Originally Posted by
Jeff Neese
I'm hardly skipping over the moral issue - I'm addressing it head on. This item is being offered for sale publicly, for all to see. There is nothing underhanded occurring at all. The seller may very well be a scumbag and if you just don't want to do business with scumbags, that's a different story. But to avoid buying this bike and letting someone else pick it up instead, just because you have a "bad feeling" about it and you think it might be stolen, is just silly. Do you pass up a garage sale find, just because in your opinion the people look sketchy? If it's out in the driveway where the police and everyone else can see it, I'd say you're probably in the clear both morally and practically. Same thing with this bike.
Serious indicators it may be stolen. When you willfully ignore that to "rescue the frame", you are creating the demand for the product and are therefore morally complicit. "They could find it if they happen upon it" is not an excuse for knowingly encouraging the trade in stolen goods.
And I'd absolutely pass up a "good deal" on the street if the seller seemed sketchy, that's nuts. Pretty sure you and I have very different moral compasses and, frankly, I'd question whether you lack basic common sense if you're frequently buying "too good to be true" deals from shady strangers.