A new service has been launched for BikeRegister members that allows the public to message the owners of a stolen bicycle direct should their bike be seen listed for sale online.
Members can now list their own stolen bike in the BikeRegister Stolen Bikes gallery. From the gallery, members of the public can then use the ‘Message Owner’ button to contact the owner directly. To help with the search for a stolen bike, users can also share details of bikes listed as stolen to their own followers via Twitter and Facebook.
When a bike recovery happens, owners have the option to publish the news to social media and have their cycle featured in the Recoveries section of the BikeRegister website, which shows the cases of stolen bikes being recovered by police, the public and owners.
A relieved bike owner whose electric E-Plus bike was stolen from North London recently posted the following message:
“I found my bike being sold online 16 days after it was stolen. I met the seller with police back up and recovered it. Police arrested him. The bike is now safe with me.”
All UK Police Forces use BikeRegister as a national cycle database, to search for stolen and recovered bikes. BikeRegister recently announced its millionth registration to the service. Over 1,000 searches are made on the database each day by the police, retailers and the public, and it has helped return thousands of stolen bikes to their owners.
Another service offered to members allows anyone thinking of buying a bike to check its details on the site to see if there is a record of it having been stolen. This is done through its free BikeChecker feature on the website.
BikeRegister’s latest Cycle Crime Conference is due in Birmingham on July 14, with speakers from the police, government, security and cycle industry. See the website for latest cycle marking sessions.
Other plans for 2021 include expanding into Europe after BikeRegister’s launch in Ireland in 2019. The service recently launched in France after the French government made the marking and registration of all new bikes compulsory.
