Stolen push bike

Watson said :

keepitup said :

No offence meant to the owner, but no self-respecting college student would be seen dead riding that bike.

No offence taken. I am far from a college student myself!

I did call cash convertors and the guy gave me some convoluted explanation of their process of flagging stolen goods which I could not follow. I sent them an email with the details afterwards and did not get a response at all.

The police on the other hand sounded confident that anything that was brought into any police station would be checked against their database.

I’m pretty sure Cash Converters ensures everything it buys is trucked to a different city before being put on sale. I think they have a convoluted explanation for that, too.

keepitup said :

No offence meant to the owner, but no self-respecting college student would be seen dead riding that bike.

No offence taken. I am far from a college student myself!

I did call cash convertors and the guy gave me some convoluted explanation of their process of flagging stolen goods which I could not follow. I sent them an email with the details afterwards and did not get a response at all.

The police on the other hand sounded confident that anything that was brought into any police station would be checked against their database.

No offence meant to the owner, but no self-respecting college student would be seen dead riding that bike.

Cash converters has gone downhill in this town. It’s no longer the thriving bargain bin for secondhand and slightly suspicious goods that it used to be. Is there even any other stores left in Canberra apart from Woden?

Your bike is more likely to be sold to some school kid/uni student / neighbour of the offenders for $50. Bike racks at Dickson College might be a good starting point.

Institute said :

Also, this was in the 90’s so computers probably weren’t as widely used as they hopefully are these days.

I do know from experience that lots of police staff are still pretty much computer illiterate. Thanks for the heads up.

Watson said :

Institute said :

I remember hearing about a racket when I was in school.

Kids would knock off bike, take it to a police station not in the same area and six (or twelve, don’t remember) months later, if unclaimed they would be the owner. Probably a long shot but worth a go.

Best of luck.

I did report it to the police though? Are you saying that I should call the police to check if it’s been brought in? I might give them a call in any case to see what their advice is. They may also know if it’s worth checking Cash Converters, who advertise on their homepage that they work closely with police in all states.

Hi Watson,

I’m not to sure on the specifics, but I guess the that the investigations people didn’t regularly talk to lost property. Also, this was in the 90’s so computers probably weren’t as widely used as they hopefully are these days.

I guess all I was suggesting is you give the lost property sections from each station a call from time to time.

Again, best of luck in your search.

Institute said :

I remember hearing about a racket when I was in school.

Kids would knock off bike, take it to a police station not in the same area and six (or twelve, don’t remember) months later, if unclaimed they would be the owner. Probably a long shot but worth a go.

Best of luck.

I did report it to the police though? Are you saying that I should call the police to check if it’s been brought in? I might give them a call in any case to see what their advice is. They may also know if it’s worth checking Cash Converters, who advertise on their homepage that they work closely with police in all states.

I remember hearing about a racket when I was in school.

Kids would knock off bike, take it to a police station not in the same area and six (or twelve, don’t remember) months later, if unclaimed they would be the owner. Probably a long shot but worth a go.

Best of luck.

if you or your neighbour see them again, grab a quick photo of them and post it here asking for help in IDing them (like the 2 goons on the McDonalds robbery gone wrong). Someone will know something to help you.

Watson said :

I am not quite ready to let this go yet. So I’ve been doing some detective work. Well, not really.

The ‘scum in Watson’ comment got me thinking. Because it doesn’t at all seem to apply to our area. Apart from the hobos that hang around at the shops drinking from their paper bag – and I say hello to most of them – I don’t really see any evidence of scum in the suburb. EXCEPT… I saw a couple of young guys walking along the street at the end of our street when I drove home 2 days ago. And I recognised them as the guys who I had seen wandering though our street – not at all a thoroughfare – a few months ago acting suspiciously on a couple of occasions. I actually caught them wandering through my front yard one day – close to the house.

Then I found part of the contents of my bike basket on a neighbour’s nature strip 2 nights ago. And old dog lead and chain. So I went to have a chat to him and he described the same guys one day clearly intending to steal his wife’s bike from the front porch (he heard them talk as they came round the corner) and they ran off and got into a white commodore (what else!) when they saw him.

Anywho… none of that helps me one iota of course because I don’t know where they live and even if I did, my suspicion is based on purely circumstantial evidence. The neighbour said if he saw them again he would “nail them”. Endearing tradies’ chivalry, but obviously not such a great idea.

So, question to the hive. What would you do with a stolen bike in Canberra? Would you try sell it privately? Try sell it to some shop? Would you try transport to another town to avoid it being traced? And on the odd chance that you would just steal it to get from A to B on the particular night, if it gets dumped, will it eventually end up at the tip?

I’m gonna guess it went to what is commonly known as “tick” – you offer collateral for your drug purchase. If your a friendly person, going to the local weed dealer, or even the local government flat block and look around, make sure you are always friendly, drug users and sellers are more receptive if they think you don’t despise them. try to be overly friendly, it works.. Bikes also might sell at cash converters and or some other places of the like. also keep checking ebay, classies, and gumtree – they are all free to post on so it wouldn’t surprise me if they utilised the internet to fence stolen goods. and since im over that side of town every morning i will make sure to keep an eye out. It looks like a rather rad bike by the way.