Originally Posted by
ilikebikes
+1
I have a question, like most of the other members I buy A LOT of flea market bikes for flippin', most all are fixer uppers but some need way less fixing, what happens if one of these bikes is stolen? I mean like you fix it up, post it, and someone contacts you telling you its their bike! what do you do then? do you ask for proof? like serial number? Police report?
Same thing that happens with any stolen property sold (think of someone buying a stolen camera from a pawn shop e.g.) :
the original owner has the burden of proof that the property is indeed his/hers (and he had better filed a police report to report the property as stolen) and the final buyer/current owner has the right of compensation/retribution from the thief (if known/caught), otherwise he/she is SOL, if proven in a court that his current property rightfully belongs to someone else (and this is a civil law case). There are no involvement/issues of the intermediate owners/buyers/sellers etc, unless they knowingly sold stolen property (the burden of proof is on the state on this one and this is a criminal law case). This is how it goes pretty much, with a few variations, mainly on the rights of retribution and how much of the first case is civil vs. criminal and why, depending on the state.
To the OP: let the bike be where it is. Call the cops/sheriff to impound it.