Portland Police now put stolen, unclaimed bikes up for auction at GovDeals.com

Do I hear $15?

Are you looking for a good deal on a used bike? Did you you get your bike stolen but gave up on finding it or had no way to prove it was yours? You might want to check the listings at GovDeals.com. That’s the online marketplace that has just inked a deal with the Portland Police Bureau to sell unclaimed property.

There are currently 59 items listed for sale and 11 of them are bicycles. Auctions last about a month and bids start at just $10.00.

Among such items as jewelry, art, computers, and tools, there are some pretty high-end bikes available. These bikes were recovered by the PPB but if their rightful owners could not be tracked down, they are now offered up to highest bidder.

Here are a few more of the bikes currently listed…

What makes purchasing a bike through this site even more interesting is that all process go into the City of Portland’s General Fund. That means, in a round-about way, your purchase could go toward transportation-related improvements!

And in case you were wondering, the PPB does make an honest effort to find the owners of stolen bicycles. However, you must remember to document all the key information like serial number, custom parts, and so on. Better yet, take a bunch of photos and keep them handy. For more on the PPB and bike theft, check out their recent video we highlighted this past summer.

See all of the PPB’s current listings here.

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Founder of BikePortland (in 2005). Father of three. North Portlander. Basketball lover. Car owner and driver. If you have questions or feedback about this site or my work, feel free to contact me at @jonathan_maus on Twitter, via email at maus.jonathan@gmail.com, or phone/text at 503-706-8804. Also, if you read and appreciate this site, please become a supporter.

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Scott
Scott
10 years ago

Oh Sweet. Hopefully this will allow us to hire more crap cops that can’t be bothered to do anything but suck.

Sho
Sho
10 years ago
Reply to  Scott

You could just obey the law or go about you diagreement with a particular law in a mature and civilized manor then more wouldn’t need to be hired. Just saying.

scott
scott
10 years ago
Reply to  Sho

Why do you assume I break the law? I’m no angel but I’ve never even tickled anything that could be considered close to a felony.

I am a tax paying, voting, college educated citizen and I could not be more disgusted with the police of this nation.

If you want to make the ‘few bad apples’ argument I invite you to. These are the people that should hold themselves to such a high standard that they are beyond reproach. Yet they continually find ways to get away with murder and be generally useless.

I find cops contemptible meter maids with a license to kill. Everyone that reads this should think of the times when police were actually of service to you and really dissect it. If a cop saved your life, I bet my life a citizen would have done the same.

I don’t think that cops can’t be respectable, just that they currently aren’t. So all of them need to step up and police themselves as much as they do anyone else to make up for all the ground they have lost.

AG
AG
10 years ago
Reply to  scott

Just yesterday I had to appear in court for the trial of the person who hit me and was cited for violation of the vulnerable road user law. Officer Michael Close assisted me from the time he arrived at the scene, came to the emergency room and over the course of three months by answering questions and always treating me with respect, care and kindness. In court he provided me with information and assisted in negotiating an agreement that worked for all parties. I could not be more impressed with him as a representative of the Portland Police. This reminds me that I need to write a note of appreciation to his supervisor.

Sho
Sho
10 years ago
Reply to  scott

To your original point, if you or others (even if it is a less severe crime such as running a stop sign) then the need to hire more wouldnt be present. When city budget cuts come around they are some of the first to get hit, take for instance the hiring freezes. Are you gonna risk your life everyday dealing with everything no one else wants to? Grow up and as said before take up your issues in a mature manor.

scott
scott
10 years ago
Reply to  Sho

Or I could be frightened of the world around me like you are, and need a big (usually big from a lack of fitness) armed person wearing armor that can do no wrong to protect me.

That makes sense.

BURR
BURR
10 years ago

I don’t think they are trying very hard to find the owners, esp. when they can just sell the bikes on-line and pocket the $, just like the bike thieves.

John Liu
John Liu
10 years ago

Unclaimed property shouldn’t be permanently stored at city expense. If it isn’t claimed for a long time, it should be disposed of.

BURR
BURR
10 years ago
Reply to  John Liu

Sure, but only after an honest and thorough effort to find the real owner has been made. And based on PPB’s typical antics I’m highly dubious…

scott
scott
10 years ago
Reply to  John Liu

They could ‘dispose’ of it at an approved location like Community Cycling Center or a shelter.

That they make money off ‘stolen property’ is completely unacceptable.

Sho
Sho
10 years ago
Reply to  scott

I assume the same goes for cars, property, accessories, and well everything whether it was stolen or purchased via ill means such as drug money or credit card fraud? If they want to spend the additional resources to house and investigate beyond what they currently do then they would need to hire more (in which you are opposed to as well from your earlier post). I guess we could just have one heck of a bonfire and burn it with the seized drugs that way no one makes money off it. Who is down for some s’mores?

scott
scott
10 years ago
Reply to  Sho

Hell yeah! Just think about all the money we are going to make off seized pot! It’s legal in Washington, all we have to do is figure out a fair price.

Dan
Dan
10 years ago

bad karma

JV
JV
10 years ago
Reply to  Dan

Yeah, It would be hard for me to ride a bike that I knew was stolen, even if it had been supposedly “cleaned” by the process of police seizure and auction.

On a related note : There are a bunch of Kinkade prints for sale on that auction site. It is weird to me that someone would steal Thomas Kinkade prints – his art is lame. Perhaps that is why the rightful owner did not claim them, for fear of outing their poor taste.

John Liu
John Liu
10 years ago

Oh, I don’t know, that LeMond is my size . . .

scott
scott
10 years ago

I just looked at that website and I am disgusted. You truly can not be a crook until you work for the government.

There has to be some way to not store this stuff, and not make money off of it either. How can they justify not giving it back to someone who can’t prove they own it, and then turn around and sell it as if they own it?!? This is insane.

As a completely non-religious person who has read plenty religious texts, this is the first time the phrase, “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist” has ever rang true to me.

How do they make this legal?

John Liu
jyl
10 years ago

Are you stating these are all bikes that the police have refused to return to their owner who has identified and attempted to reclaim them? How do you know that?

Sho
Sho
10 years ago
Reply to  jyl

If they are claiming what you are asking, they have no clue what they are reporting on since that is not the case.

scott
scott
10 years ago
Reply to  jyl

Not at all. Just that the police should not be allowed to make money off stolen property.

Paolo
Paolo
10 years ago

They use to sell them on eBay from a central location in Salem.
I found my bike, stolen downtown Portland, on Craigslist. The Police had found it and since it was never claimed sold it in a lot of several bikes.
The guy that bought them than resold some of them on Craigslist, he only wanted one of the five. When I told him about my bike he was so nice to deliver it to my house on the same day.
They did not ship from Salem, you had to pick them up and sometime they had lots with 18 bikes and most were Magma or similar.
I think this system might be better.

John Liu
John Liu
10 years ago

Why wasn’t the bike claimed? Not criticizing, just curious about your experience.

Interested if the police are making a reasonable effort to match up recovered bikes in their warehouse with stolen bike reports, or not.

My friend’s bike was stolen, he filed a report, a year later the police recovered the bike and contacted him, he got his bike back. But I expect some theft victims move away, change address, become not locatable, or don’t file sufficiently detailed reports.

Joe Adamski
Joe Adamski
10 years ago

Seems most of the bikes being bid on in Portland suffer from ‘bidding frenzy’. Sight unseen, paying premium prices, forgoing close, careful inspection.

Dan
Dan
10 years ago
Paolo
Paolo
10 years ago

Hi John, the bike was not claimed because I did not have a serial number at the time and could not track it, changed that since…

Editz
Editz
10 years ago

I suppose my concern with some of those carbon frame bikes is how much they’ve been knocked around before making it to auction.

Joe
Joe
10 years ago

I returned someones bike after all he had was pics of it, never recorded the SS number or showed me his biil of sell, but its all about doing the right thing some of the bikes show up a loan lenders 🙁 never thought that was possible since they are backed and list the bike before even selling it.. The PDX cop said it was very loyal of me to return it since he said by law it was mine if I wanted it nah its not my bike.. ahh well did epic FP ride on it and showed it love before letting it go back to its orig owner 🙂

Matthew
Matthew
10 years ago

Here in Vancouver the police donate unclaimed bikes to a local non-profit that in turn gives them a tune-up then donates them to kids & folks in need, often via the Vancouver Housing Authority.

Joe
Joe
10 years ago

Thats awesome Matt was thinking yes get kids on bikes 🙂

carol
carol
9 years ago

Who said they are stolen to begin with? Got an arrest record for each one? You can’t claim your bike unless you can prove Its yours..can they prove they have possession due to theft? How about some accountability..!!??