Just to provide context (without justifying it!): in my student days it was completely socially accepted to buy junkie bikes. The justification, to the degree that we bothered having one, was that we all had bikes stolen multiple times.

Most people I know stopped buying junkie bikes once they started making a bit more money though, so it's still generally frowned upon. It's just culturally not quite the same as outright theft (again, I don't approve of this personally but even I once bought a probably-stolen bike once).