoke to said that it was most likely an attepted theft and I should not leave my number up.
I was lucky, I didn't lose my bike. But I also smelled something fishy going on and knew I could not leave my bike over night.
I hope you get your bike back.
Sincerely
TAR
Rather than leaving your own number in the note you could say "If you locked your bike to mine by accident call the police at 416-... they have your bike"
If somebody locked their bike to mine then I'd take their bike.
If somebody locked my bike to a post using another bike & lock then I'd call a cab and give him $50 for the use of his tire iron.
You can't get arrested for stealing your bike and either way, police involvement would likely help you get your bike back.
Finding your bike locked to another bike is such a great opportunity to catch the thief: Why would the police not use it? Or, at the very least, communicate the scam to the community?
The reality of it is that there is a huge police effort to control auto theft and very little to control bike theft, yet more money is lost annually through shear numbers of bike theft. Not such a strange statistic when you realize the very high proportion of stolen cars recovered (almost all) and the very low proportion of stolen bikes (almost none). On a personal and concrete level, I am paying taxes to recover cars for my community while my vehicle of choice (which I might add is very significant to me financially being one of the most expensive things I own, and highly significant for my work, etc.) is not even considered. Established society still thinks of bikes as kid's stuff or fringe...
I sat every evening watching bikes as bait for three weeks to recover my bike, which I did and ended up busting a bike theft ring to boot. The response from the police was, "Wish we had time for that." And it is true, many officers would love to work on this but budgets have not been allocated there.
Perhaps someone should organize a hotline (twitter?) for bikers wiling to come to the aid of hostage bikes?
The police don't actively look for stolen cars or put out bait for car thieves either.
They take your information and if it turns up they consider it a job well done.
**** The cops don't care. That's why Igor was in operation for 15 years and amassed 3000 bikes before they bothered to arrest him. You still can't leave a good bike unattended in downtown Toronto. Even with Igor in jail.
I just rarely lock my bike anywhere outside in this shitty town. It limits my short rides in Toronto, but I patronise stores which let me bring my bike inside (MEC, eg.), though they are few. I am fortunate to be able to lock mine inside at home and at work, otherwise I would get a folding bike in order to do so. The usual Toronto option is to ride a beater, but a rideable beater and a broken pair of locks is still a couple hundred dollars lost.
I think it is unfair to say that cops don't care if your bike gets stolen. I realize that it would be nearly impossible to find a stolen bike, given that there is no visible license, or registration, plus a bike is easy to hide or strip. I'm sure this is getting translated back to callers who report their bike as stolen, because the police already know that the odds of finding your bike is about 1 000 000:1 if you're lucky.
If there was a good data base to refer to that would surely help - until then I'll be content to leave the police to investigating serious crimes.
Well here is one!
This guy was caught and confronted for stealing a back wheel @ 110 Spadina at 2:10 Friday.
A cyclist captured a pick of him.
photo of thief
http://bit.ly/PxBfS
Thanks for the heads up!
on bikes, to be exact, spotted a Cannondale F2000 that had been stripped of identification and repainted being ridden by a guy who looked like he didn't match the bike, stopped and questioned him. Though the serial numbers had been removed, I was called the same day and asked to identify the bike that I had reported stolen weeks before - kind of tires, mark on saddle, etc. - any unique marks...
Even though the bike was stripped, the police officer recognized the model and even though there was no serial number, he found the connection to me. I am riding that bike again thanks to the vigilance and caring of two metro police officers.
Saying cops don't care is like saying bike riders are lawless ... Treating cops as people goes a long way.
Your two responses mean either:
- you don't live in Toronto
- you've never lived anywhere better
Anyone who thinks bike theft in Toronto takes the cake, hasen't lived in Vancouver. It's only a few years now that the cops in Vancouver even started taking **car theft **seriously.