Quote Originally Posted by TigerMom View Post
I'm not trying to be harsh/mean. I just trying to be practical and not buy something stolen. The easiest ways is to ask for a receipt. Or as Owlie suggested, to call the original bike shop for records if the receipt was lost. I'm just trying hard not to accidentally buy a stolen item.
This assumes the person bought the bike from a bike shop and it wasn't a gift or bought from a friend or eBay. Really, the best way is to submit the serial number to the PD and see if they have records on it. Also, not all bike shops are "modern" enough to have easily accessible records. Just because a receipt doesn't exist doesn't mean it is stolen.

Another red flag you can check for is if the person actually knows anything about that bike in particular. Granted, there are bike thieves who are experts, but often the theft is opportunistic in nature and the person doesn't really know the differences between bikes.