So on your average week I’ll be contacted by a few people who have been fortunate enough to have found their bike for sale but the police aren’t being as helpful as they could be. That’s business as usual for me and we have a few tricks up our sleeves to encourage the police to act but one case that occurred last week really stood out for me as a demonstration of why services like mine are needed and how big of a let down the police can be (once again their are fantastic officers in nearly every force but occasionally the system really lets victims of crime down).

The text of our email exchange is below, some details have been removed to protect identities. Essentially Surrey Police failed to connect a found bike to a reported theft even though it was found less than 100 yards from the original crime scene and the owner provided a frame number.

Email

Dear John, I found a condor bike in a hedge a month ago. its worth thousands of pounds and the lock and tool kit were still intact, so it was obviously stolen

I took the bike home for safe keeping and contacted surrey police who refused to collect it. I therefore made a found-property report and was told that the police would check their records and contact me if it was reported lost/stolen. Having heard nothing for a month, yesterday I went to condors in central London and attempted to trace the owner via the frame number. This was not possible, but they recommended your site.

I looked at your site today and found that the bike had been reported stolen via a local shed burglary the day before I found it and the police had failed to put two and two together (no surprise there”). I contacted the owner via your site today and the good news is that he is coming collect it within the next hour. Well done to your site Regards

REMOVED

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Hi <REMOVED>, That’s fantastic, which service did you use and could you give me the frame number? We need results like this to show the police that our services are useful. Kind Regards,

John

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