My 28 Hour Nightmare
It was all a dream. Sunday 10/9/16 at 4:00PM I receive a phone call from my brother. “I can’t find the bike. Its been stolen.”
I had lent my Suzuki to my brother for quite some months, in exchange for his. As a student in Gainesville, Fl, he decided to bring his motorcycle to get around town. He has lived in Gainesville for 4 years and this was the first time anything has happened to the motorcycle.
When I first purchased my Suzuki, I had purchased it with a “FindItNow” GPS. The GPS was originally bought for my parents to keep track of my speed (parents…). As years went by, my use for the GPS seemed to diminish and I stopped with the service.
Sunday when I received the call, I instantly sped home from work to access the GPS. I tried to log on and couldn’t do so. I assumed that if I could access my account, I could renew my GPS service and track my motorcycle. The first problem occurred when I attempted to logon. Since my service was deactivated, my account was on hold, and thus I was unable to reach the service to renew.
Hello Henrique,
I reviewed your account and unfortunately it Has been expired for some time due to non payment of your annual renewal.
Your FIN device has been expired since 6–20–2015.
There is no way resetting a password would do anything on a non=active account.”
How can I renew it??
It most likely will not renew as the SIM card inside the device is no longer valid due to being expired for so long
Can we please give it a try?
The police are looking for as much information as possible
The only way to renew is to contact our business office 9am to 5pm on Monday or I can have someone contact you 1st thing. The SIM provider has to be contacted and unfortunately since it is expired that can only be done during normal business hours.
With news that the SIM might not renew, my heart and mind already said good bye.
The next morning around 9:30AM I call FindItNow to renew the service in what the operator told me was a “50/50 chance of renewal”. Knowing the risk, I renewed my service.
Good Morning Henrique,
I wanted to get things going for you so we can attempt to recover your bike.
I just wanted to reconfirm your request to reactivate your account.
By doing so there is a 50% chance of recovery as your account has been expired for so long and given the time lapse of the actual time the theft took place.
We will do whatever we can and stay on this until we have exhausted all means to recover your
2013 Suzuki GSXR600.
Please confirm this by responding to this email and I will have 1 of our Customer Service Reps contact you immediately to collect the renewal required.
Also please provide us with the time of theft and any other details you may have at this point.
Thank You
Let’s give it a shot.
I spoke to the operator and we are hoping for the best.
Couple of things to keep in mind..just FYI…..it can take a bit to get these reactivated as it has to go thru a different department from the SIM carrier. We have stressed the urgency to them already.
If the device does not respond immediately it could be that it has not been moved in the past 2 hours. If that is the case and all else is good…it will not respond until it gets moved. If it doesn’t get moved the device will report into our Servers once a day even if it does not get moved, so at that point we would be able to get a good fix on it.
We will monitor this for the next 48 hours either way..OR up until the time it gets recovered.
We will be in touch later.
Hour 1 since renewal: No response from attempt at contact. Anxiously sitting in class.
Hour 2: Still no response or update. Location shown: My house. 325 miles from the garage in which it was stolen from.
Hour 3: Lab class begins, mind is completely off the bike.
Hour 4: No update.
Hour 5: Receive call from Sergeant at the GPD (Gainesville Police Department) informing me he is highly interested in my case due to another victim of bike theft in the same weekend in the same apartment complex. I explained to him that the GPS was a 50/50 shot and that I would keep him posted if anything comes up.
Hour 6: Class starts. 30 minutes into class, I receive 65 text messages. All old alerts from which the bike was moved when still in my possession. Why am I randomly receiving all of last years movement alerts? Could it finally have found reception? Log into FindItNow’s website. Sent a ping for location.
Bingo!
30 minutes away from Gainesville, on what Google Maps shows me to be a house on an isolated road. The perfect hide out location. I leave class in a panic, contact police immediately (FindItNow call me during my phone call to the GPD to alert me that we made contact). GPD take down note of location, transfers the case to Bradford County Police Department.
Hour 7: On the phone with FindItNow and Officers the whole hour. Frantically calling the Sergeant, a Detective, 2 different Officers, and FindItNow. Anxiety at its max. Detective mode at its max.
Hour 8: No update on any movement from Bradford Police Department.
Hour 9: Detective calls me.
Mr. Cury, we have found the bike that was stolen with yours. We have not found yours yet.
Officer in the background:
O: Does his have a cover on it?
D: Does yours have a cover Mr. Cury?
No it does not.
O: This ones a Hayabusa.
D: We have found 4 other bikes here. Still looking for yours.
O: I think I found half of his
Half of mine? Did she just say half of mine? What does that mean?
O: Hold on I think I found it.
D: We think we found your bike.
Runs VIN.
O: We got it!
D: We found your bike, but its not exactly functional.
What does that mean?
D: Well sir, it looks like the thief already ripped your bike apart to sell for parts.
Oh man, you got to be kidding me. Well at least we found it.
Talk some more
Well Detective I appreciate everything you guys have done. Thank you very much.
Actually we ought to be thanking you. We might have never found these bikes again if it wasn’t for your GPS.
The nightmare finally ended. I called my brother, FindItNow and parents to let them all know that this is over.
The National Insurance Crime Bureau states that there were 45,555 reported bike thefts in 2015 (up 6% from 2014). Today 5 bikes were found, and will soon be delivered to their owners.
This motorcycle is not one I’d give up hope on. This was the first vehicle I ever put under my name. This will forever be my first bill that I had to stay on track of. This motorcycle was the thing that gave me a taste of the real world. My first real responsibility. I have a deep connection to her. She is my beautiful Rose, and I am grateful to have her back.
Thank you.
-H
To all Law enforcement who were of aid on this case: I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the incredible work done to retrieve my bike as fast as possible.
To all FindItNow employees who were of aid: You guys have outdone yourselves. Your customer service throughout the entire process was incredible. Thank you for staying on top of my GPS throughout the entire day. Thank you for calling me through after hours to update me. Thank you for working with the police. But most importantly, thank you for finding part of my history. I will never forget this story and this experience.