Website idea for victims of theft

[killa]

I had an idea last night for a website and kinda got myself thinking it was a brilliant idea but wanted to run it past the guys at BCF as maybe i got a little ahead of myself.
The website basically is about stolen motorcycles in the UK. You sign up with a username, not your real name, enter your details to a secure server and the website acts a little like facebook.
The idea is that when your bike is stolen, you can put a public post up about it with details about its location when stolen and all details about the bike itself, this would include a photo if possible. By email you would only receive notifications if you had chosen that post code, county/area, whatever, when you signed up. The email would be like a brief description of what we're looking for with the photo being important.

I thought that this is a great idea but why would users come back on the site if their bike hadn't been stolen? Well i was thinking of a couple of things. A forum type area could be set up for a few topics, maybe random banter type area and a buy/sell area for bikes and kit. There would also be a discounted area for bike security, and hopefully in time the website would be sponsered by security companies for raising awareness that bikes dissapear all the time in the UK.
I would be aiming at getting a community feel like facebook without all the junk. As you can imagine im sure with enough bikers and connections on the site, sometimes we'd strike lucky and someone would pull up a post and think "Ive seen that bike!".

Those are the basics, id like some feedback before i go and speak to the guys i know who can build the website.
Cheers
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Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
Bike:- Yamaha TRX850 | Killas Biking History | Killas Gaming History | Killas autmotive history

[ScreamWorker]

i think the main problem would be is people would only sign up to say there bike has been stolen,

there wouldnt be enough users proberbly to get a result of someone finding your bike and all of the users proberbly left on the site are people who posted when they had a bike stolen but never visit anymore..

hence "Stolen bike" sections only have a small impact

[s44678]

Nice idea in principle.

Make sure you include some kind of disclaimer that you don't condone vigilante action or retribution etc. You don't want to be held responsible if some bloke gets a kicking because he owns a very similar looking bike and someone off your site has spotted him.
Unlikely I know, but we live in a litigious society and you need to cover your back.

[Acemastr]

Can see the benefit of this, but i can also see the downside, if people post up pictures and areas of the bike that was stolen, they will most likely take the pictures on their drive... which, given enough enthusiasm a thief can track down and wait for your shiny insurance payout replacement bike to appear and the cycle begins again.

Just my 2 cents.

Thieving scummy cunts
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2017 KTM 350 XC-F - 2014 Yamaha R6 - 2005 Yamaha YZ125
2016 Toyota Tacoma Limited

[pa_broon74]

I had the same idea when my KTM went. I thought in the end it wouldn't get a level of users that would make it effective. As has been said, people would only use it if their bike was stolen and would soon lose interest.

Also, I think bike theft is highly localised, in that, you'd need to organise it down lines of geography. Someone in London isn't going to be able to help some one in Stirling, or atleast not effectively. There's an element of that on here anyway with the local forums and in conjunction with the posts you see on Gumtree (again which is only of limited use, evenwith it's high usage.)

What I think would be useful, is a site not disimilar to compare the market or confused.com where a user can enter the details of their bike (as much as they can) then it'll automatically trawl round all the parts/bike sales sites (gumtree, ebay, local papers, etc etc etc.) Any hits will be highlighted and if you were of a mind, you could go and check it out. (You could also include bike forums too...)

The biggest stumbling block I came across was it being used by the thieves for intel on the status of the case (which is a bit moot since the police do the sum total of fuck all.) But mostly to do with the 'my bike got stolen, check out my new one' kind of posts.

Last thing, since you just get some pretty shit-headed people, if you put an ad in for a bike you'd had stolen and someone from the other end of the country claimed they'd seen it (for some weird shits and giggles) what would you do? Would you go all that way on the word of a complete stranger (and potential nutjob?)

I suppose its a wee bit like those mobile phone trackers you get, I tried it and it gave coordinates for a friends mobile but only to within a radius of 1.5km's. (The idea is you put one of these things on your bike.) But to be tantilized like that, I'd rather just not know.

If you did the website I mentioned above (apart from cutting me in ) it would also be useful if you just needed parts. (Albeit, not stolen ones, that could be guaranteed by some sort of approval system a la [urgh] ebay for the sellers. Which may also be a revenue stream but nothing like as perfidious as ebay's.)

Anyway, I'm rambling now...



(Edited for accuracy and crap spelling)
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Didn't catch anything.

[Flip]

If someone could find Korn he could add a stolen bike section.

[...]

I know I'm new here so you probably don't have any reason to trust me yet, but I've got some experience in web development and I have a fair amount of free time whilst at work that I could offer to this project.

Also, I have a lot of storage on my server not being used (got drawn in by all the shiny GB's ). Domain names aren't too costly anymore either.

[G]

I've had a thought like this in the back of my mind for some time.

I don't see a stolen bike site or section on it's own working personally, as most people will only visit when they have their bikes stolen.
I would suggest this concept should work in the form of 'advertising' on other sites - it would be shown at the top of forums, in motorcycle shop sites and the like. This would take a lot of manual work by someone, trying to contact elusive people such as Korn, to get a section on their site for 'free'.
The user would have the option of storing their general area, so that it could just show stolen bikes from that area. It is possible to get a good idea of what area someone lives in anyway.

Personally, I think a concept like this would work best if it was done as un-commercially as possible, without trying to step on other people's toes (ie forums, etc.)

I'm going to try and make an effort to do some coding some time soon and was considering including this in the bike based stuff - but then I've been saying this for some time .

[Flip]

A free forum would do it. These are quite good.

https://www.bestfreeforums.com/index/ It's easy to work with. I'll do it if no one else can be bothered? I'm another one that's toyed with the idea in the past.

[pa_broon74]

Mmm...

But if you introduced a more proactive site (ie, driven by the victim) where he or she searches using a smart engine (no idea that would work, but sort of similar to a 'best buy' site that trawls through retail websites for the best deals...)

Anyway, because bike theft is localised, I imagine much of the time the bike is removed entirely from the vicinity, either chopped or broken up completely and sold as a new bike or as parts respectively. The down side is the victim could spend a fair bit of time travelling around looking at bonafide second hand parts. The upside is they only would be looking at ad's specific to their model and type of bike.

Personally I tend to ignore banner ad's so I'm not sure it would work. The method above takes the onus away from those who in the end, won't have the victims bike as a priority in their lifes and puts control firmly in the hands of the person who has the the most to gain from the exercise.

Essentially, instead of waiting for people to come to you, you could potentially be going out to the thiefs themselves or those who reset your stolen property. It's also completely secure as you would be doing a passive search, none of your details go out on the net at all.

I'd tend away from the commercial also, but you could make it a free service but say (for example) charge a very small fee to run your search automatically every fortnight for 6 months. (You could also run banner ad's for insurance and bike sales just for the irony.)


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Didn't catch anything.

[G]

Professional bike thefts can only really be dealt with by looking for parts in most cases, good point. Even if being sold whole, I expect a lot of times obvious stuff is removed.
Local thefts would be helped by such a site - where local kids may be ragging the bike around, or trying to sell it at well under it's value 'off the back of a lorry' style.

I too tend to ignore banner ads, but I suspect if it had the 'buy in' of the website owner and was maybe in a different location to normal ads, I'd keep an eye on it.

[pa_broon74]

I always look at the stolen bike messages in Gumtree, just in case. Having had a bike stolen, I still have an interest in the trade in the Edinburgh area.

What is frustrating is, it's pretty common knowledge who does the majority of the thefts in the area, I put an ad in gumtree and got serveral responses that I would've said were pretty strong, (so much so I looked into some myself.)

As you say, it's kids, well, big kids in this case. Usual gang activity, one guy who responded had a Honda XR stolen, he found out who it was via his own ad in gumtree. The thieves replied to (presumably) goad him, he googled the email address and was taken to (I shit you not) their bebo profile which contained photo's (albeit, not of his bike) but of other confirmed-stolen bikes. He had the reg number of the vehicle they used to steal his bike, he even knew who told them where the bike would be during the day.

The police? Not interested. I gave up on mine at that point and took the inusrance money.


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Didn't catch anything.

[Jayy]

If there's some good enough ideas, I could develop something to suit and get it up and running.

[DEN MONKEY]

Like the idea in concept.

Are you suggesting people list their bikes prior to being stolen or only after the event?

I figure before would be good as it obviously makes it easier to take a pic

If you're going to have all these pics no reason you couldn't have a photo section for browsing as well ( with obvious precautions). This might help bring people back to the site.

Allow them to browse their area for stolen bike or as said receive emails. Eventually maybe even sms could be handy but obviously a cost comes with that.

If the think takes off and get well enough known maybe stickers could be made up stating the bike is listed on the site.
Bikers looking out for bikers can only be a good thing and we're all heard good results when it goes well.


I think it's a good idea and with some brainstorming could become something good.
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meh

[G]

[s44678]

Just a thought re. numbers of people you're likely to get browsing this site / forum whatever it is.

There will be lots of people who browse even though they haven't had a bike nicked, just to help out their fellow bikers. But you could potentially increase visitors by having the option to post a small 'reward' for information. Something like £20 for information leading to the recovery of the bike or the person getting nicked.

Might end up being a headache administering it (legally?) but I'm sure you'd get more people having quick check of the site on the off-chance they'd pick up £20-30 if they helped someone out.

[Flip]

[Jayy]

[Devils Advocate]

Nice idea in principle but destined to fail.

I think youd have more success (and possibly even turn a profit) if you could do something similar but offer a low cost bike tracking service as part of the package/subscription.Get a few biking friends in as partners at various locations around the country and build on it from there.
Dont know the costs involved coz it`s only a sudden thought but it`d be a winner if you ironed out the teething problems.

Just an idea...probably a daft one but most new ideas usually are.
I`d be the 1st to sign up if you figured it out

[pa_broon74]

There already are bike tracking systems in place (alphadot, smartwater, even my rubbish TDM is security tagged.)

But if a bike is taken to rag off road or exported these don't really offer any protection as the police won't or can't take the time to investigate.

If it's GPS or SMS phone tracking then again, these systems are already in place but are expensive and limited. (I still can't figure out how a GPS security tracker would work if the bike was just kept indoors.) I think the current system is called stinger, you have those police cars with the four antannae on the roof for tracking? V. expensive indeed.

I think the idea was for a low tech word of mouth tool to use after the fact as opposed to actual security fitted as a deterrent. I don't think it would fail as such, I think it would be a good hobby or P/T concern but perhaps not a full time busines concern. People are fickle and lazy, saying something is a great idea is a good bit removed from using it religiously once it's there.


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Didn't catch anything.

[Kwaks]

Only way I can see it working is for the members to have some sort of sign up incentive, like a discount via insurers etc. Might be worthwhile testing the waters on some of the insurance companies.
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Fallen Angel "Nae sniffing my seat now!!!!! "
www.cliqueycuntsmcc.co.uk
I AM NOT A FAST RIDER!!!!!!!!!

[Devils Advocate]

[G]

I have hand coded from scratch and modified existing systems (in this case making a forum a targetted CMS) - generally modifying an existing system is easier, definitely in the short term. However, if not done carefully, you can get into trouble with updates to the base system, as well as trying to work around inflexibilities.

However, done properly, those issues would be still a way away .
I'm a QA manager, so well aware of the need for testing!

I thought the GPS systems offered something like that. However, I also know that if you search for GPS/phone blocking systems there's a decent range available. Don't know how well they really work, but thought a bike would be particularly susceptible.

[Devils Advocate]

[killa]

Thanks for the input guys.
I have the ideas even a layout in my mind but yes i think the main thing is how lazy people can be.
The emails you'd receive when not on the site would contain big bold messages about bikes stolen in your area, with picures so you can have a quick look see.
There would be a shop with security items, the idea would be to have these at good discounted prices and word would get around quickly about bargains.
The community 'forum' type part would need more thought.
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Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
Bike:- Yamaha TRX850 | Killas Biking History | Killas Gaming History | Killas autmotive history