The only reasonable way to deal with a thief is to call the cops. You report the stolen object, and hope for the best. However, the world is far away from being a perfect place. Which means cops usually have to deal with other important issue, and your bike (in this case) is not a priority.
But what if you take control of the situation, and deal with this on your own? Forget the cops, forget the rules and steal your bike back!
This sounds crazy, but Jenni Morton-Humphreys successfully stole her bike back. Her bike was already listed for sale on Facebook, just hours after it was stolen. When she saw the bike online, she arranged to meet the guy on a street corner.
And of course, her plan was to take it for ‘a test ride’ and it worked. She pedalled off and left the thief with a face full of dust!
She informed the police about the incident, but they refused to or arrest the thief and retrieve the bike themselves.
Her bike was stolen in the middle of the day at the Watershed. Jenni informed the police about the theft, and she also uploaded a picture of the bike on Facebook.
Everything changed when someone got in touch to let her know that her bike is being advertised for sale on Facebook.
“I pretended to be interested and asked silly questions about the bike,” she told the Bristol Post.
“I said the saddle was too high, and asked if I could get on it to test it out.
“I made sure I had nothing on me, no possessions at all apart from the stuff in my hands – and they were a cigarette packet and a set of keys. I handed them to this guy as I got on the bike and said ‘here, hold my stuff’,” she told the Bristol Post.
“That meant he let go of the bike for the first time. I wobbled off a bit on the bike and then when I was a couple of yards away I just went for it.
“I didn’t look back to see if they were chasing me. My main thought was that I was worried because I didn’t really know where I was, where I was going, or the area at all, and I was worried that I might have to go back that way or end up going round in a circle.
“But it was fine because quite soon, I hit a big roundabout and was able to find a different way back to the city centre, so I wasn’t scared at that point.”
