Convicted of theft for picking up abandoned OBike

You could’ve bought a really nice bike for NT$182,000.

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You should thank him for funding the effective police work in Taiwan. /s

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Hope the police officers are happy with their productivity.

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True. With lucrative “crimes” like this and all the traffic cameras, they’ve basically got a license to print money.

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I bet they don’t collect the abandoned bikes on purpose.
It’s a profitable racket it seems. (Same with some leaving money in front of security cameras and calling police if someone picks it up)

Now next time @Taiwan_Luthiers can bring abandoned obike he finds to police’s lost and found. So they will not be able to charge him. If nobody claims the bike after a couple of months he can legally keep it.

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technically if you call 1999 they will collect it.

Seems people were throwing them into creeks on purpose.

Now I got a banjo to fix. Has anyone tried to play a sad song on a banjo?

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I have no sound here but how’s that?

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I always found that to be a pretty upbeat tune. :sunglasses:

I’m glad you have things settled and there are no more questions hanging in the air with regards to how they will deal with you.

We all know what happens in the movie. About what happened Taiwan Luthiers.

OK, thanks for putting that image in my head. You’ve ruined that song for me!

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Do people really do this? What do they gain?

They go to police and report theft. When you get charged they offer to settle. :grin:

So if you pick up any amount of money. Go straight to police to report you found it.
It is not as common anymore as all Taiwanese know about it.

Isn’t there some rule that allows you to demand 10X the amount in compensation?

It’s often not about the criminal charge, there’s nothing to be gained there.

It’s about any civil suits they can make and try to get a judgment against you. Often the civil suit is much worse than any criminal penalties (for example picking up money may end up with you getting a month of jail that is suspended with a fine of 30,000NT but the civil suit can be over 100,000NT.). I just don’t see how any judge can rule in favor of any plaintiff who basically sets up any innocent person like this.

Problem is people have been charged simply because they were on the way to the police station to turn in the find.

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Jesus, on average I pick up a Yoyo card from the ground once a month. Use the credit in it then ditch it. My take is if people are so dopey as to keep dropping their cards I’ll happily use them.

I’ve also picked up wallets and phones and called the owners to return them.

I wonder if there’s a number to call to report abandoned properties (for example money on the ground) and then take it to the police station so if someone were to try to charge you while you were on your way to the police to turn it in it could be used as a defense?

Reasonable thing to do is try to find the owners and return them, but sometimes just being in possession of the lost item is enough if someone wants to go overzealous in charging someone.

Be careful with Yoyo cards because they can be registered, meaning if you picked it up and used the fund you can be on the hook for theft! Worse for foreigners because that can lead to your ARC canceled even if you won a non indictment from the prosecutor. You could either be charged with theft (more serious) or “takeover” (not as serious, but basically it means you kept a lost item and wouldn’t return it when demanded).

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That is theft.

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