As I hunt down parts for my baby I have noticed odd things about Ebay they have every part of every bike for sale from about the year 1999 - 2006 mirrors, fairings, subframes etc what I find odd is that there are every few frames, I find it hard to believe the parts they sell are off crashed bikes and it just so happens only the frames were damaged so they can’t sell them but every other part made it out of the crash okay
Aren’t we all caught in a catch 22 and punishing ourselves, we drop/crash our bikes and need the parts so we go to ebay, but it looks like a lot of the parts on ebay come from stolen and stripped bikes, as the UK bike scene is quite small aren’t we just buying fellow bikers stripped bikes after they post on this forum and others asking for our help to look out for their bike that was just nicked
Isn’t there away around this, if we could cut down the trading in stolen parts surely bike theft would be cut down as well
I can see your point here and I know that when I crash the bike I was happy at the time to find every part on E-bay But thinking about it I know it is strange that most parts are on e-bay for most bikes.
You would think that the insurance companies would be trying to keep an eye on things
Another thing to remember mate is that a lot of Insurance Companys sell off the parts from a write off using Ebay as a medium…
I know of at least two Insurance Companys that have their Office Staff put items on the site under their “Personal Ebay Accounts” as a money retrieval proceess or a way of paying out “in house bonuses” to good sales acheivers !!
Also worth bearing in mind that if you say buy a part for a 2004 R1 on ebay, then the seller now knows you own a 2004 model R1 & where you live & therefore keep it.
Pat Maybe you have not heard I LOVE my bike she spends her nights parked in my bedroom, oh and I have someone else ordering my stuff off ebay they don’t own a bike, but you made a good point
Mini Mo The chocs are for you but as you don’t like them ill eat them all
I think you’ll find a lot of breakers and insurance companies use it to auction off stock as Barro said. I’m not sure you can come out with such a huge sweeping generalisation like ‘most of the stuff on there is stolen’ unless you know something I don’t. Obviously some stolen stuff gets on there, in the same way as it does at any sort of public market / car boot / my local but it’s hardly a hotbed of criminal activity…
shatter When I came out with thoses comments I was just saying what I thought I never said I was 100% correct and I can come out with these huge sweeping generalisation I can do whatever I want
Heh, I wasn’t quoting you fella. Anyway, at the end of the day I’m glad we have a facility like this (for all it’s possible pros and cons) rather than having to buy manufacturers products at dealership prices - which is daylight robbery, FACT!
Tricksie Shatter! Authorities are aware that a lot of the parts for motor vehicles are stolen but there is very little they can do about it as most times the owners do not have any identifying marks on them.
Also buying motor goods on ebay does let the dodgy characters know exactly what you have at home in the garage as mentioned previously
DA I think Shatter was talking to me you feisty one you
Some people break new bikes for sale as individual parts as well, as this is more profitable than selling a whole bike. Also, racers sell a lot of stock items when converting their new bikes to race bikes. There’s many reasons why parts end up on eBay, but I don’t think it’s fair to say the majority is stolen. A small percentage for sure though.
One solution I can see, however impractical it is, is to have all items you receive, checked for a datatag marking. I mean, your bike is datatagged, right?
Dont all new Suzukis get smartwatered ? Burglary rates in some part of manchester have plummeted as householders have taken up using smartwater - checkout the first BBC link - nicking burglars on the dancefloor - you could not make that one up !
If you are concerned that the new parts you bought on ebay are nicked, take them along to the local plod for checking…
Thje quote doesn’t list your point (I can only ever seem to get the first few lines) but damm this is the point isn’t it!
Cept for the fact that not all bikers are straight up.
And not all the thieves are actually bikers, they’re jut pikeys lookin to mkae a buck, nickfrom us and sell back to us eh…
Maybe buyers should take a number from the fella they buy from, then check the serial numbers of what they’ve bought with Trojan…if they prove to be half-inched then Trojan goes round and introduces them to some Rough Biker Justice…
WEll alright…it was only an idea and bearing in mind how much stuff has been nicked from me, I think Vigilante-ism is perfectly cool…do something wrong, get your card stamped. That’s that!
But thinking about it I know it is strange that most parts are on e-bay for most bikes.
