A London bike shop employee took care to check the frame number of a moss green Tokyobike bought in for service by a customer, only to find it was registered as stolen...

The customer, who had bought the bike from Facebook Marketplace for £500 was shocked to find out that the bike’s real owner was, in fact, Jean-Pierre Masclet from east London. Jean-Pierre had only had his brand-new bike for 2 days before it was stolen from a bike park at the Barbican.

Independent cycle retailer Tokyobike in Shoredith was able to establish that the bike was listed as stolen by using BikeRegister’s BikeChecker facility.

BikeChecker can be used by any retailer to check the provenance of a bike they are selling or thinking of buying; or by members of the public purchasing a second-hand bike from an online auction site. You just need to enter the frame number or unique BikeRegister ID into the search facility, which is available on the BikeRegister website.

As the theft happened during lockdown, Jean-Pierre needed to have a bike to cycle to work, so he quickly bought a replacement bike, with Tokyobike rushing the order through for him. He then offered the recovered bike back to the retailer to sell second-hand, which they accepted.

There was also some good news for the customer who had originally bought the stolen bike in. Although he lost the money he paid for the bike, Tokyobike kindly gave him a store credit note to purchase a new bike as he had been so helpful supplying details and a description of the thief to the police.

For further information and images contact: Jodie Fisher, Marketing Executive for Selectamark.

Phone: +44 (0)1689 487829
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @bikeregister