Very strange, very blatant activity recently on the Chinese classified ads in Beijing. One guy had three ads:
1) 2011 YBR 250 ... 2,200 rmb
2) 2010 BMW F800GS ... 2,800 rmb
3) 2011 BMW 1200GS ADV ... 2,900 rmb
Yes, those prices are accurate.
Story is "from another province and lost the paperwork" and "price is only for today because I urgently need money to get the train back home." yeah, yeah, yeah ... whatever.
My curiosity got the better of me & I got a friend to call about one, using an unregistered, unused number - the guy said he'd deliver the bike, but payment had to be via online transfer only - no cash, and no accompanying to the bank machine to get the cash.
I had zero interest in buying an obviously stolen bike, but wanted to see what would happen. I was curious if a BMW would appear, or a Jonway clone.
Anyways, sure enough, guy showed up in a couple of hours with the F800GS at a pre-arranged busy place, and also far enough away from my residence that I wasn't concerned.
F'n asshole.
But then I got thinking ... could this have been a police sting operation? Probably not, but the bank transfer thing was weird. Maybe they want a record of who actually paid for it? I can't figure that one out.
Also, I wonder how many "shops" pick these stolen bikes up for a few thousand and then resell them for oodles more, probably saying "oh, these are grey market bikes. I got them at the Tianjin market." Yeah, well, most of those TJ bikes are stolen, or rebuilt write-offs.
Very strange that it was so out in the open. Don't know why, given my time in China, but it really surprised me.