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Re:Where do stolen bikes go? by bckygldstn on Friday February 17, 2023 @01:39AM (#34831568)
From [1] it looks like

* You pay $400 for 3 years of coverage. * Must have the bike locked and file a police report. * They can choose whether or not to attempt recovery. * If they choose not to, or fail to recover the bike, they'll replace it. * Up to 3 replacements are covered in the 3 years.

So it's really just theft insurance but they can attempt to recover low-hanging fruit. In wonder what their attempted recovery rate is.

[1] https://www.vanmoof.com/en-US/peace-of-mind

Re:Where do stolen bikes go? by jodiug on Friday February 17, 2023 @02:41AM (#34831963)
Not VanMoof, but I worked in the project team doing the theft recovery platform for Gazelle. We managed to recover literally almost every bike, and the recovery rate was 140% because we often found more than just 1 bike reported stolen.

It really worked unexpectedly well, I've heard a lot of skepticism and I don't know how things are at VanMoof but if the will is there it really works

Re:Where do stolen bikes go? by bogomipz on Friday February 17, 2023 @08:59AM (#34834698)
Thanks. The bikes are beautiful which is obviously a double edge sword as it makes them that much more desirable to thieves. It looks like the bikes start at $2500 so $133 a year for insurance isn't terrible. The fact that they offer this just makes me think wow this a forward thinking company, which is also evident in their bikes.
Re:Where do stolen bikes go? by tinus_hn on Friday February 17, 2023 @01:06PM (#34838127)
I’m pretty sure they can also remotely disable the electronics.