How to check if a used bike is stolen (Canada and US)

Why “no match” isn’t a clean bill of health

Registries only know about bikes someone reported and registered. In Bike Index’s 2023 survey of theft victims, only 37% had reported the theft to police at all. Many of the rest never registered a serial anywhere.

Even good reports are thin. In September 2026, a Calgary prototype compared all 1,960 Calgary-area Kijiji bike listings posted since mid-August against the 100 most recent stolen reports nearby. It flagged 30 possible matches; every one turned out to be a different bike. Of the 100 reports, 35 had no usable serial and only 11 described anything distinctive.

So run the searches, and also read the listing and the seller. Both halves matter.

Where to find the serial number

Flip the bike over or look under it. On most bikes the serial is stamped into the underside of the bottom bracket shell, where the cranks pass through the frame. If it isn’t there, look at:

• the head tube (the front of the frame, behind the fork),
• the seat tube, near the bottom,
• the rear dropouts, where the back wheel attaches.

A serial is usually a mix of letters and numbers stamped into the metal, sometimes printed on a sticker under the clear coat. Don’t confuse it with a model or part number cast into the frame. Take a clear photo of it in good light.

Step by step: the three searches

Do this from the listing if the serial is shown, or from your phone at the meetup.

1. Bike Index. Go to bikeindex.org and search the serial with the stolen filter on. Then try the “stolen near” search: the listing’s city with the brand and model. That second search catches reports where the owner never had the serial but described the bike.
2. CPIC (Canada). Open the Canadian Police Information Centre’s public bicycle search, accept the terms and enter the serial using letters and numbers only. If you get a positive result, CPIC asks you to contact your local police to confirm it.
3. 529 Garage. If you’re in Vancouver, Montreal or another partner city, search there as well. The City of Vancouver and the SPVM both point residents to it.

In the US, use Bike Index and any registry your city’s police run. Whatever the country, a serial that matches a stolen report ends the deal.

Warning signs in the listing

These don’t prove anything on their own. Two or three together are enough to walk away.

Photos and price are context, not proof. Plenty of honest people photograph a bike in a hallway. It’s the combination that counts.

Questions to ask the seller

Honest owners answer these easily and often volunteer more than you asked.

• Where and when did you buy it? Do you still have the receipt?
• Is it registered anywhere, like Bike Index or 529 Garage?
• What’s the serial number?
• Has it had any work done? Which shop?
• Why are you selling it?
• What size is it, and how tall are you?

A seller who gets annoyed, changes the story or stops replying has answered the real question. Canadian Cycling Magazine’s advice for used-bike buyers is the same: be wary of a seller who doesn’t have answers to your questions.

If the bike matches a stolen report

1. Don’t confront the seller and don’t arrange to meet. Calgary Police tells theft victims not to contact the seller or meet them themselves; a buyer should be just as careful.
2. Save everything. Screenshot the listing, every photo, the seller’s profile and your messages. Listings disappear and get reposted.
3. Call your local police on the non-emergency line with the report number or registry link and the listing details.
4. Let the owner know through the registry if it allows contact. Bike Index’s guidance for owners who find their bike on Marketplace is to document the listing and the seller’s other listings, and to take it to police, who are more likely to act when you can show a high-value bike or several stolen items from one seller.

If you already bought a stolen bike

A stolen bike still belongs to its owner, so if police identify it, expect to hand it back. Police may ask how you bought it. Keep the listing, the chat, your payment record and anything the seller told you about where it came from. That shows you bought it in good faith and helps them trace the seller.

That’s the best argument for doing the checks before you pay.

With Sift on a computer

The searches above take a few minutes per bike. Sift, a free browser extension for Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji, moves the first part into the listing itself. Its Bikes kit adds:

• “Check this” flags from the seller’s own words: “No serial” (no serial, serial removed or scratched off, won’t show the serial), “Lock without key” (lost the lock key, cut the lock) and “Found bike” (found it, found this bike).
• A green “Serial shown” chip when the seller writes the serial or says it’s registered or in the photos.
• Bike Index first in “Check elsewhere”. When the listing contains a serial, the first link is “Check the serial on Bike Index”. Otherwise it’s “Stolen bikes nearby on Bike Index”, a search for that brand and model near the listing’s own city. Bike Index measures distance in miles, so that covers about 80 km. Your home is never sent anywhere.

On Facebook, search results don’t include descriptions, so most of these flags appear on the listing page, where Sift reads the full text. Start a hunt › Bike sets up a preset for bike shopping, with a frame-size filter and the parts pack.

Sift never labels a listing stolen. It reads wording and opens the registries; the judgement, and the call to police, stay with you. It runs in Chrome, Edge and Brave on a computer. Sift is independent and not affiliated with Meta, Kijiji, Bike Index, 529 Garage or CPIC.

For the rest of the inspection, see buying a used bike on Marketplace or Kijiji, and for general meetup safety, is Facebook Marketplace safe?