[HN Gopher] VanMoof's team of 'bike hunters' appears to succeed ...
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VanMoof's team of 'bike hunters' appears to succeed where the city
doesn't
Author : kaycebasques
Score : 82 points
Date : 2022-07-19 15:06 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sfstandard.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (sfstandard.com)
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| A pattern you see with these bikes is that people mostly don't
| bother to mess with them after they learn about the counter
| measures. Basically, there are several levels of protection. 1)
| if it is locked, it will make some noise when people mess with
| it. 2) When they don't stop, it will make a lot of noise. And it
| escalates quickly to ear piercing levels. There is no way you can
| pick this up and just walk way with it unnoticed unless you can
| unlock the bike or dismantle it without setting off the alarm. A
| light touch will do that. 3) if by any chance you do succeed in
| stealing it while not drawing the attention of the entire
| neighborhood, it has a tracker. 4) if you manage to disable all
| of that, you basically have a product that is relatively hard to
| sell because world + dog knows they might have to hand it over in
| the likely case that they are caught by the bike hunters. Because
| so few thefts escalate to that, VanMoof can afford to spare no
| expenses on trying to track thieves down and keeping victims
| pacified with a replacement bike. It's a simple insurance that
| works and actually lowers their risk.
|
| It's not impossible to steal one of course but it adds up to a
| lot of trouble and risk for not a lot of payoff. Most bike
| thieves would prioritize easier, less risky, and more valuable
| targets.
|
| I use Swapfiets, which is a Dutch bike leasing startup. I just
| pay a monthly fee and don't worry about theft, repairs, etc.
| There are many thousands of them across Berlin; hundreds of
| thousands across many European cities. Nobody ever messes with
| these bikes. They are so recognizable that there's no point in
| stealing one. No bike hunters required for this. It has no
| tracker or alarm. I've had one for two years in Berlin and nobody
| ever messes with it. And it's a decent bike too. I park it
| wherever I want including some places where I would never park
| any bike I own like the train station, rough neighborhoods, etc.
| It's great. I can go anywhere I like in the city, leave the bike
| on the street for a few hours and it will still be there when I
| come back. I do this every day. They have electrical ones too.
| They are very popular with delivery services.
| PcChip wrote:
| >They are so recognizable that there's no point in stealing one
|
| What does this mean? why don't they get stolen?
| tomklein wrote:
| Swapfiets builds their own bikes and does not - never ever -
| sell them. If one gets stolen, it can't be resold without one
| noticing it's stolen, as these are not in circulation in the
| first place and still owned by the company that built them
| lom wrote:
| Video of "the neighborhood being alerted" and... doing nothing
| against a bike thief. https://youtu.be/UGttmR2DTY8
| dieselgate wrote:
| Interesting article for me, from a couple angles. I had a bike
| stolen about a week ago and dang, it sucks. Cool there is a
| customer facing tool to help with retrieval! It's always weird
| when thinking about "encountering" the person selling a stolen
| bike, kind of scary to think of potential outcomes. Does this
| service provide any "tools" for that? [edit: article says asking
| for it back is usually sufficient but I'm still skeptical] On a
| separate note I went to middle/high school with Ryan Eastman -
| seem to remember he kind of disappeared from school because of
| pursuing professional cycling. Remember looking up his race times
| at one point and have always been kind of curious what became of
| him. Sorry to hear about his crash from this article(!) but also
| very glad he found something cycling related to work in. Good
| luck to all involved.
|
| Edit: because this is HN I was initially thinking VanMoof also
| had a service one could attach to any bike. Seems it's
| proprietary offering for their bikes. Original text left unedited
| above
| notagoodidea wrote:
| > article says asking for it back is usually sufficient but I'm
| still skeptical
|
| Personnal and friends experience tends to agree with the
| article advice. The intensity of the ask vary from "It's my
| bike" to "It's my bike and we don't want to call the cops about
| it, right?". Most of the time, they may try to sell it back to
| you though.
| clairity wrote:
| a few weeks ago, i came out of a neighborhood cafe to find my
| bike gone. on a hunch, i walked over to a nearby homeless
| encampment and saw my bike sitting there. i walked up to it,
| grabbed it, said "that's my bike", cursed the dudes out, and
| rode off. it felt a little crazy at the time, but it worked.
| the thief(s) didn't seem too fazed by it.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| If only disabling the GPS, also disabled the bike. Make it too
| much trouble to steal.
| googlryas wrote:
| What happens if you take it into a parking garage with no
| service? Do you need to carry the bike out now?
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Do they disable it by removing the antennae? Then sure that
| doesnt work so well.
|
| If by destroying it, perhaps the bottom bracket could get a
| pin released to freeze it when the circuit quits responding.
| randyrand wrote:
| I think they mean something like this:
|
| https://i.pinimg.com/564x/0b/fc/d6/0bfcd63b9e49a7da0ba1f9333.
| ..
|
| The lock itself / the GPS cartridge itself is structurally
| integral to the bike.
| donclark wrote:
| I thought these guys did a pretty good job of deterring bike
| thieves in the area temporarily...
|
| Rope bike prank (2018)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-OwjoP96Rc
| mc32 wrote:
| Those looks like set-ups? Are they actual thieves trying to
| steal bikes? Wouldn't a thief notice the tether? I can see
| trying to pretend you're just getting on YOUR bike and taking
| off...
|
| Anyway, there is a difference in an insured bike recovery
| system that has the right incentives and SFPD which does not
| have the benefit of GPS tracking and profit incentive. Of
| course their success rate will be dire in comparison.
| evan_ wrote:
| > Those looks like set-ups?
|
| it's certainly very lucky that the thief always went directly
| towards the guy hiding behind a tree with a pie. Helpful also
| that they stayed in the sightline of the camera, even though
| several of them did have to look directly at it to be sure.
| mc32 wrote:
| One other thing that would point to those being staged is
| the injury liability they could incur (the endos) --of
| course they would have to know who tethered the bikes like
| that. But the person running after the "thief" would be a
| good candidate.
| more_corn wrote:
| Sf police don't give a shit about stolen bikes. I saw a homeless
| guy pick up a bike (wheel locked to frame) prop it on a shopping
| cart and run away. Called the cops. They didn't give a shit,
| belittled me and refused to come. You'll note in the article that
| it's impossible to get the police to show up even when there's
| known stolen property inside and clear gps evidence.
|
| sfpd doesn't do anything about anything. Check out that great
| video of the cops rolling up on a burglary in progress. Perp
| comes out the door, gets in car and drives off. Cops do nothing.
|
| When vigilantism is the only justice available you're living in a
| failed state.
| corrral wrote:
| Not just SF, and not just bikes. My experience is that cops
| don't give a shit about _any_ theft unless it happens right in
| front of them. No amount of evidence you can hand them will
| convince them to spend so much as a minute investigating.
| uoaei wrote:
| Remember this when people say Chesa Boudin was the cause of the
| spike in crime.
|
| In reality, police departments went on effective strike,
| enforcing only the policies they wanted to, and leaving many
| cases open so as to provide statistics for bad faith actors to
| smear the reputation of the DA who has no actual control over
| the police.
|
| This disturbed local populations, but those people were quick
| to blame "criminals" because there seems to be an infinite
| fount of good faith assumptions reserved for police, even in
| the face of so much evidence of how bad they are at their jobs
| (willingly or otherwise).
| vkou wrote:
| > When vigilantism is the only justice available you're living
| in a failed state.
|
| What you're observing isn't a 'failed state'. The apparatus of
| the state is working quite fine, and the state is completely
| capable of enforcing its will on its subjects. [1]
|
| What you're observing is the police doing their job[2] (Which
| is protecting the state), and not the job you want them to do
| (protecting you and yours.)
|
| [1] The definition of a failed state is one that is incapable
| of enforcing its will on its subjects. Which is what you see
| in, say, 2021 Afghanistan, where the central government is only
| theoretically in charge, with Taliban rebels _actually_ being
| able to enforce their will on the country. There 's a
| categorical difference between 'can't' and 'can't be arsed to'
| - and you're observing the latter.
|
| [2] Why doing that job entitles them to half of your municipal
| taxes is an exercise for the reader.
| edm0nd wrote:
| The side of effect of having too overly progressive policies in
| place for theft and petty crime. SF citizens own fault really.
| anewpersonality wrote:
| SF police don't care period. It's a corrupt organization that
| simply exists to steal funds from the state. It needs to be
| burnt to the ground and re-created.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/t2u3fq/guy_in...
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| It sounds like a very similar situation to Seattle. While
| living there, it was remarkable to me how useless and/or
| hostile the police felt compared to the police in other
| cities. I've been threatened multiple times while going home
| late at night and it was never the police that actually
| helped. I'm convinced we really need to get better at helping
| each other as a community rather than relying primarily on
| the police.
| el_benhameen wrote:
| I think it extends well beyond SF. There's a guy on my local
| Nexdoor whose car was stolen in Oakland; after waiting for
| more than 6 hours to file a report, he was told by an officer
| that they prefer to avoid reports as they have to do
| paperwork each time one is filed.
|
| (As a counter anecdote, I'm further out in the East Bay, and
| when I caught a guy taking my bike from my garage, the cops
| stayed on the phone with me as I chased him down and actually
| arrested the guy when they caught up with us. I was
| surprised.)
| bluGill wrote:
| Make sure you tell your city representative. City level
| elections are generally easy to change if you put in effort
| to knock on doors.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| You are correct. As a rule SF police do not live in San
| Francisco. So it's just a cash cow to them.
| exabrial wrote:
| > vigilantism
|
| Cops and the city council WILL retaliate against you though for
| embarrassing them.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Depending on the type of vigilantism, that could be the most
| reasonable move.
| chaostheory wrote:
| This alongside with Citizen's gig security signals the decline of
| local government police forces. I would argue that the prevalence
| of Ring is signaling the same thing.
| uoaei wrote:
| The prevalence of Amazon Ring is in large part because local
| police subsidize them and give them for "free" to underinformed
| citizens, and then access their private data without their
| consent pretty much at will.
| michaelt wrote:
| Was there a glorious past when bike thefts were taken
| seriously?
|
| Or is there also an element of a widening gap between rich and
| poor here, where the rich will be further insulated from the
| impact of failing public services?
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| this line rankled me: "baffled city leaders for years"
|
| as if city leaders have ever considered cyclists anything
| more than an annoyance
| bsder wrote:
| The police are there to protect the rich and oppress the
| plebians. Any crime that the police prevent or resolve for the
| general public is only an aftereffect of protecting the
| privileged.
|
| It has _always_ been thus throughout history.
|
| This is why the vast majority of police need to be disarmed.
| praxulus wrote:
| I'm rich, the police still didn't do anything when someone
| broke into my car.
| uoaei wrote:
| "Rich" is not merely "high income" nor "upper class".
|
| You're not in the club if you have enough free time to
| spend commenting on HN.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| There are commenters here who are _definitely_ rich.
| dahinds wrote:
| Not rich enough, evidently.
| pnathan wrote:
| That's my take as well. Police have carved a lack of
| accountability for themselves, and so the social system is
| starting to route around them.
| leke wrote:
| As bikes go electric, it would be good to have them all required
| to have transponders. We just have to make it a requirement to
| have them on all the time, then we won't be plagued with this
| bike theft.
| thinkling wrote:
| As bikes go electric, you can make it so the motor blocks when
| your phone is not in range.
| lief79 wrote:
| So you can end up with a dead phone and a nonfunctional bike?
| praxulus wrote:
| If you have a charged ebike, it ought to be easy to charge
| your phone.
|
| There are still other problems with that approach. VanMoof
| currently lets you _unlock_ your phone with your bike,
| rather than requiring a constant connection, which seems
| like the right balance.
| amelius wrote:
| Sounds borderline illegal. What if the person riding the bike
| bought it secondhand?
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| There's two possibilities to your question: That the person
| riding it bought it secondhand from someone who stole it, and
| that the person buying it bought it from the (first) owner, who
| then calls in Vanmoof to steal the bike back for them.
|
| 1) Receiving stolen property is illegal, and the bike is still
| property of the original owner and they can take it back
| anytime. The person riding it is culpable to the extent that
| they knew it was a shady deal, which can range from "Not at
| all, but stuck holding the bag of having to sue the thief for
| fraud for selling them a stolen bike" to "Charged in
| conspiracy". There's a big range there, but as it's incredibly
| hard to prove if they were found riding it around, they
| probably just lose the bike. If they are found with it in a
| chop shop... that's a different story.
|
| 2) Selling someone something with the intent to steal it back
| is fraud. If you have a receipt from the seller, you can tell
| VanMoof to fuck off, or surrender the bike to them and sue in
| small claims court. VanMoof doesn't want to deal with that and
| will roll over fairly quickly. The (fraudulent) first owner
| will be very easy to find because they have a contract with
| VanMoof. They can probably pull this scam once without
| repercussions, but VanMoof will, presumably, quickly turn over
| evidence to your police report of the scam to avoid ruining
| their reputation.
| bink wrote:
| They aren't forcing anyone to surrender the bike. They're just
| asking them if it's stolen and if they'll give it back. In any
| case, buying stolen property doesn't entitle you to the
| property.
| wl wrote:
| If its stolen property, the original owner still has superior
| title to the person who bought it after it was stolen. Might
| need to be hashed out in court if the second-hand buyer won't
| relinquish it, but it's not illegal to ask.
| londgine wrote:
| https://www.vanmoof.com/shop/en_nl/bikehunters their website says
| they even go flying around the world to places like war torn
| Ukraine and Casablanca gangs to retrieve the bike. That sounds
| very dangerous.
| farnsworth wrote:
| After having two bikes stolen at once, I bought Tile trackers for
| a bunch of my possessions and hid one on my new bike. The
| tracking in Seattle is good in places with a lot of people
| around, pretty coarse in other areas, but I'm hoping that it will
| at least give me a direction to head in if this bike is ever
| stolen. I'm wondering whether anyone has a recommendation for a
| bike GPS tracker though. The ones I see generally look too
| obvious, have expensive subscriptions, need charging every day,
| etc.
| thinkling wrote:
| There are covers for the Apple AirTags that look like regular
| seatpost-mounted reflectors. I haven't looked to see if they
| exist for other trackers, but that's the route I would go.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| Don't the anti-stalking features of AirTags make them poorly
| suited to anti-theft uses? If I were a professional bike
| thief I'd have an iphone just to get notified when I've
| stolen a bike with an airtag on it
| ray__ wrote:
| If the AirTag is well hidden enough, I wonder how many bike
| thiefs would just cut their losses and leave the bike
| behind at this point.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| The AirTag will beep if it's been separated from its
| owner for long enough, so presumably the thief would be
| able to find it relatively quickly once that happens.
| foxyv wrote:
| I bought two Boomerang bike trackers a while back as well as
| upgraded to their 4G version the "V2". Unfortunately they
| aren't great at stuff like arming, disarming, etc... You can
| arm/disarm using bluetooth using Bluefruit, but the app can
| only do so through the 4G network it attaches to which can be
| iffy sometimes. The battery is okay, but not amazing, I have to
| charge it pretty often.
|
| The things are pretty obvious and are intentionally so. They
| have an audible alarm that goes off if they sense movement and
| send a notification to your phone if they can connect to 4G
| (Iffy). I guess some Canadian city tried to run a bait bike
| program using them but no one would touch the bikes with an
| alarm. Personally I prefer to deter than to have to hunt down
| the thieves and retrieve.
|
| By far the best way to prevent theft is to register your
| bicycle and encourage others to do so as well. I use Project
| 529: https://project529.com/garage
|
| Police tend to not enforce bicycle theft, mostly because
| proving ownership is not usually possible due to lack of VIN
| numbers and registration. Having proof of ownership like
| photos, Project 529 stickers, and such is a great way to help
| police stop bike theft.
| dorfsmay wrote:
| How does this compare to https://bikeindex.org/ ?
| rektide wrote:
| Wow, I had no idea; this is wild.
|
| > _Appears to Succeed Where the City Doesn't_
|
| Pretty aggressive framing given that bikes generally havent had
| gps trackers builtin before. Police wouldnt have any experience
| trying to get such things back, yet, given the new-ness, but
| these people have both time & some experience.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| I don't think the GPS tracking is the issue.
|
| It's not uncommon to hear about people losing something like a
| smartphone to a thief, know where it is due to GPS tracking,
| and police just won't do anything with that information.
| praxulus wrote:
| Well, it's not the _only_ issue. Without GPS tracking or bike
| registries bike theft is legitimately a very hard problem for
| police to deal with, so they 're used to relying entirely on
| getting cyclists to use better locks.
|
| The situation has changed though, and they certainly deserve
| criticism for failing to change their attitude.
| SilasX wrote:
| Police definitely have done bike stings in SF, and so
| definitely have the know-how to track at least _some_ bike
| thieves this way. Example from googling:
|
| https://www.kron4.com/news/video-san-francisco-police-set-up...
| more_corn wrote:
| Have you actually spent any time in SF? Bike chop shops every
| fifth block. Rampant blatant theft. It's an apocalyptic hell
| scape.
| gamegoblin wrote:
| I think the point parent commenter was making is that the
| police _do_ have the knowledge and ability to tackle bike
| theft. Your comment implies that they are choosing (or
| being instructed) not to, which is a different thing.
|
| That said, my experience echos yours -- I'm a bike commuter
| in Seattle and ride by 3 open-air bike chop shops on my way
| to the office, all literally adjacent to bike paths. Pretty
| uncomfortable.
| decafninja wrote:
| I would not keep bike I cared about outside in any major
| city. Doesn't matter if it's locked.
| chrisin2d wrote:
| I have a VanMoof bike with both a GPS and a Find My tracker.
|
| The first time it got stolen in Berkeley, I recovered it. It
| hadn't gone far, so the police were able to locate it and the
| thief.
|
| The second time it got stolen, I couldn't recover it. But I had
| already bought the Peace of Mind coverage plan, so VanMoof
| replaced it -- and lent me a bike of the same model in the 2
| weeks it took to deliver.
| glhaynes wrote:
| Do you know how they were able to steal it without the alarm
| going off?
| wferrell wrote:
| Are you able to keep using the Peace of Mind coverage plan once
| replaced? Or did you have to buy a 2nd plan? Asking out of
| genuine interest. It seems to be some of the value of the plan
| is that you get to worry less about the stress/fear of your
| bike being stolen -- but if you are off the plan once it has
| been stolen once...seems like a loss of value.
| awinter-py wrote:
| > The two-person team did a quick U-turn and pulled aside the
| person to find that the bike's GPS system was disabled,
| indicating that it had been stolen
|
| the google bus did a quick U turn and did an illegal terry stop
| to find that the pixel 6's third party cookies had been disabled,
| indicated that it had been stolen
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