Sheffield bike shop owner raises awareness of telephone scam

Police are searching for £999 mountain bike stolen from a shop in Sheffield.

The black and green Giant Stance 27.5 2016 mountain bike was bought by a man who called the shop in Queens Road and paid over the phone using a debit card.

He said he would send his son to the store to collect the bike later that day.

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The following day - Friday, December 18 - the same man telephoned the shop to order and pay for a second bike, but by then staff had discovered that the first sale had been fraudulent.

They pretended to go ahead with the second sale and arranged for South Yorkshire Police to be in the store when the same man as the previous day turned up again to collect the second bike.

A Giant Store spokesman said: “Fortunately staff at the store managed to prevent a second bike being stolen and did a great job in assisting South Yorkshire Police to get the man who came in store to do the collecting arrested and taken away.

“Sadly we do still have one bike missing and classed as stolen.

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“We are frantically trying to find the whereabouts of this bike and any help in doing so would be much appreciated.

“We need as many retailers and people to know about this as possible so the same doesn’t happen to them.

“We have enhanced our internal procedures,and encourage retailers nationwide to follow suit as a preventative.

“Visit our social page on Facebook and share the stolen bike post to make the bike too hot to touch.”

The bike’s frame number is GR500948.

Anyone with information on the scam or the whereabouts of the stolen bike should call South Yorkshire Police on 101 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.