[throwaway82931]

> Ideally, this article would hopefully help de-platform this seller off of Facebook, but we aren't holding our breath on that one. Facebook is basically terrible about this, and their existing mechanisms for dealing with reporting sellers like this simply don't work.

> [...]

> There is no button to click where you can explain to anybody at FB "this is a repeat seller of bikes stolen in Colorado, and here's our proof, and here's our contact info." etc. It is almost as if their system for reporting stolen goods is designed not to work.

So "storefront for stolen goods" is another way Facebook makes our lives worse.

[walrus01]

In Vancouver if your bike gets stolen there's also an almost literal storefront for stolen goods. If your bike gets stolen and is worth a few thousand dollars there's a good chance it will turn up within a few hours to a few days at a street market of stolen goods, in a specific several block zone of East Hastings.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=east+hast...

If it is really high end (like $7000+ Canadian dollar value) and the theft was targeted rather than random, more likely it might get parted out/sold as components on facebook or sent to another provice for sale by an organized group. Very occasionally Vancouver police or RCMP will find a storage unit full of $7000+ bikes that are being collected together in one place prior to transport out of province.

[hhmc]

The thing I find surprising about high-end bike crime -- it seems easy to crack down on -- if there's any desire to do so.

Acquire some bait bikes, then put some 40mm GPS trackers somewhere unusual in the bike (the chain stays?), maybe this requires a bit of surgery, but this seems like a relatively small cost. Then raid whatever warehouse they end up in.

I guess there's no real political will to do this.

[g8oz]

In the 2000s Craigslist was threatened by a coalition of 40 state attorneys general into policing their sex ads....Facebook will need something similar.

[lotsofpulp]

I would rather the government do their job and police and prosecute illegal acts.

[jessaustin]

Attorneys general DGAF about cyclists. If they did, there would be more prosecutions for vehicular assault/murder.