7 ms·
There's a Dutch bike company (VanMoof) that offers a Theft Recovery service for their bikes: they have teams of people that track down the bike (using GPS prima
by bckygldstn 4y ago
There's a Dutch bike company (VanMoof) that offers a Theft Recovery service for their bikes: they have teams of people that track down the bike (using GPS primarily) and basically steal it back.
They used to produce monthly videos of bike recovery operations, though it looks like they've stopped the videos so you'll have to scroll past a few years of promo videos: https://www.youtube.com/@vanmoof https://www.youtube.com/@vanmoof
Often they recover the bike from a yard / homeless camp / shop with 100s of other non-VanMoof bikes they leave behind. It would be so easy to crack down on organised bike theft. The financial, social, and environmental costs of securing bikes and recovering from a theft is huge.
- anonymouskimmer 4y agoI presume the researchers would have checked these 100 second-hand bikes for VanMoof trackers before equipping their own trackers?
- bckygldstn 4y agoAh to clarify: VanMoof make (very expensive) e-bikes with integrated GPS that's used mostly for "smart bike" features. I doubt the researchers could afford a used VanMoof for their study, and the company only tracks their own bikes. I'd guess part of their motivation is to dissuade theft and resale of their bikes, which are quite distinctive. Though that might be attributing too much rationality to a bike thief.
- blamazon 4y agoVanMoof is also responsible for the clever hack of disguising bicycle packaging as television packaging for shipment, as US carriers are much more careful with TV boxes than bicycle boxes: https://www.vanmoof.com/blog/en/tv-bike-box https://www.vanmoof.com/blog/en/tv-bike-box
- agumonkey 4y agoI might as well start a club doing that (or a company if I had the skills). Bike theft is such a sad load on bikers mind.. (even it can be cool to carry a 3kg chain to secure it.. not always)
- ozim 4y agoWatch out - you know heavy chain is also worth money on junkyard so they are going to steal that as well.
- agumonkey 4y agoTrue but it requires heavy tooling and more time. Most robbers want cheap shots.
- convolvatron 4y agothis is patently not true. maybe titanium is gummy enough to give one trouble? but any steel that isn't brittle enough to shatter when you look at it is going to be trivial to cut with an abrasive disk and a battery powered grinder. if the chain is 1/2" instead of 1/4", it will take an extra minute maybe.
- rootw0rm 4y agoyup. even boron steel cuts pretty quickly
- dclowd9901 4y agoAnd, frankly, who’s going to stop a guy with an angle grinder from stealing a bike that isn’t theirs?
- angelbar 4y agoClearly he is determined to his objetive...
- lkbm 4y agoI won't physically stop the person, but I will say something to them and take a photo of them in the act. I don't have a way of knowing if you're doing this legitimately (I've had to cut a lock due to a lost key), so I'm not going to threaten them or call the cops. I don't think taking a photo will have any actionable follow-up—I have no way of following up to see if someone reports to see anyone has reported a stolen bike in the area—but might make a thief decide to go find a different target, while not being a major issue if you're the actual owner. As a healthy, medium-large guy who's okay at de-escalation, I live in the assumption that no one will try to hurt me for interfering. I'll probably learn better one day.
- ozim 4y agoI did not hear about VanMoof earlier but my buddy called police (Amsterdam area of course) once when he found his bike and he wanted to be good citizen so he did not want to just steal it back from some backyard. Well police helped him recover the bike without arresting anyone and told him next time he should just steal it back and don't bother them.
- BonoboIO 4y agoDon’t disturb cops while they drink coffee. Poor guys. /s
- adastra22 4y agoHow is taking your own property back being a bad citizen?
- throwaway049 4y agoI think he intended to be a good citizen by leading the police to some bike thieves.
- acadapter 4y agoIn some countries it might be illegal to disturb someone's possession of something, as a general rule, regardless of legitimate ownership. For example, in Sweden, if it's been more than 24 hours, it's illegal to do it on your own.
- 908B64B197 4y agoI guess that's parts and parcel for a country that just stopped reporting crime stats for certain crimes a while ago.
- adastra22 4y agoWow this is crazy to me.
- AlexTWithBeard 4y agoIt becomes complicated if the new owner has legitimately bought the bike in a second hand store.
- grecy 4y ago> basically steal it back This brings up an interesting legal question. Is it illegal to steal back your own property? Even if you trespass onto private property to do so, the person would have to get the Police involved to do anything about that, at which time you can say "Sure, I'll take the trespassing charge, and while we're here I'm leaving with all of my property".
- User23 4y agoNot a lawyer, but talked about this with one once and this is what I remember. By definition you can't steal something that belongs to you. The fact that someone else stole it doesn't make it stop being yours. However it might still be illegal to take it back if doing so involves breaking other laws, like breaking and entering, assault, or what have you. It might not be crazy to risk a trespass, since those generally aren't enforced even when they should be. On the other hand in the USA entering someone's home uninvited can give them legal grounds to use deadly force on a presumption of self-defense, even if your bike is in their back yard. So not only would that be illegal, it could be very dangerous. I'd bet dollars to donuts that anyone inclined to give advice on the subject would say eat the loss and move on. Strangely there are jurisdictions where if your stuff is in a pawn shop and the pawnbroker claims he didn't know it was stolen, he might have the legal right to recoup what he paid for it from you!
- floxy 4y ago>bet dollars to donuts Donuts are now over $14/dozen each where I live. Another casualty of inflation I guess.
- michaelmrose 4y agoSo given the privacy horror that is cell phone location data selling if you know someone's home address and name you could probably arrange to pick up the bike where they normally tie it up.
- genuinefupa 4y agoYou just call the police, say it is your bike, they verify the serial number (you need to provide some proof, or register the theft prior). Then, if everything is in order, police just cut the lock.
- Kibae 4y agoLink to the playlist Bike Hunters: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWwEynoexJikPNEl0P42Ae-niL37FJEsi https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWwEynoexJikPNEl0P42A...
- bogomipz 4y agoThe videos are interesting. Will VanMoof go anywhere in Europe for you then to recover these then? I see Strasbourg and Stockholm in addition to the Netherlands. Any insight into how the pricing works for recovery?
- bckygldstn 4y agoFrom [1] it looks like * You pay $400 for 3 years of coverage. * Must have the bike locked and file a police report. * They can choose whether or not to attempt recovery. * If they choose not to, or fail to recover the bike, they'll replace it. * Up to 3 replacements are covered in the 3 years. So it's really just theft insurance but they can attempt to recover low-hanging fruit. In wonder what their attempted recovery rate is. [1] https://www.vanmoof.com/en-US/peace-of-mind https://www.vanmoof.com/en-US/peace-of-mind
- jodiug 4y agoNot VanMoof, but I worked in the project team doing the theft recovery platform for Gazelle. We managed to recover literally almost every bike, and the recovery rate was 140% because we often found more than just 1 bike reported stolen. It really worked unexpectedly well, I've heard a lot of skepticism and I don't know how things are at VanMoof but if the will is there it really works
- bogomipz 4y agoThanks. The bikes are beautiful which is obviously a double edge sword as it makes them that much more desirable to thieves. It looks like the bikes start at $2500 so $133 a year for insurance isn't terrible. The fact that they offer this just makes me think wow this a forward thinking company, which is also evident in their bikes.
- tinus_hn 4y agoI’m pretty sure they can also remotely disable the electronics.
- syndacks 4y agoVanmoof is a shit company with shit bikes and even more shit customer service. Purely aesthetics and marketing. Stay away.
- InCityDreams 4y agoYour opinion being based on...?
- pprotas 4y agoThis brand is known for bikes that break very quickly. The bikes are good, but don’t last. They are very expensive and the replacement parts are too. The VanMoof or Tweakers forums are filled with users talking about the repairs the did this week to their bike, or that they send their bike back since it broke the week they bought it.
- hgomersall 4y agoWithout knowing anything about VanMoof, I'm always (more than I'd ideally like) doing some repairs on whichever bike I'm generally riding. Same for our car, which barely gets driven at all. It seems mechanical stuff needs repairing. Maybe VanMoof riders talk about it more in the forum. Most companies don't offer that...?
- pprotas 4y agoIt’s definitely possible that there is a bias; users that have perfectly working VanMoofs don’t complain on the forums and just ride their bikes.
- andrewshadura 4y agoAlso Vanmoof and the BMW of the bicycle world, most people who ride them, do it in a super annoying way.
- mschuster91 4y ago> Often they recover the bike from a yard / homeless camp / shop with 100s of other non-VanMoof bikes they leave behind. It would be so easy to crack down on organised bike theft. The financial, social, and environmental costs of securing bikes and recovering from a theft is huge. The problem is that Dutch police are a narco-state dysfunctional hellhole. They don't do anything that goes after organized crime... they even cut the team dealing with the gangs behind ATM explosions in Germany [1]. [1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/geldautomaten-sprengung-banken-niederlande-1.5750663 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/geldautomaten-sprengung...
- danielfoster 4y agoMy VanMoof was recently stolen and although they came through with a replacement, they did not appear to try to track down the bike even though the tracker placed in a fairly precise location in Berlin. I am sure the bike hunters exist but it wouldn’t surprise me if much of their work is PR.
- Genbox 4y agoFor everyone else wanting to see the bike hunt videos: https://www.youtube.com/@vanmoof/search?query=bike%20hunt https://www.youtube.com/@vanmoof/search?query=bike%20hunt