Looking at buying a used bike off of craigslist and I want to make sure I am not buying someone else’s bike.
How can I be sure that it is not a stolen bike?
There are no real red flags –
I have the guys phone (he texted me more pics)
The price is not stupid low – was a $900 bike (a 2013 model) asking $650
He is probably 30 miles away – lots of cities in between. Is there a police data base that can run a serial number?
There is a mountain bike brand called stolen – it is messing up my search results on the mtbk forums.
Thanks
I'd presume you could get the s/n and call the cops, but which ones? No idea if stolen bike info is shared/searchable between jurisdictions. Though I'm sure the would tell you that info.
Call a local bike shop and ask them the most effective place to check? A lot of shops also record the serial numbers of bikes they sell, associated with the buyer. So if you can find the local dealer of that type of bike, and if it's still the original owner, they may be able to verify (or the person who it was stolen from, if it was stolen, may have notified their shop).
Also:
http://www.stolenbicycleregistry.com/searchserial.php
http://www.nationalbikeregistry.com/
In reply to Rusnak_322:
Here's a good place to start.
NCIB - National Insurance Crime Bureau
I was high bidder on a bike on ebay that was pulled when the seller (a resale shop) had the police come and take the bike saying it was stolen
