Wherein I rant about the very mean thing Play It Again Sports of S__ B____, California is doing to my daughter.
In brief, a Play It Again Sports store bought a stolen bicycle that is verifiably my daughter's property, and -- although they have surrendered the bike to the police department -- they have slapped a lien on it because they believe they are the victims of this minor crime.
My daughter's bike sits at the cop house till who knows when. The police say she could have it back except for the lien.
The lien is for $75.00.
My college freshman is without wheels on a big campus.
Play It Again Sports, you jackasses -- release the lien on my kid's bicycle!
Details follow below the pictogram of my burning rage, as hot as ten thousand suns.
This bicycle of my daughter's has been nothing but agita for some time. It's been a nice ride, comfortable, reliable; but it's also kind of weird. It's a Giant hybrid with a unique sort of cantilevered frame. It's eye-catching. You've probably never seen one, because Giant only made this model in 2003. I guess it didn't catch on. But the kid's dad bought one -- in Monroe, Michigan. He handed it over to her a few years ago. She never rode it much, but she needed wheels to take to school with her.
"Taking it to school" was a 1000-mile drive for us. Easy, right? Get a bike rack for my SUV. Previously, I had just thrown the bike in the back of the car, but now we would be transporting a metric shitload of gear to her home-from-home in the dorm. The bike had to be carried externally, or shipped (about $200).
Not just any old bike rack can be fitted to an SUV.
I could get a hitch-mounted rack (the best!), but first I'd have to have a hitch installed. Total cost, north of $500.
I could get a roof rack. Not the most convenient, and north of $350 or so, all components considered.
Then I chanced upon one -- and only one -- type of rack that could be fitted on the tailgate, and belayed above and below without damage to the spoiler. I ordered one, at about $200. (Let me point out that the bike is only worth about $150-200 now. But I figured I'd get multiple uses out of the rack with this and other bicycles.)
We could have bought a used cruiser in her college town for under $100 probably, but hey -- she wanted her bike, and we were driving anyway.
I spent an entire evening in the dark and rain installing the rack (after first loading the car). Very early on the morning of departure, we rolled the bike out to hoist it up onto the rack.
It. Did. Not. Fit.
The weird and eye-catching frame was geometrically incompatible with the rack. We tilted and twisted and pushed and pulled, and finally succeeded in wedging the frame (now slightly scratched) onto the rack. And then I strapped the bike to the rack like we were about to drive the old Alcan Highway.
After some stops and adventures along the way, we made it to campus with the bike not much the worse for wear. It wasn't easy to dislodge it from the rack, and we put a few more scratches on it. By now, it's definitely a campus beater. The thing is, it still LOOKS completely cool ... and ... desirable.
I already knew it was school policy that bikes had to be registered with the campus police department. There was a big party tent set up on move-in weekend for this exact purpose. Take your bike, stand in line for ten minutes, wah-lah -- registered. And though I urged (ordered) my kid to do this, the emotion of the day got the better of us. I didn't really want to have our special day devolve into a battle of wills. She told me she'd register the bike the next day. Only the next day, there was no party tent.
I reminded her over the next several weeks to register the bike. I sent her a map to the campus PD. I sent her a link to the bike policy page. I explained to her that registration might help recover the bike if it were ever stolen.
"Mom. Lots of kids don't register their bikes. Everyone says it doesn't really matter."
I finally gave up. I really don't enjoy nagging.
An entire quarter passes. The holiday break comes and goes. Last week is the first week of the new quarter; busy, stressful for the kid. We text a lot, but don't talk every day. Friday night, though, she calls me kind of breathless and excited.
"Mom! I've got something to tell you. First you're going to be mad at me, and then you're going to be really proud!"
I sit down and listen.
On Thursday morning, the bike was missing from the bike rack. There was an adjacent bike with its lock cut off but otherwise undisturbed. Because of course not. There was a more desirable bike right next to it, secured with nothing but a cable lock. SNIP.
So I was mad, because the bike was still unregistered. However, all those thousands of hours of playing Nancy Drew games start to pay off, as my girl detective sets about making me proud.
First, she calls her dad, and feeds him some cockamamie story about needing the original sales receipt in order to add the bike to my insurance policy. Or something. Anyway, she didn't want him to find out the bike was stolen (he has quite the temper), but she was relying on his anal retentive record-keeping practices.
"Do I have the receipt? Yes, I do. I just saw it yesterday." (WTF? It's an 11-year old receipt!)
Now she has photographic evidence of the receipt and the serial number of the bike on her phone. So she calls the po-po to report the theft. The police, naturally, ask first if the bike is registered; if not, they are not even going to bother to respond. They are hella impressed by the photo of the original receipt -- "We have never seen such fine recordkeeping!" -- and take a full report. They'll see what they can do, but it's not likely they'll be able to find the bike. Also, the whole force is gonna be out of town for a few days to attend a funeral; emergencies (only) will be covered by a neighboring force.
Nancy Drew stews about her bike all day through classes. By early evening, she is hellbent on finding it. She's convinced it's probably close-by, within riding or walking distance, somewhere in the jungle of off-campus student housing. So ALONE she goes on a hunt, in the dark, off-campus, till late in the evening. (This was the part that really upset me!) She gets back to her dorm safe, but exhausted, not having found it.
She remembers a friend of ours whose collector car was stolen and immediately listed for sale on Craigslist (and recovered), so she monitors Craigslist and also compiles a list of bike and sporting goods stores in the area.
The next day, between classes, she starts phoning around. Most of the stores tell her that they do not buy second-hand bicycles locally, because they are almost always stolen. The last shop owner suggests she call Play It Again Sports, because he thinks they do buy walk-in used bikes. (Draw your own conclusions.)
So Nancy Drew calls Play It Again, and talks to a helpful sales clerk who says yes, they do happen to have a desirable bike like that that just came in. And the clerk agrees to hold it for her.
Now my kid gets to use her Christmas present from me: her Zipcar membership! She takes a couple of friends with her in a Prius with a name, and drives to Play It Again Sports. The bike is hanging from the ceiling, and they pull it down for her. Very quickly, the salesclerk groks what the situation is, and calls a manager over. The manager checks out the photo evidence of ownership, and says the kid can BUY HER OWN BIKE FOR $75 -- which is what they paid for it. (The sales tag, of course, is marked up to $250.)
My kid tells them to get stuffed. She's not paying $75 for her own stolen property, and the store had to KNOW it was a stolen bike -- because who in S__ B____, California, is riding around on a weird old bike with a sticker on the seatpost that says "JACK'S BICYCLES, MONROE MI"?
At this point in her story, I think: Would they have bought a bike with a campus REGISTRATION TAG on it without proof of registered ownership? I decide to let this thought go unexpressed.
The store manager refuses to release the bike, so my kid says, "Fine, I'm sure you'll be hearing from the police. Who are at a funeral. Till, like, Tuesday." and she leaves.
Today, while she was in class, the police went to the store and impounded the bike. They will actually try to find the person who sold it to Play It Again Sports, but the odds are long. Interestingly, they don't actually have to hold it as evidence in the meantime. They could release the bicycle back to my daughter, the rightful owner. The wronged party. The actual victim in this petty crime.
The cops could release the bike to her, but for one thing: Play It Again Sports slapped a $75 lien on it.
Even the cops were flabbergasted. They checked (whatever that means), and it turns out that this is a legally filed lien. My kid would have to pay the $75 to have the lien released and get her bicycle back. And she refuses to do that.
Tomorrow she's going to contact the campus legal assistance office for advice. I'm going to suggest she start a social media complaint campaign. In fact, I'm starting it for her -- right here at Daily Kos.
Kossacks, are you as outraged as I am?
PLAY IT AGAIN SPORTS, YOU SUCK!
GIVE MY LITTLE GIRL'S BICYCLE BACK TO HER!
11:49 AM PT: Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions below. We will be following up on them. Her first stop will be the campus legal assistance office, and then she's going to the campus newspaper. I will definitely contact the corporate offices on her behalf.
My daughter just got off the phone with the detective handling this case. He and his colleagues are gobsmacked by this situation (of course, they don't usually recover the bike at all). He checked with the DA, who did some research and determined that -- as a pawn shop -- Play It Again is within its rights to put a lien on the bike. My daughter has 60 days to pay off the lien; if she doesn't, ownership reverts to Play It Again.
It's an old principle in the law that no owner, however innocent, has a greater property right than the original, true owner (and victim of theft).
Unless you run a pawn shop in California, apparently.
More to follow.
Fri Jan 16, 2015 at 8:08 PM PT: I emailed Winmark as suggested below. Within a few hours I had a response from the store owner. Very nice, except he offers no relief -- just explains his position that he, too, is a VICTIM OF A CRIME AND WANTS JUSTICE. I'll speak to him after the holiday weekend and see if he's inclined to release the lien, whilst we wait for justice to happen.