advice on "stolen" bike

[beccaB]

Here's a tough situation that I need advice on. My teenaged son is involved with a young lady who until yesterday was in a very bad living situation, staying with a family that was unable to care for her in even the most basic of needs. I loaned her a bicycle to ride 4 miles to the bus stop, because the family would not transport her. The young lady was removed from the home and placed in a good foster care situation, but the bike is AWOL. The woman who was "caring" for the child says she put all the young lady's personal belongings out on the curb. When I arrived to collect the bike I was told they no longer had it, and there were not any items on the curb. I have already contacted the police. Is there any other legal action I can take? The bike is valued at $250, but I feel the woman should be held responsible.

[NbyNW]

Sorry about your loss. You hope when you try to do something nice for someone that this sort of thing wouldn't happen . . .

I'm not qualified to speak to whether you have any legal recourse, but here's my humble opinion.

Unless arrangements had been made for the girl's things to be collected, it sounds like the kind of situation where things on the curb might be presumed to be garbage or free. Did her things make it safely to her new living situation? They could have been "scavenged" as well.

Did the woman specifically say she put the bicycle on the curb, too?

The bike could be covered by homeowners or renters insurance, but the value sounds like you might want to consider whether it's worth making a claim, depending on your deductible and whether filing a claim like this could raise your premium. If you have insurance, you may want to get your agent's opinion on this.

Have you put out an appeal on your local craiglist? It will help a ton if you have a picture of the bike.

[VeloVT]

I think for me this would be a "turn the other cheek" sort of situation. And I'm not some kind of evangelist. I don't go to church, in fact, and don't have any love of organized religion. Let's say I'm agnostic. But I think you are dealing with a lot of people that, potentially at least, have a lot of problems in their lives that may hinder them from behaving even as THEY would ideally like to behave. The young woman, certainly (and who knows if the bike even made it to the foster home?), and what do you know about the foster parents? There are a lot of really wonderful, giving people who take in foster children, but there are people who do it for the stipend too. And probably lots in between... Weigh the grief it will cause you, including the potential friction between your son and his friend (who is probably really benefitting from his friendship and maybe also from your influence and values), and the amount both in terms of money and time (and stress) that following up on it is likely to cost, and it may be that it's better for everyone, including you, just to chalk it up to chaos. If there's some way you can talk to the girl about it WITHOUT alienating her or making her feel like you can't accept her foster family, that would be good too -- teenagers can be pretty impressionable when it comes to discussions about morals and values, if approached the right way (but they can also be turned off pretty easily if they feel like you are preaching or judging them).

I hope you can work this out in a way that doesn't leave you feeling taken. That feeling really sucks. Sometimes knowing you took the higher path can help, though...


Edit: I'm so inconsistent. I just advised CheriNYC to take the people that rear-ended her car (and did $5,000 worth of damage to her bikes) to the cleaners. Sigh... Someday I'll figure out what my philosophy of life is...

[Irulan]

having just gone through a true bike theft situation you won't get too far without a serial number at the minimum, preferably a receipt from when you purchased, a polices report for the theft and photos would be the icing on the cake.

What if it DOES turn up on CL or a local pawn shop? Unless you have some form of proof of ownership, it's strictly your word against theirs.

A bike just like my son's turned up on CL just a few days ago. We got kind of screwed because we had lost the original sale receipt and didn't' have the serial number to put on the police report. LBS provided us with what we thought was a correct number that went on the report. I did find the original sales receipt about four days ago, and the two serial numbers don't jive. The chances that our bike got sold at a pawn shop becuase we had a serial number snafu are very high. I did get the police report updated. Anyway, it turns out the bike in question was exactly the same, a stock Haro but the numbers didn't match.

[beccaB]

I actually still have the receipt, serial number and owner's manual. Pretty incredible! I never throw anything away! I'm hoping or at least wishing the woman could be held accountable for putting the young lady's stuff out on the curb and having it get stolen, especially because it did not belong to the woman.
I also wish I had called children's protective services before all this went down,because I think the young lady was not getting enough to eat, or even have other basic needs met.
I also have a feeling that the woman is lying about putting the stuff out on the curb because around here there are a lot of evictions and the stuff just doesn't disappear that fast.
The one good thing now is that the young lady was removed from that home and is now placed with a family that will meet her needs and take good care of her. And I have to brag on my son too, because he has been very adult in the problem solving situations he has been forced to deal with, and has handled himself well when put in the middle of all this.

[Irulan]

I actually still have the receipt, serial number and owner's manual. Pretty incredible! I never throw anything away! I'm hoping or at least wishing the woman could be held accountable for putting the young lady's stuff out on the curb and having it get stolen, especially because it did not belong to the woman.

You should be easily able to file a crime report over the phone. Most police depts are linked with local pawn shops to track things by serial numbers. Good luck.

[Blueberry]

I'd go with how your son and his friend feel about it. If they don't object, file a police report. I'd go with sooner rather than later.

CA

[PscyclePath]

A bike just like my son's turned up on CL just a few days ago. We got kind of screwed because we had lost the original sale receipt and didn't' have the serial number to put on the police report. LBS provided us with what we thought was a correct number that went on the report. I did find the original sales receipt about four days ago, and the two serial numbers don't jive. The chances that our bike got sold at a pawn shop becuase we had a serial number snafu are very high. I did get the police report updated. Anyway, it turns out the bike in question was exactly the same, a stock Haro but the numbers didn't match.

One thing I did the first of this year was to take a photo of all my bikes, and post them under my profile on BikeJournal.com, along with the serial number of each bike. A nice, easily accessible reference...

Tom

[TahoeDirtGirl]

I unfortunately have gotten burned several times to where I now adopt the attitude that I don't loan things unless I can accept with them being a gift.

I would pursue trying to hold her accountable but it probably won't go very far. I would call the police non emergency number and maybe they can guide you. You never know.

I would also post something where ever you can (bike shop, pawn shop, etc) and offer a 'reward, no questions asked' if you really want it back.

Sorry you lost your bike. I had a similar situation. It's so frustrating. But don't give up on helping people!

[beccaB]

The new foster mom and the police are going over there today to try to collect the young lady's things. When the woman said that she had put all the items out by the curb I sincerely doubted it, because she doesn't ever get up off the couch. So we'll see what happens then. I'm glad she is getting "harasssed" by the police. They went over there to to look for the bike(but goofy me, I had given them the make and model of the wrong bike at first, because we have quite a collection) And the police will be over there again today.
I have a hard time with people that have no moral compass whatsoever, especially where children are involved. I'm still very naive despite my age and how many years I've been a school bus driver. And the Children's protective services are not nearly staffed enough. Dogs and Cats are accounted for better than children.