EB Demands Payment From Victim of Theft

blincoln writes "ABC Action News is reporting that a Florida Electronics Boutique bought stolen games and gaming hardware, and made a profit on selling them back to their rightful owner, refusing to return the merchandise unless she paid them. From the article: 'EB Games still insists it will not refund Michelle's money. If she wants her money back, the company said, she can go through the legal system and get restitution from the thief.' In addition, EB appears to be violating the law by re-selling used merchandise without holding it for the required number of days. I was under the impression that purchasers of stolen merchandise could expect it to be seized by the police (who would return it to the owner) and not recover any of the money they spent buying it unless they took action against the thief. Is that not the case in Florida?"

Comments

issue?

[cft]

how is this even an issue? the law clearly states that they must hold the goods for a certain amount of time (10 days
if I'm not mistaken before they're given away. The article says she went to the store after two days and they had already
sold her playstation. They clearly violated law and should be reported to the authorities, not the manager as she did.

Re:issue?

[bloodrose]

Sometimes calling the police isn't feasible. On many things, such as small claims like this, the police will require some level of proof before they move on it. In some cases, gathering a minor amount of proof and taking EB to small claims court would be a better route. At least, it seems that way to me.

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[midol]

Has she gone to the police and charged the store with possession of stolen goods? That should light a little fire under them. Especially if they have already been flagrantly flouting the law.

Re:issue?

[LostCluster]

But in this case, the police should already have enough proof. There's a confession from the thief, and a matching transaction that fits the description on EB's records too.

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[bloodrose]

True enough, but at that point, it isnt the police's job to strong arm EB into providing restitution. That burden lies in the arms of the courts.

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[metlin]

Looks like you have not read the article in full, its 15 days actually :-)

From the article -

Under state law, all merchants who deal in secondhand goods are required to hold those goods for 15 calendar days before selling them. The law is designed specifically to prevent the sale of stolen goods, and prevent situations like this.

Well, you cannot blame her for not reporting it to the authorities - usually you end up going to the authorities only as a last resort. You try and solve problems as best as you can before that with the company and if that does not work out, you see restitution.

But now that its out in the open, it may turn quite interesting.

Re:issue?

[LostCluster]

Actually, a court is only supposed to resolve disuptes into who owns an item. Once a court certifies that this woman owns what she says she owns, it then falls back onto the police to do the strongarming.

Re:issue?

[Passman]

Has she gone to the police and charged the store with possession of stolen goods?

While I am not an expert on Florida law in most states of the USA you can't. Why not? Because pawn brokers, which EB would likely claim they are, are exempt from fensing laws (i.e. recieving stolen property) in most states unless they actually know the property is stolen. Several states even exempt pawn brokers in situations where they reasonably should suspect the materials are stolen (the homeless person selling the diamond necklace type situation).

Don't ask me why this is because I don't know. All I can speculate is that sometime in the recent past pawnbrokers performed some really good lobbying efforts.

Re:issue?

[dubiousmike]

"I was under the impression that purchasers of stolen merchandise could expect it to be seized by the police (who would return it to the owner) and not recover any of the money they spent buying it unless they took action against the thief. Is that not the case in Florida?"

They voted on it and are in the middle of their third recount...

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[Mistlefoot]

I wonder what would have happened if she had just simply "taken" them back.

It would be hard to charge her with stealing stuff that she already owned.

I'm sure someone here must know some law on this.

Re:issue?

[bleh-of-the-huns]

Not true, the police are supposed to seize stolen goods as evidence, and then the goods get returned to the original owner, and its up to EB to attempt to get their money back from the thief if its possible.

More to the point.. what the fuck were they (EB) thinking.. is the bad publicity over this whole incident worth the negligable amount of money to this woman.... I think not, this will cost them alot more in the long run, and I hope the authorities come down hard on EB for violating the laws and this persons rights

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pawn brokers must hold pawned items for 15 days and provide to the police detailed lists of what they've received. They're very much not exempt from that law.

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes calling the police isn't feasible

Lately, it seems like nothing's feasible. I had a truck broken into last year and $2K of tools and test equipment taken out of it. Response from the police? Leave a message on the answering machine and never, ever expect any followup. "It's an insurance matter."

Some of the equipment was licensed amateur radio gear that was very distinguishable. Checked with pawn shops. They told me to get lost: "We don't have to talk to you or tell you if we have your equipment or not. Only the police can check."

Obviously not if the police don't investigate it and relegate the matter to an answering machine (a friend at the police department said they only use those cases for statistical purposes - e.g. demonstrating they need more funding because of greater crime, though who knows what they'd do with more funds. Obviously not chase ordinary criminals that affect most of us).

Insurance company was no help either? Played "let's demand proof for everything" - and when proof was provided, claimed to lose forms, require reapplication, and then "mistakenly" closed my case twice. Never got paid a cent, though they indicated I had a claim. Recourse? File complaint with state insurance regulators. (Hint: their address is /dev/null).

Now we're dealing with a significant theft and destruction to a federally licensed communication site at work (in a matter that is going on across the country), and the local FBI office won't response. They're pretty busy hanging on Internet chat rooms nabbing perverts - maybe playing on the PC is more fun than doing field work. Local law enforcement says it's a national matter and has no resources to investigate.

Conclusion? Seems like a good time to be a crook or an insurance company. Us poor schmucks are outgunned and unrepresented. How's that "no taxation without representation" line go again?

Re:issue?

[Dolphinzilla]

Do what I just did, write an e-mail to EB Games and inform them that you find their business practices unsavory and won't give them any future business. I think in this case the consumer may be able to make more of an impact on this situation than the local law enforcement.

Re:issue?

[Calmiche]

Let's see this from a Pawnbrokers point of view.

As a pawn broker in Idaho, it's not quite that way here. In Idaho, we are required to hold ANY property for a minimum of 30 days if bought of 60 days if pawned. We also report full descriptions of EVERYTHING that comes over our counter. Serial numbers, distinguishing marks, colors, model numbers, EVERYTHING. We fill our several copies for each pawn/buy and send them to the police twice a week.

Any police officer may place a "Hold" on an item for any reason, which adds another 90 days. They may also extend that hold another 90 days as many times as they wish.

However, as a pawn shop, the authorities try to take us. That is, quite often, a patrolman will come in and demand that we relinquish property, which they intend to give directly back to the person who's property was stolen. Technically this is against the law for them to do, since we bought it in good faith.

We don't take items that we even suspect are stolen. In fact, I turned down a nice mp3 player yesterday because I suspected it was stolen. I couldn't prove anything so I couldn't call the police, but I didn't take it either.

We are always willing to "Hold" an item for as long as is needed, but we require an inventory requisition sheet be filed and that a disposition hearing be held to determine where the property should go.

If we didn't do this, we would have stuff "stolen" from us continually.

There have been several times in the last couple years when someone will come in, write down serial numbers on some of our stock, and then go to the police claiming it was stolen. Most of them are in jail for fraud, and one is awaiting sentancing right now.

This is also why we hate used stores like EB, Hastings, etc.. They don't have any of the same requirements. In fact, I've never seen a city ordinace that adressed pawn shops and second hand stores together. So don't go describing EB as a pawn shop. It isn't.

Your best bet for protection? Always right down serial numbers! It makes it 85% more likely that you will get your property back.

Calmiche,

Re:issue?

[sharper56]

You just figure this out? Since 9/11 crime in general and organized crime in particular has taken off now that we have the FEDs looking for the next Johnny Muhammed. Crips! They're spending our money on wanding dangerous 60 year old grandmothers flying from NY to Miami, they've got no resources for property crime.

Re:issue?

[WhiteWolf666]

I feel your pain.

To be honest, I feel like the 'us poor scmucks' need to start investing in our own security ;-)

Less insurance payments, more car alarms+electrostatic armor plating *evil grin*

Police won't catch the crooks? My ShockMaster 2000 will fry them dead :)

Re:issue?

[herulach]

Quoth Gord:

"Would this be a bad time to point out I'm a video game store and not a pawn shop?"

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[Sigma 7]

Do what I just did, write an e-mail to EB Games and inform them that you find their business practices unsavory

Does the practices of a single franchise represent the entire chain? If so, then you can send the mail with a clear conscience. Otherwise, you are just punishing random companies that have no relation to the incident.

You should be able to easily find EB Games stores that have a better respect of the law than this small incident, whom are willing to put an item on reserve if the legal ownership of the product is in dispute. (Other methods are also available, such as giving store credit instead of cash - when the products are determined to be stolen, the credit gets revoked. )

Re:issue?

[nomadic]

I don't think they'd qualify as pawn brokers. And in general under both Florida common law and statute (Brown v. Ring 450 So.2d 1245 and Florida statute 672.43 if anyone's interested) a thief cannot transfer title to a purchaser.

Re:issue?

[protogoogoo69]

Its an issue because of the absurdity. Absurdity is news in case you havent heard. ;)

But are they *that* hard up for money that they cannot refund her for purchasing stolen goods from them? (NO) I would say stolen goods count as a fair 30-day return policy, but I'm not familiar with their return policies. Then, after refund, they could return the stolen goods, or whats left of them, to (her) the rightful owner or at least the police. Aside from them breaking state law, why is this so hard? Even if their return policy does not include a clause for stolen goods, its good for PR and karma just to take them back since she's obviously not satisfied with her purchase.

By insisting that her purchase was legit, they have not only broken the 15-day hold law, but have also ripped her off. And now they KNOW they did and yet they still maintain this. Although, considering the issues surrounding Florida's 1996 Pawnbroking Act, it would seem this kind of thing happens often in Florida and/or the "pawn shops" strike a fine line near anarchy. If there is a strong correlation between the increase in pawn shops disobeying proper protocol (or "communication breakdown", as one EB spokesman puts it) and theft, then this should be issue, indeed. The burglar, who was just trying to pay the rent, even said he chose EB because of their lazy procedures.....hmm.

Re:issue?

[base3]

It is the duty of a franchise to uphold the good name of the franchise for the franchisees, as the practices of one franchise do represent the entire chain.

Re:issue?

[Dolphinzilla]

Does the practices of a single franchise represent the entire chain? Of Course not - but hopefully the the corporate parent can exert pressure on the franchise store to make it right with the customer - At the very least the EB Games Corporate Headquarters may decide to reimburse the abused customer to promote goodwill and hoepfully they would talk to the franchise owner about how to better manage the EB franchise and prevent this from happening again.

Re:issue?

[rollingcalf]

"Does the practices of a single franchise represent the entire chain?"

Not necessarily, but when the managers who control the chain do nothing to correct the rogue actions of a franchise, the practices then become representative of the entire chain. Better to do business with another chain or small shop that doesn't engage in such shady dealings (or at least those not known to be shady).

Re:issue?

[AntiTuX]

I had the same thing happen, myself.

Mine was cable television equipment though. 5 scientific america boxes, to be exact.

Anyhow, they caught the dumbass, who tried to plug in the stolen boxes to see if they worked. Cox can tell you exactly where those boxes are on the network down to the tap port, then all you need is to look at the tag and see which house the line goes to.

Anyhow, in the end, the cops didn't do shit to help me get my stuff back. Cox did though.

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is ridiculous law. The likelyhood of something being stolen (e.g., random pawnshop item vs. random retail store item) should be irrelevant without *some* kind of evidence. This is just a violation of basic property rights.

Re:issue?

[zurab]

Not true, the police are supposed to seize stolen goods as evidence, and then the goods get returned to the original owner, and its up to EB to attempt to get their money back from the thief if its possible.

Not true in general. If the buyer bought the goods "in good faith" then they cannot be required to return them. That's unfair to the good faith buyer. Imagine, if you buy a couch at the flea market for say $500, then next week police show up at your door and take it away because it turned up to have been stolen. And as they leave they give you a name of some guy in another state (possibly another country) that allegedly stole it. No, that's not how it works. Usually, good faith buyers can keep the merchandise and original owner can go after the thief.

Having said that, and judging from the article, it looks like EB did violate the 15 day hold law. And yes, I agree, what were they thinking not refunding the money?

Hmm... on second thought, I don't want to sound like devil's advocate here but, people could devise a scheme like that selling their "stolen" goods and then getting them back for free; even if they confessed to "stealing." So, give some benefit of the doubt to EB - they have to be careful as well.

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Insurance company was no help either? Played "let's demand proof for everything" - and when proof was provided, claimed to lose forms, require reapplication, and then "mistakenly" closed my case twice. Never got paid a cent, though they indicated I had a claim. Recourse? File complaint with state insurance regulators. (Hint: their address is /dev/null).

Fucking insurance scum. A carpenter friend of mine had all the tools stolen out of his truck box. Because the stolen items were "tools of his trade" they were not insured -- they should have been on a separate rider. Had he been an accountant, the same tools would have been covered. He dropped the company and told the salesman for his next company to make sure he was fully insured for everything, no matter the cost, and that, if he were ever denied a claim on such chicken shit grounds, he'd hunt the salesman down and hold him very physically responsible.

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

The police are not there to help average citizens, they are there to keep those in power safe.

I am not saying this as an "average" citizen, I am one of those with some power, and I still think it is very very wrong.

This country is full of sheeple who think Bush is a great president. I think it was a major mistake to allow one party to control Washington; it is better for there to be dynamic friction to new legislation (by having congress controlled by a different party than the executive branch), for seldom is any new law or initiative good for the general population.

Re:issue?

[bleh-of-the-huns]

I was not talking about the items that were already sold by EB, I was talking about the items EB had in their posession, the items already sold there is little that can be done, except a good faith gesture by EB to replace said items, or cover the replacement costs.

All items still in EB's posession could however be seized

Re:issue?

[canadian_right]

In this case the police already have a confession from the thief - how much more proof do they need?

Where I (BC, Canada) live if the police have arrested the thief and have a confession they will go get the stolen goods and return them to the owner, if the owner is known. If they don't know the owner they still take the goods as possesion of stolen property is against the law - and selling goods known to be stolen is also illegal. The store would be completely out for the money paid for the stolen goods unless they sue the thief.

A local guy paid over $30,000 for a newish car from a car dealership, the police discovered the car was stolen and took the car, returning it to the owner. The dealership had done all the correct paperwork before selling so the guy was out $30,000. The true owner of the car automatically got his car back with the police's help.

I find it hard to believe that the Florida police in this case didn't just march down to EB, recover the stolen goods (for evidence at least!) then return the goods to the legal owner.

If this had happened where I live EB would have had no choice but to return the games.

Re:issue?

[TCaptain]

I hear you.

I just got broken into THIS week. Chickensh*t *sshole thieves took computer equipment and some of my SO's sentimental stuff. Could have been worse (about 5Gs worth), they got interrupted.

The police did NOTHING. Even though we had items dropped that only the punks could have touched, they wouldn't look at them or print them.

Their response..."we don't investigate stuff like this...if we did that, we'd never go home at night!"

Oh boohoo! So I said "basically you're saying its ok they get away with this..."

Answer: "Yup, unless someone catches them in the act or we catch them doing something bigger, we won't look for them, talk to your insurance"

I've done the local pawnshops and been told to get lost...

I'm talking to an insurance "auditor" next week...I can't wait to see how THAT goes.

I wonder why I pay taxes, cuz I sure don't feel like I'm getting my money's worth

Re:issue?

[Prior Restraint]

Not that I hope to defend EB's actions, but in the scenario the parent is describing, EB is the good-faith buyer, and therefore shouldn't have to give up what it bought.

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. For example the police could do nothing, and ebay was unwilling to do anything, when my friend found his G4 laptop and all his other electronic gear being auctioned off on ebay a day after it was stolen from his house.

Lesson? Time to buy a gun and cut out the middle men.

Re:issue?

[canadian_right]

This is NOT true in Canada. No matter what the circumstances, if you buy stolen goods, once it is discovered that they are stolen the goods are RETURNED TO THE LEGAL OWNER. What you cannot do is try to recover your money from the person who sold you the stolen goods if they sold them in good faith. So whoever posseses the goods, the end of the chain, is 'left holding the bag' once the legal owner is discovered.

Re:issue?

[canadian_right]

Sounds like you should vote to raise taxes and hire some more police.

We have the same problem with the police not investigating all property crimes, but it isn't quite that bad yet.

Re:issue?

[iceburglar]

I've had paychecks stolen out of my mailbox when I worked for a temp agency. I complained to the post office, who sent my to the police, who sent me to the post office, who had me fill out a whole bunch of forms, and said they'd get back to me within 6 months!@!! It's been over 2 years now, and I've stopped caring, which is what I'm sure all involved usually hopes for.

Complaining to the temp agency to reissue the check basically got me black-listed (no more assignments from them), and the checks had been cashed so I had to take it up with the bank. The bank won't release info since it isn't my account.

Good times to be a thief.

Re:issue?

[Prof. Pi]

... people could devise a scheme like that selling their "stolen" goods and then getting them back for free; even if they confessed to "stealing."

How would that be different from any of the other scams people try, like torching their own buildings and collecting the insurance? I'm sure it would be covered by existing laws, such as "filing false police reports."

Re:issue?

[Mr. Slippery]

Sounds like you should vote to raise taxes and hire some more police.

Hmm. There's an old cliche that "A conservative is a liberal who's been mugged." (And, "A liberal is a conservative who's been arrested.")

But when the one of the "let's cut taxes!" brand of conservative suddenly finds not enough cops to track down the guy who burgled his house (or worse yet, not enough firefighters to come extinguish his house-b-que, or EMTs to come jumpstart his dad's failing heart)...yeah, you just might see a tax (and service) cutter switch to a tax-and-spend liberal.

(Of course, they might just become one of the new "borrow and spend" conservatives that have become popular lately; "don't tax us, our kids will pay for it." Grand.)

Re:issue?

[CrazyDuke]

Problem: if you have a gun and the thief is unarmed you are the one they send to pound me in the ass prison. Even if they are armed you have to be SURE they are going to physically hurt you or your family or you are required to just watch them walk off with your shit. Touch them and you get charged with assault. Set traps and that is a another whole world of shit altogether. And lets not forget YOU are held liable if the thieves steal your gun and then use it in a crime.

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

The police already have the resources. They are all too interested in investigating YOU if you do anything to stop the thieves. It's a matter of lazyness and spitefullness, not funding.

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you people all have guns, revolt...you did it befoe.

Re:issue?

[tonyr60]

Same here in New Zealand. Ithought that it was was principle of common law (derived from Magna Carta???) that the legal owner of property retains that ownership right until ownership is legally transferred.

Re:issue?

[rta]

off topic, certainly, but i've got to say that that's a clever sig. took me a few seconds to get it. hint: if you're thinking "what's wrong w/ Anarchists? it's not my thing but some people might think they pretty cool..." then you're barking up the wrong tree :-)

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as I was going in for the recreational bureaucratic proctology, I might just call up a lawyer and see what a sit down to discuss suing the appropriate government body might cost.

If that doesn't seem feasible, I might try a letter to the editors. One of those "If it happened to me, it can happen to you" letters that prey on people's fears. I'd be inclined to mention the officers by name too.

It's all a giant pain in the ass anyway. (I'm just the kinda guy who preferes to take all his lumps at once.)

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the same thing happen, myself. Mine was cable television equipment though. 5 scientific america boxes, to be exact. Anyhow, they caught the dumbass, who tried to plug in the stolen boxes to see if they worked. Cox can tell you exactly where those boxes are on the network down to the tap port, then all you need is to look at the tag and see which house the line goes to. Anyhow, in the end, the cops didn't do shit to help me get my stuff back. Cox did though.

So, are we now entering the era of licensed and bonded private police forces for hire? How long till they commoditize protection and security to private entities hired by those who can afford it?

Re:issue?

[cpex]

My wife had her car stolen. Of course we reported it to the police. A couple days later we get a call they had found the car abandoned on the roadway and the car had been impounded and we had to go pick it up and pay all the impound fees as well as a police service fee of like a hundred dollars. And of course the cd deck, cd changer and all the speakers were gone. I think it would be more worth while to have a cell phone in your car hooked up to gps and just give it a call when your car goes missing and deal with it yourself.

Re:issue?

[deinol]

Stores do this all the time. I had a similar circumstance where I had loaned a friend a large quantity of books. Then I was gone for a few months during the summer. When I got back, I found out that they had sold the books to a used book store in order to pay the rent. They had thought I had moved away for good or something. The book store in question refused to return the books, claiming I had no proof they were mine, despite my name being clearly written in, then marked over (but still legible) in each of the books. 75% had already been sold.

The police couldn't do anything until I pressed charges against the person who stole them. Then they came in and seized the remaining books. 6 months later, they were returned to me.

Suffice it to say, I'm not really friends with that person anymore. But, they did admit to it, and were willing to give the store the money back to get the books back. But the store wouldn't even do that. They wanted to sell them for full price. The remaining books would have cost more than the entire lot was purchased at by the store. In the end, I was more upset with the store than the person. I still won't return to that book store.

Re:issue?

[rhombic]

I live in the People's Republic of California, and I pay considerably more than my parents do in local taxes (property taxes higher, more than 1c higher sales tax, higher state income tax).

In my parent's town (small town Kansas), stuff like this gets hunted down. In San Diego, you've pretty much got to get shot to get the local cops out of their offices (unless, of course, you're speeding or something). We just pretty much accept that the local cops are worthless, and get on with our lives. Higher taxes aren't the answer-- revising the various levels of civil service so that the competant got raises, and the incompetent got fired, would be. Ah well. Time to privatize the police as well, I guess...

--

Re:issue?

[Mikesch]

Seriously.

Someone at the company where I work got his car broken into. This was caught on the security camera. The guy pulls up in a red Toyota pickup, throws a rock through the window and steals everything inside. The license plate on the pickup truck was clearly visible on the security tape. After the tape was turned over to the police they went to the truck owner to investigate. His response: "I loaned it to my daughter's boyfriend." The police didn't even bother to follow up on what should have been an open and shut case. Never investigated the boyfriend, nothing.

Fine, the police don't have a lot of resources, they're underpaid, they have a tough job, they're understaffed, they work long hours. At the same time, they should be counted on to solve the easy crimes even with limited funding and they just won't do it.

From now on, their complaints are falling on deaf ears for me. They can't be counted on to do their jobs even when a case is handed to them. If they won't even make an effort to protect the citizens they're supposed to, why should I make an effort to care whether or not they have decent benefits.

Meanwhile, my dad got a ticket for wearing his seatbelt improperly from the local police(wearing it under his arm instead of over). I feel so much safer now that nasty lawbreakers like my dad have to pay fines for things that don't hurt anyone but himself.

Re:issue?

[Zeinfeld]

Not true in general. If the buyer bought the goods "in good faith" then they cannot be required to return them.

Unless Florida has decided to pass a different statute (unlikely) the position in English Common law is that the goods bellong to the original owner (except in four peculiar exceptions that certainly would not apply here).

Once EB became aware that the goods were stolen and then sold them EB were arguably guilty of receiving stolen goods. There could also be a claim for conversion.

This is the sort of thing that any HQ with a clue would tell the franchise to pay up on. It is a really risky proposition that could easily end up with a nasty legal situation.

Re:issue?

[vanillacoke]

if you watched this weeks chappell show you'll notice the guy robbing the hall where the championship craps game is being held shot a guy in the leg (below the torso) to avoid a attempted murder charge. completely off topic, but on if you wanted to shoot someone fo' stealing your shit....

Re:issue?

[Guppy06]

"But when the one of the "let's cut taxes!" brand of conservative suddenly finds not enough cops to track down the guy who burgled his house"

Typically, conservatives are more likely to shoot the guy who tried burgling his house.

Re:issue?

[TroyFoley]

Seems like a good time to be a crook or an insurance company.

"In the dictionary, under redundant, it says 'See redundant.'" - Robin Williams

Re:issue?

[Guppy06]

So... do you vote? Including the local government elections?

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's only one way around this, sad but true.

Shoot to kill.
Claim he was attacking you.
If he was actually attacking you, make it sound worse than it was.

Might not sit well with you, but it's a guarantee that you won't go to prison.

Re:issue?

[battlemarch]

I'm curious where this "in good faith" comes from? Stolen property is just that, stolen and will/should be siezed by the police as evidence. Eventually, to be returned to the original owner.

At best, having bought the stuff "in good faith" will still leave you out your cash but probably save you from charges of receiving stolen merchandise.

Re:issue?

[rfmobile]

Time to privatize the police as well, I guess...

Time for RoboCob!

-rick

Re:issue?

[srmalloy]

But in this case, the police should already have enough proof. There's a confession from the thief, and a matching transaction that fits the description on EB's records too.

And I don't see why EB isn't bending over backwards to cooperate -- there's an interesting thing called 'receiving stolen property', which is a felony, even if the actual theft of the property is a misdemeanor. The manager of the store and the clerk that actually bought the gear can go up for serious time, and both of them and the parent company become liable for a juicy suit for damages by the victim.

Re:issue?

[ckedge]

> In my parent's town (small town Kansas), stuff like this gets hunted down. In San Diego, you've pretty much got to get shot to get the local cops out

I was about to say something similar between big city Toronto and small Prairie towns.

It can't be incompetence. It's gotta be a difference of scale. In a town of 1-2000 people, it's feasable to hunt the perps down, even more so it's highly feasable to have any other citizen identify your own stolen goods. (The teller at the small-town bank recognized my Mom's stolen coins when the dumbass 14 year old girl brought them in to see how much they were worth.). None of that is possible in a big city.

In a big city, they have to resort to fingerprints (expensive, time consuming) and stolen property databases (more expenses, don't get convictions on the actual B+E as the property is recovered long after and they can't link it to one person..), inability to match camera pictures against perps (not until they day they get facial recognition systems going, either that or a cop who knows every face in a city of 2 million), and they've got higher crime rates in general including the more serious stuff (assault, etc) to deal with.

In a rural area with 5-6 small towns that have one burglary per week, the cops have the time to take a full report and spend time on it.

Re:issue?

[Walt Dismal]

Couple of years ago an unlicensed, uninsured driver who was an illegal alien totalled my parked car. The police came immediately but actually let the guy go; they did not arrest him but merely ticketed him. Worse, my insurance company refused to pay and told me I had to sue the owner of the car and collect from him. It took a lawyer to wade through this mess. I got the impression this whole system is rotten and broken. Large companies really don't care.

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[ckedge]

I take my statement about incompetence back. I just read this post :-|

Now that's lazy incompetence.

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

My ShockMaster 2000 will fry them dead

Ah - he that plays law enforcement is the primary target of the system. There's nothing the cops hate more than someone pointing out they've failed in their job.

Had a neighbor remodeling a house a year ago winter. I got it condemned (abandoned - took five years to finally get the city to move on it) and he bought it for close to nothing, which is $2 more than it was worth. He'd often come in at 4:30 or 5AM to work on the house a few hours before going to his job. One morning as he was installing new plumbing in the basement, two kids that were looting half the neighborhood (everybody told the local police which house they were in, but the police said they were too understaffed to do any surveillance or get a warrant to check the house) broke into the basement through a side window.

My neighbor confronted them when they came into the room he was in and broke the arm of one of the kids in a fight after they attacked him. He got cited (he was an adult, they were minors, though 17-year-old street trash at 5AM is hard to tell apart from adults). As usual, a "quota" officer (minority female) was the one who wrote him up, telling him she wasn't a judge and was going to write everyone up for the domestic dispute (this is what you get in the US with a white male property owner, minority criminals and same-minority officer). Fortunately the charges against him were dropped, but the kids walked as well. Sadly, not only is the lack of law enforcement failing all of us, but it's failing these kids as well. They're left to mature to violent crime and a major sentence before the system corrects their behavior.

Put down the donuts and the AIM, boys. Your communities are falling apart.

Re:issue?

[shadowcabbit]

We don't take items that we even suspect are stolen. In fact, I turned down a nice mp3 player yesterday because I suspected it was stolen. I couldn't prove anything so I couldn't call the police, but I didn't take it either.

Looking at it from the perspective of an employee of EB for a year and a half, that was the precise lesson all four of my managers told me. If it looks, feels, or smells stolen, or even if you're not sure, make up a bullshit excuse and get the punk out of the store. This happened to me about five times during my time; one time the thief even threatened to call the cops on me because I was "discriminating against him" by refusing to take his ten games which coincidentally all were in Blockbuster containers. With the receipt stating the return date (three days prior) also stuck in one of them.

Your best bet for protection? Always right[sic] down serial numbers! It makes it 85% more likely that you will get your property back.

One problem with this-- few video games come with serial numbers anymore. Typically it's only the systems themselves which have s/ns, and even then the computer requires us to track 'em. Nintendo's recently been putting brochures with "redemption codes" in a few of their games, but it's just box spam that isn't attached to the cartridge or disc itself, so it's no good.

So don't go describing EB as a pawn shop. It isn't.

It wasn't, technically. Since now (at least at my local store in Olean, NY) EB can give cash for games, it falls under the category of "pawn shop" (in my admittedly non-lawyer dictionary). Previously EB got around having to have a pawn license by only issuing store credit.

I left EB because I got sick of having to deal with dishonest fucktards. Not ironically, I took a job in phone tech support immediately afterwards. I'm still looking for a new job.

Oh, and don't hate all the EB employees, please. Some of us-- well, maybe 15% of the clerks-- know what we're talking about and aren't actively trying to screw you over. Not all the time, anyway. ([Shadowcabbit] remembers the time he sold a Dreamcast to a grandmother who thought it was a portable game system.)

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[black mariah]

Insightful my balls, this moron mentions THE EXACT FUCKING REASON for the disparity of interest from the cops and still has no clue why the hell it's there.

"In my parent's town (small town Kansas)"

SMALL TOWN, DUMBASS. San Diego is a large area with far more criminals than police. In small towns there are far fewer crimes in general to handle so the police have more time to work on robery cases. Our house is in a fairly new addition to the city we live in (pop. 50,000 or so, but we're a suburb of a much larger city) and we've had shit stolen on three occasions. Each time we called the cops and each time they did nothing. Was I pissed? Fuck no. They have better shit to worry about than my guitars. How about instead of bitching about what a shitty job the cops do, go join the force. If you think you could manage better, you're free to do so.

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[black mariah]

If it's so open and shut, then your coworker should be filing a small claims suit against the guy's daughter's boyfriend.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Shoot them and bury them in an unmarked grave, and nothing will happen to you. Just make you kill them, since surviving theives can still sue you.

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[sjames]

However, since they willfully violated other laws meant to prevent the selling of stolen goods, it might be argued that they were not good faith buyers. Selling the victim's goods back to her at a profit doesn't help their case any (if it ever gets to a jury or many small claims judges, they'll WANT to find against EB just for that).

The very LEAST they could do is sell it back for what they paid!

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[VargrX]

Problem: if you have a gun and the thief is unarmed you are the one they send to pound me in the ass prison. Even if they are armed you have to be SURE they are going to physically hurt you or your family or you are required to just watch them walk off with your shit. Touch them and you get charged with assault.

not neccessarily true, it's state/county dependant. I don't know where you live, but I live in Upstate NY, and the county law here on this pretty clearly state's that, basically,
if you are not law-enforcement personnel entering a person's domicile without thier express permission, as soon as you place one foot/hand/appendage into an opening (be it a door, window, etc), that person has the right to take forceful measure's against your entering that property, upto and including the use of firearm's
. I've had my home broken into previously, and the time that I'm referencing, I happened to be home (let my brother borrow the truck). Stupid bastard didn't realize that I was home, at least he didn't until I shot him. The court's didn't penalize me for it, and kinda thanked my for not making another homicide statistic

Set traps and that is a another whole world of shit altogether.

unfortuneatly, it is... but one can alway's dream, can't they..?

And lets not forget YOU are held liable if the thieves steal your gun and then use it in a crime.

alway's, and that's the way it should be. If you are stupid enough to have unsecured firearms laying around without a damn good reason, you deserve what you get. If your paranoid enough to sleep with a firearm that isn't secured, then you should be paranoid enough to be alerted somehow (gut feel, etc) that something is not right in your world, and you are going to need that firearm to correct it, ergo, the bastard that just broke into your home should only be meeting the business end of said firearm.

Re:issue?

[cgenman]

As a wiser man once pointed out, stealing something does not change ownership. Buying something that was stolen does not make you the owner, as the person you bought the item from has no ownership rights to transfer.

If she could match the serial number on the unit, the woman should rightfully walk out of the store with her playstation. It is her possession every bit as much as if she had bought one from the cashier, and the store being defauded doesn't change that. The only thing that could stop her is if the store needed that as a form of evidence against the perpetrator. However, the store has already expressed a lack of interest in pursuing that avenue.

While Electronics Boutique is notorious for poor magement (pushing pre-orders at the expense of sales, for example), trafficing in stolen merchandise steps over quite a few lines. Somebody's head should roll for this.

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[Daetrin]

Typically, conservatives are more likely to shoot the guy who tried burgling his house.

Only a certain subset of conservatives are gun nuts. Most of the conservatives i know in orange county are the spoiled rich types who think the world was made to serve them just because they were born into a rich family, and i don't think most of them have guns.

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[droopus]

Laws differ from state to state. Here are some tidbits from CT.

I have several handguns, including a Glock 19 with an M-6 tac light and laser just for home protection. In my state, I must carry concealed. If someone threatens me outside my home (even on my property) I must attempt a retreat. If the other guy chases me into my home, I can fill him full of very large holes. It's happened here numerous times and the shooter walks away, eventually.

If you are carjacked by someone with a weapon (any weapon), you can pull out your handgun and if he does not immediately exit the vehicle, you can empty your clip into his face. My wife carries a Seecamp for this very reason.

If a robber breaks into my home for any reason I can shoot him, as long as I am damn sure he intended harm or burglary. There is no situation in this state where I have to "watch him walk off with my shit." I would hold him at gunpoint and call 911.

If a person threatens me with imminent, severe physical or deadly force outside my home (on or off my property) I can again, fill the motherfucker full of holes. This is the typical fender-bender scene where one guy gets out with a tire iron and starts running towards the other driver. Pull out your P7, assure him that he is five seconds from death, and he will suddenly calm down and get out his insurance info.

I often wonder what the soccer moms at Stop and Shop would think if they knew the guy comparing prices on ground beef next to them was carrying an H&K P7 loaded with +P+ copper jacketed hollow points.

When I took my safety course a while back, I was told a startling fact: 3 out of ten people on the street in some cities are packing. In 1989 in those same cities, 1 out of 20 was carrying a firearm.

Yeah, Connecticut is a real liberal state. hehe

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Their stronger, more courageous ancestors did. These are all just lazy, complacent, obese bastards.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Arnold isn't opposed to gay marriage, you fucking dipshit.

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[Anonymous Coward]

The difference here is that they have quotas for traffic violations.

(Nevermind the fact that it's theoretically possible to have fewer violations than the quota, in which case they would be obligated to trump up bogus offenses to meet it)

There is no such quota for serious crime, or even disciplinary action for disregarding it. What do you think they're going to do if left to their own devices?

Re:issue?

[mutewinter]

Hmm, read an article the other day where the guy called the police, they said they were understaffed, so he called back and told them that they didn't need to come because he had already shot the intruder -- multiple cops were their in minutes. Too bad I lost the url, funny story.

Its really sad that the best guys in our legal system are too busy making sure than a billionaire doesn't illegally make a couple thousand extra bucks in order to ensure the longevity of their own careers. Unfortunately for these kids, theres also a good chance that they won't even make it to the system -- they'll get shot dead by a homeowner that owns a gun.

These kids need to play more Grand Theft Auto 3.

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[silas_moeckel]

OK to as much as this is flame bait. Have you ever considered prioitizing cops into real crime aka no more eating doughnuts running a speed trap. That would mean no busiting drug dealers and pimps and concentrating on the harder to catch but more damaging thieves and killers. It's all debatable becuase everybody has different priorities but if your forced to selectivly enforce the law wich I think most cops are made to do on a regular basis then the population should have to decide. Scary concept to line item the budget and it it dosent get vodet in they dont go out of there way to enforce it. Course that wouldbe the people deciding what they need rather then our elected bad or worse government.

Re:issue?

[bryanp]

Unfortunately for these kids, theres also a good chance that they won't even make it to the system -- they'll get shot dead by a homeowner that owns a gun.

Unfortunately? "Kids?" 17 year old thugs on a B&E and assault? If they end up shot to death in self-defense by some law-abiding legally armed homeowner such as myself that will be a good thing for society as a whole.

Yeah, I'm getting crabby as I get older. Damned kids. *grump*

Re:issue?

[SteveXE]

Everyone should just email EB and say they wont shop there ever again unless they fix the problem and get the money back to the victim. They are a big company then can eat the loss with no problem.

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a way to force the police to investigate.
You go to the judge and get him to order the police to investigate. I believe it is called a writ of mandamus. It is an order issued by the court to force a an action. I belive you will have to go to a superior judge for this to happen, and conceivably it could be taken all the way to the supreme court.

Re:issue?

[Old Uncle Bill]

And lets not forget YOU are held liable if the thieves steal your gun and then use it in a crime. alway's, and that's the way it should be.
Incorrect. If you report it stolen, as you should typically notice when one of your firearms is stolen, there is nothing they can do.

Re:issue?

[paxmark1]

FBI is not too busy to indict my pacifist friends in Des Moines Iowa to go in front of a federal grand jury. It took two senators and numerous college presidents (the meeting in question was an open meeting at Drake University) to have the feds drop the subpoena on a Quaker, a Catholic and a Methodist. No, they waste their time on bullshit way too often and do not go after things tht would be quite solvable. Priorities of police and feds are often skewed by various types of politics.

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[Old Uncle Bill]

Sheesh, you guys should try Georgia. Carjackers can be shot on sight. Break into someone's house, bang. Hell, one of the towns near me it is a law that every homeowner MUST own a gun. Not joking. Look up Kennesaw GA. We don't play down here, and don't try to take our shit.

Re:issue?

[OgGreeb]

I don't know the details of this $30K car purchase, but based on the information provided by the poster, that kind of ripoff to the end-buyer is self-correcting. Once the news gets out that this used car dealer will sell a stolen car and leave you hanging in the wind, no reasonable person will buy another car from them without a written guarantee that the dealer will be responsible for replacing cars found to be stolen after the sale. It's not really fair to the dealer, of course, but they also have a lot to lose with car purchasers having faith/trust in buying from them. Just like the EB store, buyers have to trust what they are getting or the business' sales suffer.

Re:issue?

[JaiWing]

not to mention the confession of EB to being in possesion of the stolen goods, selling (trafficing) in the stolen goods.... aren't there FEDERAL laws about being in possesion of stolen goods? Even if you don't know it?

And by offering to SELL her back the goods, isn't that extortion? wow that is ANOTHER federal law too...
DAMN what good are laws unenforced?

Re:issue?

[skywolf]

I second this. Insurance for small to medium losses is a social evil. In my opinion, people should only really take out insurance for losses they can't afford.

I recently made a claim on the house insurance for a stolen bicycle - my only means of transport. Initially they told me I was covered - and not to buy a new bike as they'd take care of it. Three months later, I was considerably out of pocket due to transport costs, having to shop at closer - but more expensive - supermarkets and the like, and they refused my claim on a technicality. The bike was always due to be replaced 'within the week' up to the point when my insurance was turned down.

The amount of beaureacracy was dismaying. I had to fill out several forms, make several hours of telephone calls, and I ultimately had an hour long interview with someone who obviously suspected me of trying to pull a fast one. I eventually found out who stole my bike, and told the police who found it in the street, but did no further investigations. I would be willing to bet the insurance people spent more time investigating whether I was a criminal, than the police spent investigating my bike's loss.

Ultimately anyone who rides a bicycle regularly will get it stolen, so I would advise people in a similar situation to myself to put some money aside - perhaps half the amount you would normally pay in insurance. When the worst happens, you can simply repay yourself from this fund. You can't defraud yourself or run the risk of getting a criminal record for fraud you didn't commit. There's no paperwork (I spent several evenings searching through my receipts bin for proof that I owned all the items in my bike bag that were stolen). And in the interim your money is earning interest for you.

The same applies for washing-machine insurance, computer insurance, etc...

I still have 3rd party insurance in case I cycle into someone and give them brain-damage, and I still have home insurance in case I leave my soldering iron on and the house burns down. I couldn't afford to replace that.

On a deeper level, I think insurance makes people complacent. Whilst theft never compares to crimes such as domestic violence, I believe that insurance encourages people to view property loss & damage as a victimless crime - which of course it isn't.

In my halls there has been a spate of laptop thefts. A policeman recently moaned to me that 'so few foreign students [in the UK] take out insurance'. The truth is that most of them stay for less than a year, if their experiences are similar to mine, most of them would likely get fleeced by the insurance companies. And the loss of an irreplaceable laptop might have far reaching consequences for someone's grades, or the like.

Re:issue?

[CritterNYC]

Problem: if you have a gun and the thief is unarmed you are the one they send to pound me in the ass prison. Even if they are armed you have to be SURE they are going to physically hurt you or your family or you are required to just watch them walk off with your shit. Touch them and you get charged with assault. Set traps and that is a another whole world of shit altogether. And lets not forget YOU are held liable if the thieves steal your gun and then use it in a crime.
IANAL, and laws do vary from state to state and country to country, but, in general, you can be sure you are in the clear by yelling the following immediately prior to shooting: IT'S COMING RIGHT FOR US!!

Re:issue?

[geminidomino]

Our house is in a fairly new addition to the city we live in (pop. 50,000 or so, but we're a suburb of a much larger city) and we've had shit stolen on three occasions. Each time we called the cops and each time they did nothing. Was I pissed? Fuck no.

Well it's all well and good that YOU don't care about protecting yourself or your property, but you really shouldn't be hurling insults at others because THEY have a problem with some crackheaded punks running off with the possessions they paid good money for. If they have "Better shit to worry about than your guitars" then they need to stop advising people to "refrain from taking the law into thier own hands, leave it to the police." Your logic is the kind of thing that leads to vigilantism.

Re:issue?

[geminidomino]

Does the practices of a single franchise represent the entire chain? If so, then you can send the mail with a clear conscience. Otherwise, you are just punishing random companies that have no relation to the incident.

Several posters, including former employees, have made the point that all EBs are corporate stores, not franchises. So I checked ebholdings.com:

Are there franchise opportunities with Electronics Boutique? All EB stores are company owned and operated and not available as franchise opportunities

The "Franchise" excuse doesn't hold any water. This IS A corporate issue, so there's no waffling out of it.

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[Kenardy]

Dude ... a poster higher up the food chain stated clearly and unequivocably that EB stores are corporate owned ... there is no question of dealing with a franchise.

Re:issue?

[WhiteWolf666]

Err....

The red coats didn't have stealth bombers and nerve gas......

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[rooskie]

Pasco County Police aren't reknowned as the most noble of police forces. Most of the cops here are more interested in nabbing someone for doing 5 over on some back road than serving out a healthy dosage of justice.

As for the guy that runs all the local EB's (he owns about 5 in the Tampa area as far as I know), he's the dumb-asshole type. Thinks he knows everything about everything and overprices the used stock quite a bit above other EB's. I make a point to drive to Tampa instead of buy from his store that's 20 minutes closer.

Re:issue?

[zurab]

Unless Florida has decided to pass a different statute (unlikely) the position in English Common law is that the goods bellong to the original owner (except in four peculiar exceptions that certainly would not apply here).

Yes, it's called UCC 2-403:

2-403. Power to Transfer; Good Faith Purchase of Goods; "Entrusting".

(1) A purchaser of goods acquires all title which his transferor had or had power to transfer except that a purchaser of a limited interest acquires rights only to the extent of the interest purchased. A person with voidable title has power to transfer a good title to a good faith purchaser for value. When goods have been delivered under a transaction of purchase the purchaser has such power even though

(a) the transferor was deceived as to the identity of the purchaser, or

(b) the delivery was in exchange for a check which is later dishonored, or

(c) it was agreed that the transaction was to be a "cash sale", or

(d) the delivery was procured through fraud punishable as larcenous under the criminal law.

(2) Any entrusting of possession of goods to a merchant who deals in goods of that kind gives him power to transfer all rights of the entruster to a buyer in ordinary course of business.

(3) "Entrusting" includes any delivery and any acquiescence in retention of possession regardless of any condition expressed between the parties to the delivery or acquiescence and regardless of whether the procurement of the entrusting or the possessor's disposition of the goods have been such as to be larcenous under the criminal law.

Emphasis mine. Disclaimer: IANAL, so feel free to correct.

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[cbreaker]

Naa, that only happens when you're running for President and your brother is governor.

Coo! Sayth the Raven.

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[rhombic]

The tax rates in S.D. are higher, dumbass. Per capita, I'm paying more than I would be back in Kansas. Quite a bit more. So is everybody else. So, if San Diego can't figure out how to give me a decent level of police service at the ridiculous tax rates they charge, the folks back home must be fuckin' geniuses to figure out how to give better service for less money. Didn't do too well in math, did you?

Re:issue?

[Wolfrider]

--Switch insurance companies. Similar thing happened to me a couple of years ago, and State Farm went to bat for me. Actually got some money out of the stupid idiot that totalled my car.

Re:issue?

[stephanruby]

Does the practices of a single franchise represent the entire chain? If so, then you can send the mail with a clear conscience. Otherwise, you are just punishing random companies that have no relation to the incident.

If the Head Quarters or the store in question have an appropriate explanation/solution to the problem, they will reply to the email.

By the way, my conscience is clearer than yours. Instead of finding an alternate EB store to shop at, I am giving them a chance to respond and defend themselves.

Re:issue?

[zurab]

I'm curious where this "in good faith" comes from? Stolen property is just that, stolen and will/should be siezed by the police as evidence. Eventually, to be returned to the original owner.

It comes from the UCC (Uniform Commercial Code). Try googling for the UCC text, good faith purchaser, etc., or look at my other reply.

Disclaimer: IANAL.

Re:issue?

[stephanruby]

Did your friend get reimbursed fully for the damages done to the car and for the stuff that was taken from it?

If not, your friend can sue in a civil court. When in doubt, sue everyone. When you sue everyone, one of two things happen, the people you're suing start pointing fingers at each other, and/or the people you're suing pay you off and start suing each other. (-:

The standard of proof for a civil action is the "preponderance of evidence". I won't go into what it means but it's not much and it will be very easy. If you win against an insurance company, its lawyers will go after the real culprit. And if you win against the owner of the pickup, he will probably sue or settle with the boyfriend of his daughter.

Cops don't tell you about these options. Cops don't like the civil courts. Cops want their convictions. Victims want their money back. Those two goals are usually mutually exclusive.

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Police won't catch the crooks? My ShockMaster 2000 will fry them dead :)

As a European I can't figure out what makes this comment rated funny. I presume that is exactly what you will do with a catched theft, right?

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Probability, rather (not likelyhood). The point is that probabilities that are true of a group cannot be applied with *any* accuracy to any particular member of that group.

For example, a higher percentage of black people are criminals than are white people. Say 5% of black people are criminals and 3% of white people are criminals (I have no clue what the real numbers are). It is a fallacy to apply this to particular people; for example to say that John Black is more likely to be a criminal than John White. The statistic actually tells you *nothing* about John Black.

Hence the illegality of racial profiling. What is true of a group is not necessarily true of each member of the group.

So, even if the statistics were that 99% of all pawnshop items were stolen, that would be *zero* evidence with regard to any particular pawnshop item, and it would be wrong for the state to restrict my selling of it.

Now, if you want to talk specific evidence, like missing serial numbers, fine. That at least picks out *this* individual item. It's not that probabilities are irrelevant, it's that you have to have one that you know can be applied to the current item. A scraped-off serial number is an indication that *this* item might be stolen.

Re:issue?

[Lectrik]

Mostly OT
We live in North East Florida, so we deal with the same state level laws but different local law enforcement.

We had a B&E once at the house, one of the punk kids down the street. I was out checking on a wounded fox around 9 pm and as I'm walking back toward the house (one disadvantage of 10 acres is that it's 10 acres) I see someone walking up the driveway.

There's realy no excuse for kids to just wander up the drive way, you have to go thru 2 gates one at the street and one in the fence around the area we keep mowed (close to 1/8 of a mile from the street) So I just chill and lean against a tree at the edge of the yard and watch as the person continues toward the house looking around. Once he wasn't looking around as much I circled wide and started to follow him, making sure I kept in the shadows since I caught sight of something long in his right hand. At the time I had on heavy clothing, thick gloves and some basic medical stuff (she had been shot and I had her leg in a splint) so as he was getting closer to the house I started to get closer.

I was standing less than 10 feet from the kid when he smashed one of the bedroom windows, I rushed up and grabbed him by the ankles and pulled him back as he tried to crawl in. He dropped the crowbar as he left the window which hung for a second and then fell on him. That had him out for a few minutes during which I tied his hands and feet with the bandages in my kit. With him temporarilly tied like that I ran into the house and grabbed some rope from the pantry and the portable phone and rushed back out the door.

I called the cops to report an armed breaking and entering in progress and the operator said that a car was on the way. An hour and a half later the cop shows up and asks me why there is a kid bound to the tree by the porch.

I didn't get charged with anything, because i was defending my home from an armed invader. The officer said I probably shouldn't have tied him to the tree though. It's a good thing for him I wasn't carrying something to shoot him with, I realy don't beleive in shooting to wound, having dealt with so many animals that had been shot that way.

I heard later that week they searched the house the kid lived in, there having been quite a few break-ins on the street in the past few months, and they found quite a lot of stolen stuff, up to the point there was a stolen ATV in his garage behind a pile of boxes and a tarp.

Though to get slightly back to the topic at hand:
All the stolen property was seized for evidence, and then afterward returned to the owners.

Re:issue?

[CrazyDuke]

Good for you. I caught a couple of punks in the act, but they spotted me approaching and ran. Good thing too, cop basically said he would have charged me with assaulting a minor (or two) had I touched them. Maybe the law is really anal in Virginia. ...or maybe the local cops are just assholes. :P

Re:issue?

[That's Unpossible!]

As a wiser man once pointed out, stealing something does not change ownership. Buying something that was stolen does not make you the owner, as the person you bought the item from has no ownership rights to transfer.

And as an even wiser man than your wise man once said, "Possession is nine tenths of the law."

Re:issue?

[Syberghost]

In Florida, she has multiple avenues.

If the city police won't help her, the county Sheriff might, because in Florida they both have jurisdiction in the cities.

If they won't help, she can go to the State Attorney's office.

However, all will require proof of ownership. If she doesn't have that, then obviously there is nothing the police can do, and nothing EB should do. If they had to return anything that somebody claimed was stolen without proof, they'd be full of empty shelves.

Re:issue?

[LWATCDR]

1. Was the thief charged and arrested? If so the police should have gone to the store not the victim to recover her lost stuff. If she was trying to be nice and not have the thief arrested then that was a mistake.

2. EB is stupid to think that stuff like this will go un noticed. Goodbye EB hello Ebay for me. This will cost them a 100 times more than they made for this one deal.
3. EB is going to be busted so big for not following the hold ten days law. Why? The DA will love this. Big company breaks law and rips of the little guy. The press and the locals will eat this up. They might even be charged with knowingly selling stolen goods.

Re:issue?

[jafuser]

Where do I declare my citizenship to Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong?

Get some Rat Things after those punks and they won't be coming back any time soon...

They're a lot more useful than those useless MetaCops...

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. Diebold ensures me that my vote counts, especially if there's an (R) in the candidate string.

Re:issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Time for RoboCob!

I could make a corny joke about this, but I'll refrain... oops! Too late.

Re:issue?

[zurab]

How would that be different from any of the other scams people try, like torching their own buildings and collecting the insurance? I'm sure it would be covered by existing laws, such as "filing false police reports."

Obviously, with home insurance there's more money involved and insurance companies have or hire their own professional investigators and lawyers. With a smaller claim like few stolen video games, police are not likely to investigate as fully, especially once they get a confession; so a deceived party would have to do their own investigation and produce hard evidence, then sue in court to win the judgement, and then actually try to get paid from a scam artist who was possibly short on cash to begin with.

Yes, it's possible, but it hardly makes any sense for a few video games worth $100-$200. So, as I said, I would give them at least some benefit of the doubt.

Also, IANAL, but I am guessing since they have a confession in this specific case, it would be pretty much a slam dunk for the victim to get her money back in a small claims court; but not as easy for EB. I believe UCC is clear on these types of cases. Without it, police would have to track down the customers who have already bought the Playstation and other goods in question and take them away. Then, everyone who bought any of the confiscated items in question would be able to sue the thief individually. With the UCC, the victim can go directly after the thief. IMO, it's not as much a deal as people are making out of it.

Re:issue?

[twalk]

You most definitely can be charged with stealing your own stuff. A few years ago a bank foreclosed on a grain elevator. The bank then tried to claim all of the grain, even though the elevator was being paid to store grain owned by local farmers. One farmer decided just to go up there and haul off his grain. He ended up in jail...

Re:issue?

[Retired Replicant]

Well, in California your taxes go to pay for all them liberal social welfare programs that attract illegal immigrants like a picnic basket attracts ants. There is probably some state-run program to boost the self esteem of the criminal who robbed you in the hope that he will see the error of his ways, but no money to round up the illegals and cart them back to the border, and no money to put up a real, SECURE border.

Re:issue?

[Sigma 7]

Are there franchise opportunities with Electronics Boutique? All EB stores are company owned and operated and not available as franchise opportunities

The "Franchise" excuse doesn't hold any water. This IS A corporate issue, so there's no waffling out of it.

I didn't know that, but similar principles hold regardless of whether its a corporate chain or franchise.

For franchises, there are a set of guidelines on how you should operate your business. If you break them, then you will no longer be an authorized franchizee, and must either sell your business, return your business to the standard code, or remove references to the franchise (e.g. split off).

In the coperate chain, each store must also abide by the same set of rules. If the manager refuses to do the correct action, the proper procedure is to contact the store manager's boss (preferably via return-receipt mail - that gets attention), along with the usual flak generators (media/police/etc).

While franchising and coporate chains are
different, they both follow similar organizational structures where individual stores need to report to some form of supervisor. In this case, the best chance is to climb the corporate ladder when sending messages to the company, such as targetting the equivalent of a person managing multiple stores in an area. As soon as he or she knows one of his stores has become a fence for stolen goods, he probably wants to take action before it becomes too much of a problem.

If contacting that supervisor doesn't work, go one step further (and perhaps using return-receipt mail, in order to increase attention.) If there is actually no response whatsoever from a large quantity of letters to upper management, then there is a major problem with the company. Most likely, you will receive a form letter stating that the incident will be investiaged, which is better than nothing.

Re:issue?

[JuggleGeek]

Sounds like you should vote to raise taxes and hire some more police.

If they hire more police, they'll just write more speeding tickets and complain about houses with weeds too high in the alley and arrest people for smoking pot and such. The cops don't attempt to catch plain-old-regular criminals, because they don't find it profitable.

Re:issue?

[goatan]

but at that point, it isnt the police's job to strong arm EB into providing restitution. That burden lies in the arms of the courts

Actually common human decency means EB should have anyway and surely the police should arrest them for dealing in stolen goods.

Re:issue?

[Ben Hutchings]

Do you pay a monthly fee per box? If so then I think you are renting them from Cox and I can understand Cox being keen to recover its property (not yours).

Re:issue?

[xrxzzy]

This enrages me beyond belief. Someone from EB Games needs to be in jail along side the little slime ball that ripped the nice lady off. I cannot speak for Florida, but in Colorado, the minute EB Games refused to return her property to her, that person became guilty of theft by receiving stolen property. If they sold any of the merchandise after finding out it was stolen, then they are guilty of fencing. (I forget the legal term they use when you get charged with that.) So why the hell aren't the police and the DA working together to bring charges against the dirtballs at EB Games? The article clearly states they violated at least one Florida statute. If EB wants to play hard ball, fine. Let's how tough and mean they are sitting at the defense table. I've done my last bit of business with EB Games. I don't need anything they have bad enough to help support the local fencing operation.

EB isn't exempt from state laws...

[LostCluster]

It seems like EB's operations in Florida are illegal because under state law they have to hold any used good they buy for 15 days specifically to allow for any such claim of theft to be made. EB clearly sold some of the goods before that time, so they're in trouble.

So, now, the only question is why it's a local TV station pointing this out instead of the local police? EB's used goods operation isn't complying with state law. That's the bigger problem...

Re:EB isn't exempt from state laws...

[screwballicus]

And so they maintain that their profiting from the illegal sale of stolen goods should be upheld.

I assume there is some applicable hefty fine for their infringing on state law. Their not offering the customer the small amount of money she is owed as a result of their infraction is just mind-boggling.

I have to think this is not an "evil corporation" issue. Evil corporations are perfectly happy to pay small amounts of money to uphold an image of benevolence. I think this is more likely an "incredibly stupid store manager" issue.

Re:EB isn't exempt from state laws...

[Monkelectric]

I think the reason for the hard line from EB is that they know theft is a HUGE part of their business. Think about what easy money this is, no messy stock, shipping, delays, restocking, just profit and NO LIABILITY.

We don't have any EB stores where I live, but we have KB's and Game Stop, both of which sell used games, and I have to tell you their prices are horrible. Both places price games 5$ under retail. I can't imagine not paying the extra 5$ to get a new copy.

Re:EB isn't exempt from state laws...

[CrazyLion]

EB used products business deserves serious scrutiny. In my area all EB stores stock comprehensive selection of bootleg DVDs. Moreover, employees are very much aware of the fact that DVDs they sell are bootlegs.

Re:EB isn't exempt from state laws...

[NormalVisual]

Yeah, most sole-props have an "Investor Relations" link on their website. Dumbass.

Re:EB isn't exempt from state laws...

[Anonymous Coward]

The police are probably off working for some large corporation helping to enforce Inellectual Property Infingements.

Re:EB isn't exempt from state laws...

[Monkelectric]

Wow, are they high quality bootlegs (hard to tell from the original)? Or are they obvious fakes? Its a tough call, but you might want to inform the MPAA. I know the mpaa is unpopular but this is the kind of activity we DO want them pursuing.

Re:EB isn't exempt from state laws...

[CrazyLion]

They are obvious fakes, but EB mostly stocks anime. Most companies that license anime in US aren't MPAA members.

Re:EB isn't exempt from state laws...

[Anonymous Coward]

Both places price games 5$ under retail. I can't imagine not paying the extra 5$ to get a new copy.

You're supposed to barter...

Re:EB isn't exempt from state laws...

[Daetrin]

They are obvious fakes, but EB mostly stocks anime. Most companies that license anime in US aren't MPAA members.

That is like the multitudinous stores i know who specialize in anime merchandise and have huge racks of pirated CDs. I have no idea if the rest of their goods are legit, but it's easy to check the CDs.

I've thought about tipping off the RIAA, except as you said, most of the copyright holders aren't RIAA members, so i'm not sure it would do any good. So i just try to avoid buying anything at those kinds of stores (except for occasional relapses when my girlfriend really _really_ wants an anime figure that i can only find there =P)

It's really frigging annoying that the RIAA/MPAA is wasting so much time going after unimportant stuff like swaping files when there's _real_ piracy going on right under their noses.

Re:EB isn't exempt from state laws...

[cbreaker]

Ohh yea, duhh... just like all of us do at the local stores in the mall. You: "Take $50 for this TV?" Salesperson: "No. Tag says $75 moron."

Bartering isn't commonplace anymore, unless of course you're buying a car and don't want to be charged double.

Re:EB isn't exempt from state laws...

[Hoarke42]

You're supposed to barter...
You mean as in "I'll give you 5 lbs of freshly churned butter and 100 of hog meat for this game" bartering?
Or do you mean haggling?

Call the police!

[Anonymous Coward]

The article mentions her writing letters and going to the store, but never mentions police. If you believe a merchant has stolen goods, call the cops!

Re:Call the police!

[LostCluster]

The police already should have known where to go to find here stolen goods, they just have to read the thief's own confession...

Re:Call the police!

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is clear as mud, but it sounds like she unilaterally decided to pay this scumbag merchant without ever going to the cops. On the other end, maybe they didn't believe the thief or were still investigating. You do have a role in obtaining justice for yourself. It may also be a sweeps week over-blowing of a story. Something's missing as the story doesn't make much sense to me. If she had gone with the cops to see the merchant, she would have gotten her stuff back without the fuss.

Re:Call the police!

[whitehat]

That is like asking them to close down the local donut shop! Where do you think they get THEIR games?

Dealing in stolen goods?

[Zocalo]

Wouldn't this make EB themselves liable to prosecution for knowingly dealing in stolen goods? They don't seem to be denying that the goods are stolen from the bit about seeking restitution from the thief, which is pretty much an admission of guilt if that is the case. Anyone know for sure?

Re:Dealing in stolen goods?

[bloodrose]

That statement itself seems more like a brush off than an admission of guilt. That EB location seems to be saying, well if you really believe this was your stollen property, prove it, and catch the theif yourself kind of thing.

Re:Dealing in stolen goods?

[MikeBabcock]

Proceeds of a crime is a crime itself in the US and Canada.

Re:Dealing in stolen goods?

[clarkcox3]

Umm, RTFA, The thief had already been caught, and had confessed to selling the goods to that EB location.

Re:Dealing in stolen goods?

[Richard_at_work]

And what makes me chuckle is that if you gain proceeds through a crime and you do not declare them to the IRS or Inland Revenue (in the UK), not only can you be charged with the crime itself, butyou can be charged with tax evasion. Thats right, for a hooker it is illegal for her or her pimp to live off immoral earnings, but its perfectly ok for the IRS to tax you on those immoral earnings.

Re:Dealing in stolen goods?

[JaredOfEuropa]

They don't seem to be denying that the goods are stolen from the bit about seeking restitution from the thief, which is pretty much an admission of guilt if that is the case

If they bought the goods in good faith and only learned of them being stolen afterwards, then they did not 'knowingly deal in stolen goods'. In that case, do they have to return the goods to the owner without compensation? Over here, buying stolen goods in good faith means that you get to keep them... the original owner will have to seek restitution from the thief.

Re:Dealing in stolen goods?

[Sycraft-fu]

That's because one has nothing to do with the other. Tax law says you have to pay tax on all income you make. It doesn't specify the source. There's no provision that income is to be taxed "only if from legal sources". So if you are doing something illegal that makes a profit, you need to report the earnings if you don't want to get busted on taxes. Does that make it easier for them to track you down? You bet. That's too damn bad, guess you shouldn't be in an illegal bussiness.

I don't see any problems at all with the law.

Re:Dealing in stolen goods?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aparently the law in florida deals with this differently if you are a private citizen than if you are a commercial entity.

If the theif had sold the stolen goods to a private citizen who did not operate a business, then that citizen would be facing jail time for "receiving stolen goods", but since the theif sold this stuff to EB Games, which is a commercial entity, there is no criminal statute that gets automatically enforced (even though they have the confession of the perp), and it is up to the victem to force the existing law to be enforced by filing in civil court. Florida law does state that the recieving business must re;lenquish the goods to the rightful owner or to the police, but does not dictate any penalty, fine or other measure in order to make it the interest of the business to do this.

IMO, EB Games should be liable for the cost of the goods, any inconvenience to the owner of the goods, and there should be criminal penalties (ie: recieving stolen goods) leveed against the employee who made the purchase, the manager whpo instructed him to do so, and the owner of the business who set in place the policies to traffic in possibly stolen goods without complying with the existing laws governing the resale of used equipment.

Many states do have rules requiriong pawnshops and other used equipment dealers to record the serial numbers of equipment they have for resale along with the name and address of the person they purchased it from in order thatthe police might be able to check for goods reported stolen. I do not know if florida has taken this step or not. I t is a good idea.

Re:Dealing in stolen goods?

[One Louder]

In the United States, even if you bought the stolen goods in "good faith", you must still relinquish them to the original owner without compensation.

Any compensation should be sought from the person who sold them to you.

If the article is factual, EB is clearly on the wrong side of both the law and ethics in this case.

Re:Dealing in stolen goods?

[Fiz Ocelot]

Of course, I find it absolutely ludicrious that they are offering to sell the stolen goods back to the rightful owner! They know it's not legal to sell stolen goods, and they're just making themselves look like THE most greedy bastards on the planet!

I think I will go elsewhere for my future game purchases.

Re:Dealing in stolen goods?

[Fermier de Pomme de]

What would happen if she walked in a bought her goods back? Could she then file a complaint that would land the clerk and manager in the penn for a few years? The goods are indeed stolen and the store at this point knows that they are and would have thus sold stolen goods. I wonder if the applicable statutes exclude selling goods to the legit owner or if EB would somehow still be violating the law? Does it say that you can't sell stolen goods except if you sell them back to the original owner? Somehow I doubt it.

Re:Dealing in stolen goods?

[swv3752]

Better yet, go into EB and start loudly questioning the legal status of second hand goods. Quiz the sales jockey on how long they are holding second hand merchandise. Question them on thier policies regarding claims that stolen goods were sold to them.

Re:Dealing in stolen goods?

[RomulusNR]

Only if you knew they were stolen before you bought or sold them.

Re:Dealing in stolen goods?

[mark-t]

The law says that the original owner is entitled to receive his goods, period. Anyone who paid for them, even if they had done so in "good faith" is out of pocket for what they paid for it, and is supposed to seek restitution from the person that they got them from.

EB, having already sold one of the victim's pieces of equipment before the 15 day holding period is up is obligated to replace that equipment with EB footing the bill. EB is completely free, however, to seek restitution from the thief. That they suggest that this woman be the one to take such action shows a rather profound ignorance of the law.

Well,

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

time to go hock my neighbor's jewelry at EB!

Re:Well,

[fatgraham]

Why make two trips? I'm going to take them off the shelves at EB and then sell them back to the store withouth leaving the premises

Re:Well,

[Anonymous Coward]

hawk

Its illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like EB's operations in Florida are illegal because under state law they have to hold any used good they buy for 15 days specifically to allow for any such claim of theft to be made. EB clearly sold some of the goods before that time, so they're in trouble.

Company policy law?

[CarrionBird]

Seems to be the case nowadays. Feh.

The hell..?

[Lewis Daggart]

So they buy stolen goods without checking. They dont hold it forthe required 15 days. They then refuse to reimburse the person for the goods they illegally sold. They refuse to return the goods (without pay) that they unknowingly receaved through illegal channels. I was under the impression that in a case like this, EB should be returning the goods and seeking restitution from the thief, while the person who's property was stolen gets their goods back from EB. Of course, I'm no lawyer, but that's only common sense.

Re:The hell..?

[BCW2]

The sad fact is that common sense and the law have not recognized each other in 50 years. If common sense is not dead in this country, it is barely sustained by life support. This is related to the legal system and justice wich have very little in common anymore. I don't think they are on speaking terms.

EB is wrong in this case twice and will suffer a customer backlash, if it gets the publicity it deserves. The only thing that gets a corporations attention anymore is a big hit in the wallet.

Re:The hell..?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, I'm no lawyer, but that's only common sense.

Oh, hi! You must be new here!

Re:The hell..?

[pla]

EB is wrong in this case twice and will suffer a customer backlash, if it gets the publicity it deserves. The only thing that gets a corporations attention anymore is a big hit in the wallet.

This unfortunately has the potential to help EB's PR, though - It provides free advertising about a fact they cannot legally announce - That they will accept and resell stolen property, and do their damnedest to block any attempts to prove the theft or to restore the stolen property to its rightful owner.

Now, most legit purchasers may find this a tad unsavory, but will just assume it doesn't apply if they only buy new merchandise. Quite a few people, however, will consider this a godsend to getting shady "used" merchandise.


Of course, personally, I don't understand why people even still shop at places like EB. If you know exactly what you want, search for it online. You can usually get it for around half-price compared to local stores, and that before you consider not having to pay sales tax. My most recent example - I bought a few seasons of a popular TV series (won't say what, because I got it as a gift for someone, who reads Slashdot) on DVD. Local retail chains had them for a total of just over $200. Amazon had them for $170. Looking around online, and using two different stores (one had a horrible price on the first season, apparently they used that one as the money maker for the discount on the rest), I managed to get them all for under $120 including shipping.

Re:The hell..?

[thefinite]

That *is also* how the law works. IAALS (I am a law student), and one of the most fundamental principles of property law in the US is that in almost every case, your rights to property are only as good as the rights of the person you got the property from. The exclusions to this rule are very narrow, and EB doesn't even come close. If you buy stolen goods, your rights to the goods are only as good as the theif's, even if you buy the goods not knowing they were stolen.

Even if EB had waited the necessary time to sell the goods, that doesn't mean that EB had the *right* to sell the goods. It just meant that they wouldn't have violated that particular law. EB can sue the thief. The victim can sue both. Although I am sickened by frivolously litigious people, the legal system really does protect people like her. In court, EB would get kicked around for this kind of behavior.

Re:The hell..?

[BCW2]

EB's biggest thing is games. For a new release you will not find enough of a price difference to offset the shipping charges. It's actually better to go to Wal-Mart and get the latest game a week or two later for about $5.00 less than EB will charge for the next 3 months.

Older games are almost always a better deal on-line.

Re:The hell..?

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad fact is that common sense and the law have not recognized each other in 50 years. If common sense is not dead in this country, it is barely sustained by life support. This is related to the legal system and justice wich have very little in common anymore. I don't think they are on speaking terms.

Since this is such an authortative statement, I'd appreciate it if you would give out your BBO number or badge number. Surely somone so well versed in the intricacies of the law over the past 50 years must either be an experienced lawyer or a police chief by now. Otherwise, shut the fuck up because you don't know what you're talking about (just like evey other armchair lawyer on slashdot).

I have only one thing to say...

[ChaosMog]

In Soviet Russia, stolen goods sell YOU!

Re:I have only one thing to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

The apparently do here in the US too as you can see, those goods sold EB right up the river.

Well, EB broke at least one law

[Raleel]

as stated in the article, they didn't hold them for 15 days, specifically designed for preventing this sort of thing.

But isn't there a law on the books about buying stolen goods? I always thought that that was a crime as well.

EB is obviously not looking at the big picture here. They want to recoup the cost of the stuff that they bought. However, a good response here (like giving her her stuff and sucking the loss), is going to win a good customer (this store did the right thing, that's why I purchase from them).

Re:Well, EB broke at least one law

[LostCluster]

Yep... the $200 or so profit they made in this transaction is defintely not worth being broadcast on a local TV news "Hall of Shame" segment.

Re:Well, EB broke at least one law

[njcoder]

Ther'es probably a reason why EB doesn't return the goods. Doing so acknowledges that what they did was wrong. They also set a precedent for how they react to this sort of thing, so that if this sort of thing happens (has happened) to another person they would be obliged to retun the money to the other people as well. Not a legal precedent but it does have bearing.

So, lets consider this. The thief knew he could take it to EB and not worry about it. What Florida should be concerned about is not only getting back this woman's property/compensating for illegaly sold property, but also looking into other similar cases. My bet is that either EB is concerned there might be many more, or already knows there are more based on their reaction in this case... why they're not doing the right thing.

Re:Well, EB broke at least one law

[Masem]

The thing is, how was that EB Games to know the good swere stolen? A young adult, the type that would own a PS2 and games, came in to trade the stuff for cash (assuming the same policy works for GameStop, kids can only trade in for store credit, adults for either), and without able to check on the unit or the person selling it, the EB Games would think that the whole deal was legit.

Not that there is still the problems of 1) selling the items back within 15 days from being bought, and 2) the way they're still trying to treat this as a normal bill-of-sale. Both of these are something that EB does have full control of, and particularly of the last one, is really bad service (presumably, we're talking at most $500 of goods that need to be accounted for, a PS2, mem cards, and several games, based on the numbers tossed in the article) and the amount is a trivial thing to be arguing over.

I will state that, at least for the number of GameStops I've been in, they will try to go head first in to help the customer, as far as reason can go. This could be a limited case of franschising stupidity.

Re:Well, EB broke at least one law

[An. (Coward)]

EB is obviously not looking at the big picture here. They want to recoup the cost of the stuff that they bought.

They want to do more than that...they wouldn't even sell the stuff back for what they paid the thief. They were offering to sell them back to the victim at a profit.

Re:Well, EB broke at least one law

[Anonymous Coward]

You think Florida has a "Hall of Shame"?

Re:Well, EB broke at least one law

[mark-t]

[EB returning the goods] acknowledges that what they did was wrong...

It doesn't matter whether they acknowledge it or not. It *WAS* wrong.

It doesn't matter whether or not you know that stuff you bought was stolen, if it turns out to be, you're just plain out of pocket for whatever you spent on it unless you go after the thief for restitution.

Re:Well, EB broke at least one law

[mdw2]

getting on the hall of shame for knowingly accepting stolen property (or at least accepting it without question or even watning to know) will get them a lot more sales from those who STEAL property.

Re:Well, EB broke at least one law

[njcoder]

"It doesn't matter whether they acknowledge it or not. It *WAS* wrong. "

The fact that it was wrong apparently doesn't mean much. While EB broke they law, they didn't steal the actual items from her. Just because they're wrong doesn't mean that she won't have to go to court to fight it. Who knows. By that time, maybe they would have sold all her stuff. Why haven't the policed taken the property back? I would have thought they would have at least taken it as evidence. Maybe they don't need evidence since they have a confession.

The point is this. If they give people like this a hard time in getting their stolen property back, chances are some people might not bother going through the legal expense to get them back. If they just give the items back easily, they'll be expected to do so every time.

That's my point... this doesn't seem like this was a one time thing. They're acting as if they have to worry about a lot of similiar type incidents. I'm not saying what they're doing is excusable. I'm saying their actions indicate someone should look into this further and see if there were other such cases. Their actions lead me to believe there are.

Also, consider that just because someone does something wrong, doesn't mean they automatically have to make it up to the person that was wronged. The theif in this instance is going to be punished in some way. The punishment isn't really going to benefit the victim. Maybe he goes to jail, does community service or something. If the victim wants some sort of restitution they have to do so in civil court. Same thing with EB. Like when the SEC fines some company for screwing over investors. Do you think any of that money goes back to the investors in most cases? The company does something that screws investors and the SEC collects money for it. The SEC must look forward to companies breaking their regulations.

Re:Well, EB broke at least one law

[mark-t]

If they just give the items back easily, they'll be expected to do so every time

That's *EXACTLY* what they would be expected to do... especially since that's the only legal option.

Or is it naive to expect a business to actually want to follow the law, even when it's not in their immediate financial best interests to do so?

If so, I'd say that store also needs to be subjected to a tax audit.

Re:Well, EB broke at least one law

[njcoder]

" Or is it naive to expect a business to actually want to follow the law, even when it's not in their immediate financial best interests to do so? "

Sadly, in many cases it is.

Gee, what a surprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

EB has only be stealing from customers figuratively with selling games they pay $20 (in credit, mind you) for back to $47.99. $2 off used instead of new for a $50. Wow, how thoughtful.

Of course, that's provided that you buy new and your "new" game isn't simply a re-shrinked used game being sold as new.

Next up on the list of EB crimes against consumers will be punching you in the face after each purchase, followed by stealing back what you just bought.

Re:Gee, what a surprise.

[Tyler Eaves]

Well, that's one way to look at it. I see it as a no-hassle way of getting rid of games I've already completed, and get something back for it.

Re:Gee, what a surprise.

[weave]

When Diablo 2 was hot, EB near where I live had plenty of used copies in just the jewel case, shrink wrapped, with the product key showing. Nice way to jot down and get a legit code for playing a bootleg copy online. I couldn't believe EB was so stupid.

Also, a few months ago I went to buy a new Game Cube for my nephew's birthday and they tried to hard sell me into buy a used console.

I honestly don't know why vendors (both software and hardware) just stop selling them stuff. They do all they can to steer you from buying new and getting used, and that's sales lost to the vendors.

Re:Gee, what a surprise.

[shadowcabbit]

When Diablo 2 was hot, EB near where I live had plenty of used copies in just the jewel case, shrink wrapped, with the product key showing. Nice way to jot down and get a legit code for playing a bootleg copy online. I couldn't believe EB was so stupid.

When I worked there, I caught on to that pretty quick and started double-shrinking stuff with "conveniently" placed price tags. My manager complained until I told him why I did it. He still wasn't happy about it until, on my recommendation, he bought a used game (Starcraft) that had been sitting there exposed for about a week and found he couldn't play online because the code was in use. He liked it after that. I did this primarily on the games I liked; some which I thought deserved to be stolen I just left. Who the hell is still buying those damned Deer Hunter games, anyway?

Re:Gee, what a surprise.

[GrimSean]

Also, a few months ago I went to buy a new Game Cube for my nephew's birthday and they tried to hard sell me into buy a used console. I honestly don't know why vendors (both software and hardware) just stop selling them stuff. They do all they can to steer you from buying new and getting used, and that's sales lost to the vendors.

I'll tell you why they tried to push you towards the used GC over the new one - the profit on used is much higher.

Where I work, I sell a new GC for $140 Canadian, with a cost to us of $135 CAD. I sell used GCs for $100 CAD, and our cost on those is, on average, $50 CAD (we hold our used stuff for two weeks before selling, though).

So, $50 profit versus $5 profit - and quite honestly unless that used GC has been treated like complete crap by its previous owner, it's still just as good as a new one. I've only ever seen one GC that refused to work properly, and that was our store demo that we've had since launch and which was run for a minimum of 6 hours every day.

EB should be criminally charged

[dartmouth05]

EB should be criminally charged for dealing in stolen goods. By violating that 15 day law and by refusing to turn over the stolen goods, EB is no longer acting as a retail store--they are acting as a fence.

Regardless of whether or not EB knew the goods were stolen when they purchased them from the thief, they did not not take reasonable precautions to ensure that they weren't stolen, such as follow the 15 day law.

EB's actions were simply reprehensible, and I, for one, will no longer deal with them.

Re:EB should be criminally charged

[the_mad_poster]

You ought to wait and see if an official corporate position, reprimand, etc. comes out on the matter. Just because this EB Games is run by a blithering idiot doesn't mean they all are (though, given the types of people they hire to manage these things....).

Re:EB should be criminally charged

[NormalVisual]

It's already been two months since the incident - how long should we wait for EB to display any kind of corporate responsibility?

pawn shops

[pneuma_66]

I am pretty sure, that all pawn shops can only buy items, from someone with an id, and they then, must log that. Isn't ebgames essentially a pawn shop in that respect, since they buy items from the general public?

Re:pawn shops

[Lewis Daggart]

All the EB's I've been to log the ID of the person, just in case something like this happens. It's possible that this store did not (which would be why the thief thought they would be a safe place)... but that in itself is illegal from what I understand. Sadly, it doesnt matter if they DID log the ID. We already know who the thief was.. EB sinply doesn't care.

Re:pawn shops

[LostCluster]

The difference between a pawn shop and this type of operation is that the person who brings the item in doesn't have the option to buy their item back at any price less than the price it goes on sale to the general public.

However, beyond that, used property sellers do have to comply with many of the same regulations designed to make it harder to sell stolen property. It appears EB is not following at least one of them in this case.

Re:pawn shops

[bloodrose]

I've seen quite the opposite here. Most used stores that I have sold games and such to, you walk in, hand them a game, and either take your store credit or cash without ever taking your id out of your wallet. No of course there are the exceptions: Game Stop did require me to show my id to show that I was over the age of 18, but as far as I remember they never logged a piece of information from it.

Re:pawn shops

[crossconnects]

pawnshops by definition hold the merchandise for a certain amount of time during which the original owner of the goods has the exclusive option of buying them back. EB is a second hand dealer and as such doesn't have to hold for exclusive purchase, only the state minimum time after which they can sell to the general public, whether or not it was the original owner.

Re:pawn shops

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in NY, EB stores are required to log information from a current photo-ID (almost always a NYS driver's license) whenever they give "cash for games."

I know one store in particular that sets asisde any games that get traded in which, despite their checks, may or may not be legit.

Re:pawn shops

[mdw2]

The two gamestops around my place (northwest houston area) have both been very strict with the collection of my information everytime I've sold something there, which has been between half a dozen and a dozen times, it used to annoy me, but now I'm quite glad about it, as I certainly don't want to buy something there, and end up finding out it's stolen and have the police come take it from me and give it back to it's owner and find myself out of $XXX.

Similar experience on the reseller side of things

[almaon]

I work a local Apple retailer, we deal with new and used equipment.

We've had a few break-ins in the past, the owner of our store tried contacting pawn shops in town to ask them to keep an eye out for iBooks/PowerBooks that might show up soon cause of the break-in. What is truely pathetic is that the pawn brokers just hung up as soon as they heard anything about stolen goods. They didn't want to be involved in the slightest. That really made me mad that people out there are allowed to run such a shady business. But that's America for ya, thanks Martha Stewart...

As I mentioned earlier, we deal in used equipment as well. We're able to track S/N through Apple's service site, so we often catch a lot of stolen equipment. If the names don't match up for example, obvious red flag. Other times it just seems like some scam is taking place, especially when the kids that steal these things don't know how to turn em on, what the product name is, don't know the password or username, etc. So we play along with them, claim we just need to take it in back for a few minutes to 'test it out', run the serial number, call the cops and see if it's been reported, if so we have the police come pick them up and return the product to the customer (another reason not to buy mail-order, sometimes the local guys are looking out for you more ways than one).

But even phoning the police on these matters is rediculous, in our city, you have to talk to about 10 different people, none one at the station seems to care. Which is frustrating, they have an attitude that it's not worth getting off their butts to check for a serial number. And yet, every one we've phoned in was reported and was finally returned.

I wish local police would have a website to allow you to look up serial numbers of reported stolen goods, it'd make reselling and buying for the customer a lot safer and ethical. Although I'm sure it's more a legal problem to pull that task off, but still... I can dream of a perfect world still?

I hope they sue EB for this, it's truely bad business.

Not sure about Florida

[SyKOStarchild]

Though, however I have been in an EB in the state that I live in, where I've seen a guy walk in with a copy of a game I was after - I turned and asked the EB guys if I could pick it up right then and there, and I walked out with the copy of the game. EB isn't a pawn shop, I don't believe it is EB's policy to hold games for a certain amount of days before they can resell them.

Re:Not sure about Florida

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe it is EB's policy to hold games for a certain amount of days before they can resell them.

I see, they've chosen to opt out of that law. Do they have a policy on whether they're allowed to keep slaves too?

Re:Not sure about Florida

[Babbster]

Being a "pawn shop" isn't a result of what you call yourself - it's a result of what you do. If there are specific laws regarding this type of activity in particular jurisdiction, it applies to all businesses whether they call themselves pawnbrokers or not.

Nine times out of ten, or better, it's not going to be a problem for EB to do an immediate turnaround because the property isn't stolen (besides, of course, the problem of potentially violating local laws). It takes only the one time, though, to get your business into trouble. It's worth the traditional link to Acts of Gord to see examples of what people try to pull on video game dealers/resellers.

Re:Not sure about Florida

[Babbster]

I should note that I, and others, are wrong on this, at least in the sense that EB would be considered a "pawn broker." Pawn brokers have specific laws applying to them because they act somewhat like a bank, giving what are, in essence, loans secured by the "pawned" merchandise. That customer has the right to come back within an agreed-upon length of time (not to be less than the waiting period defined by local/state law) and buy the item back, without fear that the shop will sell it to someone else. After the agreed-upon time period has elapsed, the pawn broker then has the right to sell the item to whomever wants to buy it.

EB, in its purchasing and reselling of video games, is acting as a secondhand store and are covered by non-pawn law. Of course, there are still laws that are supposed to prevent them from receiving and reselling stolen merchandise and, depending on the locale, there are laws that require waiting periods before reselling. But, they're not a pawn shop and not covered at all by specific pawn laws.

I hate admitting I'm wrong, but I am, so please disregard my first paragraph. :)

Re:Not sure about Florida

[Channard]

I see, they've chosen to opt out of that law. Do they have a policy on whether they're allowed to keep slaves too?

Yep, it's called working retail.

Re:Not sure about Florida

[SyKOStarchild]

Well you get into "Supposed to" and what EB actually does. This is unfortuante for the person whom the merch was stolen from. I would be mad as hell if it were me that had merch stolen and sold to EB, and then re-sold to someone else. However, because they are a second-hand store they may be able to "Opt out" of the Pawn Shop laws.

Florida Law

[craXORjack]

I was under the impression that purchasers of stolen merchandise could expect it to be seized by the police (who would return it to the owner) and not recover any of the money they spent buying it unless they took action against the thief. Is that not the case in Florida?"

Unless Florida is ass-backward from the rest of the Union then you are correct. Making the purchaser of the stolen merchandise sue the thief to recover his money gives financial impetus to dealing only with reputable vendors. That is the very purpose of the law. I think EB needs to send the manager that gave their statement for a little retraining.

Re:Florida Law

[geminidomino]

Unless Florida is ass-backward from the rest of the Union...

I live in .fl.us and I have three words for you: "2000 presidential election..."

'Nuff said.

Re:Florida Law

[craXORjack]

Yes but Florida law was not upheld in the election fiasco. The Florida State Supreme Court says that a recount must be permitted in the counties that asked for one. It was only after Gore made it a federal case by suing Bush/Cheney that the U.S. Supreme Court felt authorized to overrule Florida law. But I am still not convinced that what they did was legal. The states are supposed to have full power over how their delegates vote.

Re:Florida is a land of crooks and idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, I guess all the "crooks" are those who legally voted for Bush and didn't vote for Gore like they were supposed to.

Me too!

[Anonymous Coward]

My mountain bike was stolen out of my garage, and it didn't turn up after we filed a police report... so I spent $500 on a new bike. Then, it turned out that "Pawn X Change" had my original bike for sale. They are required to report all serial numbers to Seattle Police Dept, but when they reported the number on my bike, the "accidentally" misread it to the police.

A police investigator doing a random pawn shop round recognized the bike based on the description on the police report. We went to the Pawn X Change and got it back, and told then how disgusted we were that they would intentinally transpose the serial number. About 6 months later, my friends and I made good use of a "5-dozen value pak" of eggs.... Oh, the feeling of satisfaction was superb!

Re:Me too!

[Elentar]

I obviously don't know your specific pawnshop, but those that I have seen usually are run by people who can't or don't want to fit into a more 'normal' job, such as ex-convicts, handicapped people, people with learning disabilities, or just people who dislike being wave slaves.

Imagine if the owner of your shop is dyslexic. Reading serial numbers all day long is hard enough for anyone, but if you can't even be sure that you're reading them right... on top of that, some guy comes in and yells at you because you have trouble reading, and then six months later your shop is vandalized for no reason.

Sure, it's possible that the pawn shop could have been a front for a fencing operation. But don't you think that that's a little obvious, and that the regular police visits might discourage it? And if there had *not* been any pawn shops for the thief to go to, you wouldn't have gotten your bike back at all. These places expose themselves to the kind of treatment you delivered so that honest people can exchange goods and so that victims have a better chance of finding their stolen items.

-Elentar

Re:Me too!

[KeeperS]

In this case, you weren't completely in the right either. If a store screws you, the correct course of action isn't to egg their store. The person who got punished for their "mistake" is the poor minimum wage guy who had to clean the mess up, not the guy in charge. The correct course of action is to never shop there and tell everyone you know not to go there. Dealing with shady business practices in a shady manner misses the point.

I'm sure it must have been satisfying, but as the old saying goes, two wrongs don't make a right.

Re:Me too!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of right, egging the store is indeed not the best course of action. Egg the owners car & home.

Re:Me too!

[InfiniteWisdom]

About 6 months later, my friends and I made good use of a "5-dozen value pak" of eggs...
I hope they were eggs that you bought fresh right after the incident and made good use of after they've been sitting in a warm and humid place for 6 months!

Re:Me too!

[198348726583297634]

So.. if someone can't do their job, we should forgive them and let them continue failing to do their job? If you're dyslexic, maybe you shouldn't have to read long strings of characters all day long.

Re:Me too!

[Elentar]

Well, that's a good point, and perhaps we could all live in a culture in which there was a good job for everyone. A culture in which you received everything you needed from the government, and were given a job that allowed you to work happily.

Or not. Because communism failed, and there's only the government going around offering to give that dyslexic/learning impaired/antisocial person a better job that will not involve their handicap.

A simple barcode scanner and/or a digital camera would work great for a pawn shop owner that can't read properly. The police could have photos of all the items and closeups of the serial numbers, and this particular problem would be solved.

You don't have to change the person, you can just change the job, or change the tools used to do the job. But American culture is consumer culture, throw-away culture, and employees that are too old to travel, too sick to insure, too much into their families to work weekends and too handicapped to compete are given a pink slip* and replaced by someone younger, healthier or cheaper. Or technology itself is used to replace them, instead of making their jobs better.

-Elentar, ranting about a distant tangent from the main topic

*: I've never seen a pink slip. The last job that gave me one (they called it a RIF) sent me a stack of about 20 pieces of paper to sign, all white.

ah, the power of money

[psi42]

Well, what can you expect. EB games has the money, EB games has the lawyers. If someone wants their $400 worth of games back, they can go pay a lot more in legal fees to get the lawyers with they money they don't have.

It's this "and what are you going to do about it" attitude that has put big business above ethics. Go figure.

Re:ah, the power of money

[Lewis Daggart]

Fortunately, the bigger the business, the more a slashdot article like this can screw them up when they step out of line. I know that I for one am not planning on shopping with them any more.

Re:ah, the power of money

[jathos]

Ditto here -- never buying from them again. This kind of attitude is disgraceful.

Re:ah, the power of money

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly why cases of this type would be tried in SMALL claims court. Where no lawyers are allowed to represent people. /me prays to God that psi32 isn't from America...

Re:ah, the power of money

[drooling-dog]

Well, what can you expect. EB games has the money, EB games has the lawyers.

That's what Small Claims courts are for. No lawyers, just present your case to the judge. Check the laws in your state.

Sue them for 5 times the trouble they have caused

[CrypticSpawn]

LOL, EB said this after they found out it was stolen, "... They will sell it back to her for what they paid the thief. As for the Playstation, she's simply out of luck." They violated state law, and they want her to take the amount they bought the stuff for. she has a very good case for getting a hell of alot more in court, because of it. Never liked Eletronic Boutique anyway.

Reselling of games and video equipment

[Hibikitour]

I have seen many instances where pawn shops and used game store like EB and GS all sell merchandise the same day. A local pawn shop owner claimed that games were harder to track down without names on them so the police here didn't even bother. If the police hadn't done anything after being contacted that is ridiculous. I stopped buying games off of eBay because of bad product from sellers but at least eBay has some buyers insurance. Yet another reason to dislike EB.

Any state should do

[maxarturo]

I recently sold my laptop on eBay and after a few weeks PayPal contacted me to tell me that the money was stolen and that I had to return the money in full but there was no way to get my laptop back because I (stupidly) sold it to someone who was unverified. Now I imagine that the EB didn't verify their seller either and I can sympathize with them getting screwed but they really should just return the money like I had to.

Re:Any state should do

[Mattwolf7]

Sounds like someone believes all of the emails he gets...

Re:Any state should do

[maxarturo]

No, I'm not a complete moron. The refund automatically showed up on my actual account, not on paypal.mp3.serialz.ru

Re:Any state should do

[Anonymous Coward]

after a few weeks PayPal contacted me to tell me that the money was stolen

What? Isn't this PayPal's problem?

Re:Any state should do

[maxarturo]

Nope, a woman in New York's money was stolen. Technically it was the money I received, thus I had to return it to her. Really, my situation was with the thief, just like EB here. PayPal makes sure in their agreement that they pretty much aren't liable for anything that happens. Ever.

Seems like a good scam for EB

[Dolphinzilla]

The theif admitted that he went to EB because they don't do any check on the goods and don't ask questions, In my estimation this amounts to a fencing operation posing as a reputable business. I hope the local law enforcement stings them.

Where else?

[boola-boola]

It's Florida... Remember the 2000 election? "Home of the chads!" What more can I say? ...only in Florida ;)

I for one will be boycotting EB Games until she gets her money back. Their games are overpriced anyways, and usually a lot cheaper at Best Buy, where they don't make a profit on consumer media (they are a staple product used to lure the customers in to buy things like computers and washing machines)

Re:Where else?

[dominyx]

You listen. On this ship, you're to refer to me as 'idiot', not 'you Floridian'.

If she's reading..

[Bruha]

If the corporate HQ refused to give your money. Sue the shirts off their backs.. maybe then they'll learn to respect the law, and the victims of theft.

Re:If she's reading..

[Anonymous Coward]

He didnt say sue everyone, he only wants to sue EB.

Is this a frivolus lawsuit? No.

If I come steal everything you own, how would you feel? Would you be going "Oh well, thats life"?

I doubt it.

Re:If she's reading..

[Anonymous Coward]

A wise man once said "Shit Happens"

Get renters insurance, that's your best bet if you ever get robbed.

Suing the company would only put her in the hole even more.

And about EB shrink wrapping used games & selling them as new, the local store where I live said they are prohibited from doing that due to a (was) pending lawsuit about that.

Ownership of Stolen Goods

[Detritus]

Everyone is assuming that EB now owns the goods in question. I would argue that the thief did not own the goods and any sale he may have made is legally invalid. EB should be required to immediately transfer all of the stolen items back to their rightful owner, without conditions or compensation. Let EB sue the thief to recover their losses.

Re:Ownership of Stolen Goods

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Actually I am surprised they would do this as they are basically admitting to selling stolen property.

Re:Ownership of Stolen Goods

[LostCluster]

What's more, the people who bought the stolen goods from EB were victims of a fraudulent transaction as well. Even if EB thought they owned the goods at that point, they still hadn't sat out the required 15-day holding period so that was an illegal transaction as well.

Re:Ownership of Stolen Goods

[Mr. Darl McBride]

Having acknowledged that EB now knew the goods were stolen, EB was over a barrel. She should have refused to purchase, leaving EB knowing that it was holding stolen goods.

They couldn't then turn around and sell the goods, as knowingly selling stolen goods is a crime in and of itself.

The girl's a screwball for purchasing the stuff back.

Re:Ownership of Stolen Goods

[Ironsides]

What would have happened if she tried to walk out of the store with her goods and EB tried to stop her? I am currious, they call the police, she presents her side, the cops have to do somthing, but what?

Three Words

[chimericalburst]

Recieving Stolen Property (IANAL but i believe that a felony 2 or 3)

Re:Sue them for 5 times the trouble they have caus

[KimJ721]

If I read the article correctly, they actually charged her MORE than what they paid the thief. The idea of charging someone for returning their stolen goods is just unbelievable to me. Why doesn't EB file a lawsuit against the thief to recoup THEIR losses?

Re:Similar experience on the reseller side of thin

[LostCluster]

Pawn shop owners don't want to hear about possible stolen goods because that can only get them in trouble, they'd rather deal with a stolen good without knowing that it is stolen than do the right thing of turning it in.

There's no punishment for them if they don't realize that its stolen property... so they really want to follow a don't ask, don't tell policy.

black and white

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. It really is pretty black and white. They even have a confession from the thief.

Conspiracy theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Could it be that this is a staged shakedown on EBGames so that this person's goods were "stolen" and sold so they could bring this issue into the spotlight?

Dum. Dum. Dum.

Illegality

[Anonymous Coward]

Property ownership does not legally end at the unlawful removal of the property via theft. And as such, all future implied ownership transfers are on their face false. The original owner's claim is the only one accepted for the law.

The person involved is a fool for giving them the money.

Better than sue, BOYCOTT

[bangular]

In America, big business always wins in the court. As much as it sucks, even if the consumer is 100% right, it's rare a consumer can afford to even take a case to court, let alone pay for a lawyer good enough to win. Sure, we hear about a few cases, but there are thousands we don't hear about.

More effective is a boycott. If EB is going to treat their customers like shit, then we can treat EB like shit. If coperate hq knows about it and the police have been involved and can verify it's her goods, then a boycott is in place. If it were just the one store acting on it's own idiocy that would be bad enough, but HQ made the final decision not to pay her back. That is definatly grounds for a nationwide EB boycott.

Re:Better than sue, BOYCOTT

[wfberg]

Isn't this what small claims court is for? Seems open and shut enough to me. Not much sense for a business to pursue it further than that, given that a few hunderd bucks in lawyers' fees are easily spent.

Of course, after getting your money back in small claims court, set the cops loose on em for fencing.

Re:Better than sue, BOYCOTT

[Anonymous Coward]

In America, big business always wins in the court

What kind of crack are you smoking?

Tobacco lawsuits is the first one that comes to my mind. What about the idiot who won a lawsuit against McDonalds when she poured her own coffee on her crotch?

Re:Better than sue, BOYCOTT

[Anonymous Coward]

In America, big business always wins in the court.

Which is why class action lawsuits are so rare.

Re:Better than sue, BOYCOTT

[Anonymous Coward]

" In America, big business always wins in the court."

I assume you are either a citizen of another country or were born in the U.S. and have since left, correct? After all, if you hate this country so much, why would you live here?

Re:Better than sue, BOYCOTT

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Captain Cock Gobbler, just what did he say about hating America, eh? Or do you think that "America" and "business" are two words for the same thing?

dumbass

Re:Better than sue, BOYCOTT

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting anomously as I've moderated.

When the law is on the sideo of the little guy, clearly the little guy can and does win. The two examples you mentioned, however, don't fit this mold too well. Tobacco, as a legal product, with the harmful effects having been known for decades, was pretty much a slam dunk for the industry. Similar with hot coffee - so long as there is a disclaimer, it's hard to prove negligence on the part of the coffee vendor (the McDonald's case being an exception).

I just took a course with one of the first lawyers on the tobacco suits. He started some 30 years ago as a young guy, back when advertisements for cigarettes were on TV/radio. While he was at his first job out of law school, he wrote (on his own time) to the FCC under a provision in the law at the time that both sides of issues had to be given airtime. He wrote a 3 page letter saying that broadcasters had to devote time to those with antismoking messages. Some months later, the FCC decision came in on his side.

Within some short time, he was called into a partner's office. Apparently, a big client was Philip Morris. He was basically told, drop this hobby of yours or get out. When he couldn't find someone to continue the cause, he quit and dedicated his life to public interest law.

His standard comment was that he had prepared 700 tobacco lawsuits before the first one won (I doubt alot were actually filed).

It clearly took alot of time and effort before public opinion was on his side. When it was, it was inevitable that judges would begin to have this view and decide cases against the industry.

At one point, I did some research into the hot coffee cases - there were actually several filed which were dismissed. IIRC, in the one that succeeded, there was alot of evidence that McDonald's kept their coffee at temps which exceeded the norm.

Re:Better than sue, BOYCOTT

[nomadic]

In America, big business always wins in the court.

Huh? Big business is constantly getting smacked down in the court system. Look at the tobacco companies. Look at the auto manufacturers.

Re:Better than sue, BOYCOTT

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting as AC will still undo your moderations.

Re:Better than sue, BOYCOTT

[Anonymous Coward]

Read between the lines. He was stating the the U.S. justice system is biased and unfair. Obviously if he believes this, he should be dissatisfied with the courts and remove himself from the country where this goes on.

By the way, "Captain Cock Gobbler" is a nice touch. Although, why would a liberally minded person like yourself use the act of performing oral sex as an insult? Shouldn't all sexual practices be celebrated? Now head to San Francisco and marry your boyfriend already - stop wasting my time on Slashdot, faggot/nigger.

Re:Better than sue, BOYCOTT

[bangular]

This is a good point. What we hear about and what actually goes on are two different things. There a thousands of cases we never hear about. We hear about the anecdotal ones that make the press. We don't hear about the 700 failed filings, or the failed coffee cases. Two examples could be countered with millions of examples where the consumer got screwed out of a few hundred dollars and couldn't afford the money to even take it to small claims court.

People forget the legal system is expensive. Even if they could get everything done for free, most people would have to take a few hours off from work which isn't an option for some.

Re:Better than sue, BOYCOTT

[Deliveranc3]

Why bother they are so fooking terrible they will go under soon anyway. Belch...

Re:Better than sue, BOYCOTT

[jez9999]

Not if yer logged out, it won't.

Re:Better than sue, BOYCOTT

[Anonymous Coward]

In America, big business always wins in the court.

You are, sincerely, a moron.

Re:Better than sue, BOYCOTT

[mark-t]

For a case like this, where the consumer is 100% right, lawyers would be chomping at the bit to take this case, working for basically free as far as the client is concerned, tacking on 100% of all legal fees incurred as part of the lawsuit.

A case like this is an easy win for lawyers, and wins look good on their portfolio. There'd be no problem finding a lawyer who would work for you in good faith until (that's _WHEN_, not _IF_) you won.

Re:Better than sue, BOYCOTT

[stephanruby]

In America, big business always wins in the court. As much as it sucks, even if the consumer is 100% right, it's rare a consumer can afford to even take a case to court, let alone pay for a lawyer good enough to win. Sure, we hear about a few cases, but there are thousands we don't hear about.

You're wrong! In fact, the bigger the businesses, the harder they fall. For example, if you're lucky enough to have been wronged by a company-wide policy that has affected thousands of customers, and if you're educated enough to project a professional image, all you have to do is threaten them with a class action. That's all. When faced with paying off one educated customer or paying off 5,000 class action customers, the company will always take the easy way out and pay you off as quickly as they can.

By the way, that's why most people don't hear about the little guys winning against the big guys. Most little guys that do win usually settle out of court and agree to not talk about the case.

If anything, your post is just a stupid self-fulfilling prophecy based on what the media tells you. Take it from someone who's not a lawyer and who has actually won cases against the big guys. Stop making so many damn assumptions.

This isn't suprising at all

[Dragoon412]

This past holiday season, I was out of work, so I picked up a few hours at the local Gamestop (same company as EBgames), and after dealing with their store policies, I'm honestly suprised this doesn't happen more often.

The entire company is poorly run. They're still using an ancient, convoluted, DOS-based PoS system that appears to pre-date the existance of the company. District and regional managers play slash and burn with a store's allotment of employee hours, and then throw a fit and fire the store managers when secret shoppers complain that the one employee running the store by herself for 8 hours didn't manage to get through the daily 20-some box delivery from UPS. Orders for specific products are placed at a corporate level, not a store level, meaning that it's extremely common for stores to get in a glut of products they already have an excess of, or products they have no floor space for that won't sell anyways (like all their crappy collectibles, figurines, and trading cards). The store I worked at literally had Playstations and Xboxes and Gamecubes stacked up 6 to 8 feet in the employee bathroom for lack of anywhere else to put merchandise.

There's little to no emphasis placed on knowledge of games or gaming, and communication regarding the availability of new products to the store's emplyees is non-existant. Customer's are viewed as if they're some sort of problem, and treated with agreat deal of disrespect. They're routinely lied to and mislead, either out of contempt or ignorance. I've seen employees tell mom's shopping for their kids that Gameboy Advance games work in the old (circa 1990) model Gameboy, and employees routinely tag a Game Informer subscription on to a customer's order after the customer said he didn't want the subscription. I've personally been chewed out by a manager for talking a guy out of buying Halo (for the Xbox) for his kid's PS2. And of course, all this behavior is reinforced because the managers do it, too.

Gamestop/EB is a terrible chain. Seeing how they're run, I'm amazed they manage to stay in business. And seeing that they've ripped off a customer... well, that's a daily occurance.

Re:This isn't suprising at all

[Anonymous Coward]

I call troll. EB is not the same company as GameStop - They're pretty much arch rivals. GameStop contains the remains of Software Etc. and Babbage's`. Any employee, temp or no, would know this.

And for the record, EB doesn't have these kinds of supply problems, from what I've seen. I mean, the local store in my area was willing to have a *used* game from a store 150 miles away shipped into the local one so that I could pick it up.

Re:This isn't suprising at all

[damiangerous]

Gamestop (same company as EBgames)

Gamestop and EBGames are not the same company. EBGames is what Electronics Boutique morphed itself into and Gamestop is the former Funcoland/Software Etc/Babbages. They are, in fact, the last two competing national chains dealing in "preowned" after Gamestop absorbed all those others.

Re:This isn't suprising at all

[Anonymous Coward]

+5 Interesting? Come on, this is pure B.S. This guy thinks Gamestop and EB are the same company, obviously he is talking out of his ass and making all this shit up. He doesn't know a thing.

Re:This isn't suprising at all

[Dragoon412]

You're right... sort of.

I was thinking of EBX; it's a local store (that used to be an Electronics Boutique, I think) that was bought-out by Gamestop, but for whatever reason, still has an EBX name. The store I worked at has a number of fliers with the EBX logo on it... I never quite stopped thinking of it as an Electronics Boutique. Although now that you mention it, it makes me think of the common occurence of employees in my store referring people to the (much larger) EB store in the local mall in a different light. ;)

That being said, there's more competition now. Mammoth Video buys and sells new games, and so does Blockbuster's new Game Rush, but that still seems to be a test market thing.

Anyways, I fucked up; sorry for the confusion.

Re:This isn't suprising at all

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting Hollywood Video's "Game Crazy" chain. Blockbuster has one too, but I'm not sure if it's a national thing.

Re:This isn't suprising at all

[Major Wedgie]

Interesting... I know that some of the Software Etc stores in my area became EBs, not Gamestops. Was there a split somewhere?

Re:This isn't suprising at all

[Slack3r78]

Not sure how relevent this is, but Gamestop is actually owned by Barnes and Noble. I only know this because a friend of mine is a Gamestop employee and gets employee discounts at the Barnes and Noble a few stores down.

Re:This isn't suprising at all

[Grave]

I'm sorry, but you're either lying about working for Gamestop or you are just really clueless. As a current employee of Gamestop myself, I can tell you that it should be common knowledge that EB and Gamestop are not the same company. Yes, the POS system is ancient, but you know what? It works.

I don't know what store you worked at, but none of the ones in this district allow any of the ludicrous selling behavior to go on that you described. My manager would chew me out hardcore for forcing a subscription on someone who refused it. And when we don't know the answer to a question, we find out for the customer. We never intentionally mislead a customer. You must have really worked in a seriously messed up store, because that just doesn't happen at any of the local stores.

The reason the PS2/XBOX/Gamecubes are stored in the bathroom is because I believe that's company policy. The bathroom can be locked easily while not preventing access to the back room (which is a pain to get into when it's locked).

In this district, when we have product that isn't moving off the shelves, we ship it to a store that does sell a lot of that product.

As for the subject matter at hand, though, we track the serial numbers of all systems we buy and sell, and while we don't hold merchandise (that wouldn't be very reasonable to do given the volume of trade-ins we get), we do have fairly strict policies regarding suspected stolen merchandise. We get contact information on everyone when they do a trade-in, so in the event of something like this, we could track down the individual and report them to the police. I'm pretty sure EB has the same policy here.

Re:This isn't suprising at all

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

They're routinely lied to and mislead, either out of contempt or ignorance.

I got "banned" from a Gamestop in Orlando a while back for stopping somebody from being scammed by one of their employees.

It was back when the Dreamcast was dropping in price to $99. It happened on a Sunday, because I went to Best Buy to get one, and they didn't have any of the keyboards left, so we went over to Gaystop to see if they had one. I got to witness an employee telling a father that the price drop didn't take effect until Tuesday.

I spoke up and said that I just bought one at Best Buy for $99, and read many ads that morning in the newspaper for the same price. The father thanked me, flipped off the employee, and walked out, over to Best Buy. I was told I was no longer welcome in that store, which was ok, as that was the first and only time I had ever been there.

Re:This isn't suprising at all

[Piquan]

Not sure how relevent this is, but Gamestop is actually owned by Barnes and Noble.

I doubt it, since Gamestop, Inc. (GME) is a publicly traded company on the NYSE.

I only know this because a friend of mine is a Gamestop employee and gets employee discounts at the Barnes and Noble a few stores down.

So do I, and I work for a router company. We just have an agreement with Barnes & Noble, one which they apparently have with many businesses.

Your friend may work in a franchise that's owned by B&N, tho.

Re:This isn't suprising at all

[Piquan]

Not sure how relevent this is, but Gamestop is actually owned by Barnes and Noble.

I doubt it, since Gamestop, Inc. (GME) is a publicly traded company on the NYSE.

Okay, I'm wrong. They are a publicly traded company, but B&N owns 51%. My apologies.

Re:This isn't suprising at all

[Anonymous Coward]

He may be wrong about the co-ownership, but I have worked for Gamestop/Software etc and everything he says is true.

Re:This isn't suprising at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a quick and dirty history of how Barnes & Noble is invovled...

Early 90's... Software Etc was a department in Barnes & Noble and B. Dalton Bookseller stores.

Mid 90's, Babbage's and Software Etc joined together under the corporate banner of NeoStar, not controlled by Barnes & Noble. (Software Etc employees still got B&N discounts)

Sometime in 1996, NeoStar was dying, fast. Ex-executives, with the backing of Barnes & Noble bought out NeoStar and revived the dying Babbage's and Software Etc. Somewhere along the way GameStop and Funcoland were acquired.

Today, they're all slowly changing their names to GameStop.

Re:This isn't suprising at all

[hobbsbutcher]

I have been a secret shopper at EB. If you want to know, a secret shopper there tries to return something (generally inexpensive - under $30 or so) and then asks questions and buys something else of approximately equal value. The shopper also has to note everybody's name so they will be checking out nametags and looking at their watch a lot. A lot of the report that the secret shopper has to write is about the service - was it quick, knowledgeable, friendly, etc. I never tried to be an asshole when I was a secret shopper, but some do. There's plenty of asshole shoppers, but not all are secret shoppers. Sorry there's no surefire way to tell for you EB folks out there.

Put the clerk in jail? It's hardly their fault. They're probably just working to earn bucks like you and me and trying to follow orders.

Re:This isn't suprising at all

[Anonymous Coward]

The lesson here is - get your games from Best Buy. I am completely unafilliated with Best Buy, BTW.

Electronics Boutique used to be a decent shop...

[linuxtelephony]

EB used to be OK. I bought several applications and other software tools from there years ago. Then they started turning into a game store. Slowly more and more shelf space was devoted to games. Seems like a new console was a new reason to clear more even more space for games only. I stopped going in there about 5 years ago. I still wander through about every year just to see if it has changed -- NOPE.

And now things like this.. Hmm. You know, this is one time where I kind of hope a lawyer out to make a name for himself just reams this company. Especially if it is proven that she really contacted the corporate level and was totally ignored.

At the very least, that store needs an ENTIRE staff change.

I just canceled a order with them...

[draziw]

For Battlefield: Vietnam - Their price was ~4 cents lower vs amazon. In the reason for canceling section I wrote that I didn't want to deal with a company that traffics in stolen goods and charges the victim to get their gear back.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0 00 1AO01Y/draziw

--
+1 for low user ID and love for SCO

Re:I just canceled a order with them...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hardly think that one isolated case constitutes "trafficking in stolen goods." Please. Get off your high horse sir and learn to breath a little.

Re:I just canceled a order with them...

[draziw]

The point is to get the corp office to do something about that FL store. If they don't get heat for it, why would they change?

Re:I just canceled a order with them...

[Linker3000]

About a year ago in the UK someone set up a site after a major electrical retailer stiffed her on a repair job. Site visitors could read her story and then state whether they would now choose to not use this particular store chain for something they were about to purchase. The site kept a running total of the intended non-spends and it ran into some astronomical figure. I seem to recall that the woman had her problem sorted pretty quickly after the national press got hold of her story.

Well, it's an idea if anyone has the bandwisth to spare..!?

Re:I just canceled a order with them...

[Linker3000]

Here's a link to an article on The Register about the story

Re:Relevant laws

[sam1am]

The relevant laws seem to be Chapter 538 of the Florida Statutes.. (they're actually sort of an interesting read.

(2)When the lawful owner recovers stolen property from a secondhand dealer and the person who sold or pledged the stolen property to the secondhand dealer is convicted of theft, a violation of this section, or dealing in stolen property, the court shall order the defendant to make restitution to the secondhand dealer pursuant to s. 775.089.

- Being that the guy who stole the stuff confessed to the cops, it seems he would have to make restitution to EB.

It doesn't really seem to address the issue of what happens when the stuff is already sold and no longer in posession of the dealer. But it does provide a fill-in-the-blank petition for return of property if the dealer won't return it to you...

Michelle Doganis should find a lawyer (and IANAL, but I play can one on slashdot)

Sorry, it Has to be done

[zentu]

So I guess we figured out what step

3. ???

is.

Re:Sorry, it Has to be done

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this offtopic? It's hilarious.

ah, the power of money-Audiance participation.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well, what can you expect. EB games has the money, EB games has the lawyers. If someone wants their $400 worth of games back, they can go pay a lot more in legal fees to get the lawyers with they money they don't have."

You may not be aware of this, but there are lawyers that will take legal action on your behalf, for a percentage of the payout.

There's also small-claims court ($400 should fall within it's bounds).

The law isn't as hopeless as people make it out to be. But much like the political process. If you don't play, you have no room to complain when things don't go your way.

Completely illegal.

[autopr0n]

What EB did here was completly illegal. And I don't mean downloading Mp3s, running unlicensed software, smoing weed kind of illegal. People can and do go to jail for doing that.

Funny similar story

[Anonymous Coward]

One day, I go to work and one of my co-workers says "Somebody stole my bumper!" "What?" we asked. "Right off the back of my car in the parking lot!" Crazy we though. The next day, he comes in and says "I got my bumper back." "How?" we asked. "I went to the car part dealer down the street to see if they had any replacement parts, and it turns out, they got one just yesterday. They got MINE just yesterday!"

He ended up getting the police involved, and he got his bumper back for free.

Don't forget the other piece.

[khasim]

From the article:

"He said that he went in there and took it. He was hard up for money for his rent," Wayne Welsh said. "He took them to EB Games in Gulfview Square Mall and sold them...he said that's where they don't do a check and he can sell them without worrying about the police finding out he stole them."

This isn't a random occurrence. He already knew where to go to sell them without any checks.

That indicates that this store has a history of such deals. It seems that the cops should be doing a lot of digging into that store's previous dealings.

Re:Don't forget the other piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

or the kid had sold games there before and knows from experience that no one does a background check on your copy of soul calibur....

EB should burn in hell.

[rrace]

EB has been ripping off people for quite some time. For example, recently a friend of my bought castlevania for the ps2 from one of the local eb games here, and despite the salesman pitch to sell it to him used he refused and bought it new, or so he thought. Turns out they pawned off a used copy of the game in a new box. How do they do that? It seems they lift the bottom portion of the case and stick the disc in while not having to remove that silver tag on the top portion that is suppose to indicate the game is new. When he opened the game there were scratches and fingerprints on the disc itself. I don't know if this is illegal but these kinds of underhand tactics won't gain them any sympathy from me, I hope someone takes them to court.

Re:EB should burn in hell.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually very illegal to resell used goods as new, but the police are too busy going after marijuana users to worry about actual crimes.

Re:EB should burn in hell.

[Cyno01]

Not sure about the exact law in diff. municipalities or if its a federal matter, but misrepresentation of goods in the way you described is punishable by a pretty hefty fine IIRC.

Re:EB should burn in hell.

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Your friend should return the game then. EB actually has a decent return policy, unlike most other retailers of video/computer games.

Re:EB should burn in hell.

[Grave]

Are you sure you weren't confusing the process of putting the new disc into the display game box? Because no game store in its right mind is going to leave the disc in the box that's on the shelf. At the Gamestop I work at we still have a lot of boxes stolen from the shelves, despite the fact that there is no disc in them. We can write off the loss of the box/instructions (and we give the customer 10% off), but the company isn't going to accept the theft of a couple hundred titles a month. When putting the discs into their cases, the employees are supposed to be careful about it and ensure that it doesn't get scratched up.

The reason that Gamestop and EB always recommend used games? Simple. At Gamestop, if you don't like the game, or have any problem with it, you have seven days to return it. If it's new, and the package has been opened, your only option is to trade it in then, which is going to leave you mad at us because you won't get nearly what you spent. Well, we told you to buy it used, but you didn't listen. Don't blame us. Sheesh.

You can say that EB and Gamestop rip you off all you want, but these companies exist to make a profit. Would you rather not have the option of buying cheaper games? Would you rather not have the option of trading in titles that you're tired of or don't play anymore?

The reason we only give you $20-25 in store credit when you trade in a game that was just recently released is because if we gave you $35-$40, it becomes little more than a really really cheap 1-month rental. Sure, that's not true for a lot of people, but you know, there's enough people out there who abuse the system like that and hence why we have such policies.

For a bunch of geeks and nerds, I'm surprised more people here don't know how game stores function and turn a profit.

Re:EB should burn in hell.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. You have two options in a gaming store:

You can look at games behind a piece of plexi-glass, and wait for an employee to unlock it to hand the customer a game each time

or

You deal with stores that "gut" a certain amount of product for display purposes. Most of the product will remain behind the counter (perhaps behind plexi-glass in certain stores), while a limited number of "gutted" boxes go to the shelf.

Personally, I prefer the latter as it allows me to pick up and inspect any game that's on the shelf, even allowing you to check the instructions to see if a certain feature is present or not.

Parent post probably ran into: incompetent employees who can't do their job properly without damaging product, dishonest employees who are trying to cheat the system by selling used stuff for new, or simply your friend got all pissy that his new game didn't have the same shrink-wrap it had when it left some Mexican factory.

If your friend is really that anal, just have him ask the EB or Gamestop employee for a copy still in the original wrapping. If they have one? Great. If not? Then check back another time or go elsewhere.

Nope.

[stoneymonster]

Gamestop and eb games are different corporations.
Check their stock symbols.

-C

Duh, what?

[autopr0n]

Did you read the article? The police caught the theif, arrested him, and got a confession saying he sold the stuff at EB. EB even belives this, and dosn't care.

Re:Duh, what?

[bloodrose]

Ok, so I phrased a little poorly. Yes they have proof, but what can they do beyond seizure of the equipment that has been sold to a new user, and investigating to find out information they already know. She as the offended party, really should sue for compensation, and honestly, in the case of EB their crime was selling equipment before the waiting period was up. Yes EB should have waited the mandatory period of time, and they should be fined for this, but she should be pursuing her charges against the thief, the one who actually took her equipment, for compensation.

Re:Duh, what?

[canajin56]

No, if you get your stuff back, you don't get compensation from the thief! If you buy stolen property, YOU have to sue the theif for restitution. The person who had it stolen is NOT obligated to buy it back and then do the suing themselves. They can and should be charged with possession of stolen property, and trafficing in stolen property.

Regardless of the waiting period issue, the second they knew it was stolen, and tried to sell it anyways, they broke the law and should go to JAIL. No stupid bullshit fines. Throw the clerk and the manager in jail. It's just plain illegal, and there is no way around that.

Re:Duh, what?

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Exactly. Aiding and Abetting. Throw the clerk who bought the goods in jail next to the little shit that stole the stuff. And his manager.

EB's buyback system keeps records of this stuff for a reason.

The local PD doesn't want to deal with it? call the FDLE and get a state auditor crawling up the chief's ass. That doesn't work? call your state Rep/Senator. Keep making noise until they do their fucking job. Getting the TV station on this was a great first start.

The cops aren't doing their job in that part of Florida, apparently.

Re:Duh, what?

[Fryboy]

Maybe eBay should call themselves:
PAWNO FOR THE PEOPLE

Florida?

[djupedal]

unless they took action against the thief. Is that not the case in Florida?"

Guess you slept thru the last presidential election, or you'd be up on how stealing works in Florida :)

Boycotting everyone now...

[Anonymous Coward]

In my town, there are two places to buy games: Best Buy and EB Games. I don't go to Best Buy anymore because of the way they treat their customers (and I used to spend thousands there). Now I can't go to EB Games, either?

I already have to drive 30min to go to a decent video store, because I won't go to Best Buy, and it's the only place with a good selection around.

Of course, all the little stores that treat their customers well are gone because they couldn't match the prices at Best Buy and EB, and nobody actually cares about service anymore. (Including most of Slashdot, from what I've seen.)

At least I have a good local auto parts shop.

Re:Boycotting everyone now...

[NormalVisual]

If you don't have a reputable dealer locally, order online.

EB is not a pawnbroker

[sam1am]

Because pawn brokers, which EB would likely claim they are

The Florida Pawnbroking Act, chapter 539 of the Florida Statutes contains the following definitions:

539.001 2 (h)"Pawn" means any advancement of funds on the security of pledged goods on condition that the pledged goods are left in the possession of the pawnbroker for the duration of the pawn and may be redeemed by the pledgor on the terms and conditions contained in this section.
539.001 2 (i)"Pawnbroker" means any person who is engaged in the business of making pawns; who makes a public display containing the term "pawn," "pawnbroker," or "pawnshop" or any derivative thereof; or who publicly displays a sign or symbol historically identified with pawns. A pawnbroker may also engage in the business of purchasing goods which includes consignment and trade.

539.001 3 (a)A person may not engage in business as a pawnbroker unless the person has a valid license issued by the agency. A separate license is required for each pawnshop.

They are more likely covered under Chapter 538: Part 1: Secondhand Dealers.

Pawning indicates that the pawnbroker will hold the material for an agreed-upon time (not less than the state-mandated minimum) to give the seller time to buy it back, with exclusive purchase rights to that original owner. Secondhand dealers are buying it with no promise to sell it back to the original owner...
I'm not a lawyer, but watch me play one on slashdot...

Re:Similar experience on the reseller side of thin

[faedle]

There's no punishment for them if they don't realize that its stolen property..

This is exactly why many cities (like my hometown of Orange, CA) require pawn shops to file reports with serial numbers and such of stuff they buy. Now, I'm not sure the police actually _DO_ anything with the information, but...

EB is NOT making a profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

They're simply charging their customary 15% re-robbing fee.

I doubt this is an isolated incident...

[JayBlalock]

The article is rather fuzzy on who said what on EB's side, but it certainly sounds like corporate (or whoever the "spokesman" worked for) was just as uncaring as the store itself.

The truly demented part was EB informing the woman that *she* has to sue the thief for restitution. This appears to be nothing less than a ploy to attempt to de facto rewrite property law in this regard. The onus is on THEM to sue the thief, as he committed fraud in selling them stolen property. And they would win, easily, given the Confession. He would probably just agree to hand over the money rather than even show up in court over it. That they're not taking that route can only suggest that they are attempting to absolve themselves of responsibility, and in the process, alter a few centuries of commonlaw.

And, in the larger scheme, why not? This has to happen all the time. How many people write down the serial numbers of their gaming equipment, just on the off chance it gets stolen and pawned? Given their often-outrageous used prices, they must turn quite a tidy profit nationwide through turning a blind eye to stolen goods. And doing anything that causes them to assume responsibility for the goods would only hurt their profit margins.

So, institute a hands-off policy where they assume no culpability at all, and put all responsibility for legal action upon the person who was stolen from. The number of people who would actually manage to sue them would be comparatively tiny. (especially considering most would just sue in small claims court, and not even dream of launching a multi-year legal fight over a $100 PS2.)

It all makes a rather sad sense.

old news.

[judicar]

I am I the only one who feels news from January should have been reported ... in January ... and not March? At least research a follow-up or something shit.

Eb is just like that

[Facekhan]

I remember when I stoppped shopping at EB forever. I was tired of being asked for id to buy a videogame and was more than happy to get a better price at Babbages on the other side of the mall.

EB employees tend to be rude. They have a refund policy that they routinely violate. The management are even more rude and the stores generally suck.

BOYCOTT ELECTRONIC BOUTIQUE CAUSE THEY SUCK

Re:Eb is just like that

[geminidomino]

EB employees tend to be rude...

Gamestop often isn't much better, but we're generally talking about teenaged gamers being employed there. Only slightly less socially inept than hackers, and infinitely more aggressive, probably from too much Halo and Quake.

EB is a corporation, Poster is a Troll

[Gleef]

Ah, I love "Informative" moderations for posts of wrong information, probably for trolling purposes.

Anonymous Coward trolls:
EB is not a corporation. It is a sole proprietorship. Please do better research next time. Thank you.

Troll bridge, pay troll:

Electronics Boutique Holding Corporation (aka Electronics Boutiqe, EB, EB Games, EB Games Online, EBX) is a publically traded corporation on NASDAQ with the ticker symbol ELBO. For more information, you can look at their corporate site.

A hint, in general, if you see ", Inc." after a company name, that means it's a corporation. All of the "Electronics Boutique, Inc." should have clued you in. Making up that it's a sole propritorship with no evidence (as if anyone would accept the liability problems of a sole proprietorship for a nationwide chain of retail storefronts) is what made this post a troll.

I would have just ignored the troll, except idiot moderators were making it a highly rated troll. Consider this a notice to metamoderators that above "Informative" moderation was unfair.

Re:EB is a corporation, Poster is a Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

idiot moderators were making it a highly rated troll

So substitute "corporation" with "sole proprietorship" and the post still makes sense. Quit bitching about the little details.

Re:EB is a corporation, Poster is a Troll

[bas148]

EB is not a sole proprietorship. It is a sole proprietorship. Please do better research next time. Thank you.

??? No points for you.

And Class Action Suits for used games as new

[IDidn'tPostThis]

http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/SummaryNotice/

Interesting....

[AssProphet]

There are probably a lot of business that ignore the holding laws to make a fast buck. But EB, it seems to me, has been growing more and more crooked over the years.
I mean they still sell dreamcast games for 20 bucks!

but that's ok, they are still pretty cheap on emule.

Gulf View EB

[Anonymous Coward]

EB Games #97
Mall: GULF VIEW SQUARE
9409 US HIGHWAY 19
PORT RICHEY FL, 34668 US
727-847-3443

Not true.

[sethadam1]

There's no punishment for them if they don't realize that its stolen property...

Not true. Stolen property is stolen property. If you don't want to be involved, you had better trust the source of your purchase. Plausible deniability may effect the extent of the punishment, but simply not knowing you bought something stolen does not get you "off the hook."

This is criminal

[Anonymous Coward]

At least according to florida law. "Dealing in stolen property" anyone? I knew several people in high school who were arrested for this. Under this law you do not even have to _suspect_ that the property is stolen. Simply being involved in the transaction is enough to be found guilty.

Sounds pretty cut and dry to me. Regardless the shear stupidity of the stores manager for not just coughing up the dough and sweeping this thing under the rug defies all logic.

This story is OLD!

[Mycroft_514]

I saw the action news report, and that was back in January. I thought that this forum was for topical subjects?

As for the Hall of Shame, that happened quickly, and the store refused to give the money back after the hall of shame talked to them. Of course, that is pretty much a pre-requisite for getting on the hall of shame, because if they work it out, then they don't get there.

Re:This story is OLD!

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that this forum was for topical subjects?

You must be new here. Welcome to Slashdot!

link to ebgames feedback

[celeb8]

for what it's worth, here's a direct link to the comments page on their website. let em know what you think?

Re:link to ebgames feedback

[hattig]

Thanks. EB also have stores in the UK, and they will hopefully also lose out from this, as I'm sure a lot of UK based Slashdotters do shop there, and hopefully will not in the future.

After reading that your are little more than a front for fencing stolen goods, I will no longer be using your stores to purchase computer game related services.

http://www.abcactionnews.com/stories/2004/01/040 12 9hallofshame.shtml

I find your attitude to be terrible, and I hope that this story spreads around until the company goes bust, like it deserves to be for having no morality, and for being completely ignorant about the law.

Chapter 538 of the Florida Statutes..

(2)When the lawful owner recovers stolen property from a secondhand dealer and the person who sold or pledged the stolen property to the secondhand dealer is convicted of theft, a violation of this section, or dealing in stolen property, the court shall order the defendant to make restitution to the secondhand dealer pursuant to s. 775.089.

Burn in hell.

Re:link to ebgames feedback

[geminidomino]

After reading the ABC Action News report regarding your company(link below), I, regretfully, will no longer be patronizing your company. As one who often shops the "used-game" market, I would be uncomfortable in the knowledge that I may be purchasing stolen goods, and that this kind of behavior is indeed publically condoned by EB Corporate HQ. I will take my business elsewhere and patronize other companies that have a problem with serving as fences.

http://www.abcactionnews.com/stories/2004/01/04012 9hallofshame.shtml

I see a couple of problems

[ThisIsFred]

I've had my property burgled before. Luckily she got a confession out of the guy, and coupled with EB's breaking of the law, Michelle definitely has the upper hand. I don't think she's persuing this correctly though. Assuming that she has a homeowner's insurance policy, she should total the value of all the stolen items and see if it is worth more than the deductible. She should persue her insurance company for financial restitution, and just ask for justice regarding EB's blatant violation of the law.

I hope her house was locked, so that the thief would have to break and enter to steal the property.

Re:I see a couple of problems

[SamNmaX]

I don't think she's persuing this correctly though. Assuming that she has a homeowner's insurance policy, she should total the value of all the stolen items and see if it is worth more than the deductible.

Yes, she probably should look into her insurance, though quite often making a claim will just mean higher premiums later. However, I think she did go about this right... look how much pressure she is putting on EB. The people in the store were too stupid to realize the bad publicity the would receive for not just fixing things up. Yes, they may have to eat several hundred dollars in losses, but they have probably cost the EB chain as a whole thousands and perhaps millions due to the bad publicity this generated.

Re:I see a couple of problems

[Anonymous Coward]

How about getting you insurance cancled.. it happens all the time.

Florida

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, am I the only one that noticed this happened in Florida? Home of more scams than anywhere in the nation? Color me unshocked.

What a surprise. A clueless AC.

[the_mad_poster]

Hey, idiot. Welcome to capitalism. Part of capitalism is the shift of usable goods from someone who no longer needs/wants them, to somebody who wants them. The customer gets two things: money, and convenience. The business gets a good profit margin. If they (the customer) want to, they can sacrifice convenience and try to pawn off the games on another consumer directly. Just like used cars. You get more money if you do your own work, or you can take it a little easier and get less money.

Did you know that EB makes literally next to no profit on new games and systems? Hmm? So stop bitching and buy the goddamn things new if you think it's such a bad deal, and resell the fucking things yourself when you're done with them instead of having EB do the work for you.

I guess if I were as dumb as you, I'd post AC too so nobody knew who I was.

Re:What a surprise. A clueless AC.

[JuggleGeek]

Part of capitalism is the shift of usable goods from someone who no longer needs/wants them, to somebody who wants them.

When the usable goods belong to someone who wants them, and a thief steals and sells them, you're whole theory pretty much false apart.

I hope someone robs your house and steals your car. You deserve it.

Stolen Stuff

[hardburlyboogerman]

Here in Kentucky,the actions of EB would get you 3 to 5 in the state pen.(It is a felony.)

"Is it me or has the world gone completely apeshit?"

Re:Stolen Stuff

[antdude]

Yes to "Is it me or has the world gone completely apeshit?". It has been like that for years!

Re:Stolen Stuff

[shadowcabbit]

"Is it me or has the world gone completely apeshit?"

It's not you.

Let EB know about what you think of their policies

[StandardCell]

From the EBgames.com website: If you would like to speak to a Customer Service representative for any reason , please call us at 1-877-432-9675. Hours of operation: Open 7 days a week, 8:00 am to midnight EST.

If enough of us call to let them know about what we think of their policies, they might understand the magnitude of their problem. The call's free folks, and so is 5 minutes of your time on a Sunday.

So, protest

[Stickney]

Everyone who thinks that this (meaning the actions of EB) just head on over to www.ebgames.com and send 'em a nice message in their customer service e-mail...

Report EB to the police

[GISGEOLOGYGEEK]

EB was in possesion of stolen property.

They should simply have been reported to the police, who would have confiscated it from them.

In due time, the owner would have gotten it back without paying EB.

EB is scum anyways. up here, on the other side of the continent, in Vancouver Canada, you often see games for sale that a new owner could never actually use!

For example, expansion packs for Everquest, that contain CD Keys that can only be used on one account ... once used, they are useless. Does EB care? NOPE, they keep the used games on the shelf there hoping to screw you.

Regardless I dont buy at EB because they always cost more. I may go there to see if a game is available, then buy it cheaper elsewhere.

Re:Report EB to the police

[jp10558]

Interestingly, in upstate NY, Ithaca area - the local EB's are the only store that does buy used computer games(for a pittance, but better than nothing I guess). Also - they have regularly had cheaper prices for new games than the local Circut City, Walmart, Best Buy, and GameStop. Go figure. No idea, must be local economics or something.

Sue them

[Performer Guy]

This is one case where a good old fashoned legal reaming in the courts will handily take care of the issue.

EB needs to make restitution and pursue the thief themselves. They've basically acted as a fence in this case and now they're telling the victim to seek justice elsewhere. Well, EB sold the stolen property, and illegally too.

Call in a complaint!

[Anonymous Coward]

EB Games #97
Mall: GULF VIEW SQUARE
9409 US HIGHWAY 19
PORT RICHEY FL, 34668 US
727-847-3443

As a Former Funcoland Manager

[Cloe_Rose]

As some of you may know EB/Babbages and Funcloand stores are all now owned by the Barnes and Nobel group.
If this store is using the model developed by Funco when I was worked for them in Texas the employees were required to get proof of who the person was ( state issues photo ID and if you are under 18 you needed a legal parent or guardian with you who then signed) and the customer was offered in store credit ( much higher $$ per game or to have a check mailed to the address on the picture ID. It sounds like the store manager might have been playing a little loose with the system put in place to differentiate the stores from pawn shops.
I had a situation pretty close to that happen to me in that the kid sold off his families games by bringing in a neighbor who posed as Dad so he could trade in twenty Nintendo games ( dating myself I know) for one super NES game... well grandma comes in the next day just livid at me...I explained the situation to her researched the transaction and asked her who the adult who signed the receipt was....she didn't care that her friend/neighbor enabled the kid to sell his games ..she just wanted to get them back......I handled it differently than the Florida case in that to keep the customer from going any more ballistic we hade the corporate office replace the games that were already sold ( the legend of Zelda) and ate the loss.....we did blacklist the son and neighbor ...

Re:As a Former Funcoland Manager

[Galvatron]

As has already been mentioned in other comments, Babbages and Funcoland are now Gamestop. EB Games was formerly Electronics Boutique, and is a seperate, publicly traded company.

Re:As a Former Funcoland Manager

[Dun Malg]

As some of you may know EB/Babbages and Funcloand stores are all now owned by the Barnes and Nobel group.

Babbage's, Funcoland, and Gamestop are owned by Barnes and Noble. Electronics Boutique is part of EB Holdings. You may remember a few years back when EB tried to buy Funcoland, but was outbid by B&N.

Similar story, but better results

[DunbarTheInept]

Some friends of mine recently had a whole shelf of DVD's stolen from their apartment (some of which were expensive imports from Japan). They contacted the police, filed the report, and were told that they should first call around to all the local used disc stores, starting with whichever ones were physically closest to their apartment. If the used disc store is on the up-and-up and wants to avoid legal troubles, they should be able to give them the goods back for free, and then it's *their* job to push things through the legal system to try to get reimbursed by the thief. Thus the legal hassles are offloaded from the original victim of theft to the store that bought the stolen goods, and the original victim walks away from the whole affair and doesn't need to be involved (except perhaps to give testimony as a witness in the event).

The preferred method was to have the victim of the theft do all the 'legwork' and only involve the police if there is some difficulty in getting cooperation.

Well, it worked. They found someone had just sold an alottment of DVD's that exactly matched the list of stolen goods (minus one that the thief apparently kept or lost). The store was cooperative and returned the goods. They had the name of the thief on record (and he'd stupidly used his real ID and real name when selling the goods), and were going to deal with the court case themselves.

That was the last we'd heard of the incident.

It would be a happy ending if it wasn't for the fact that the thief (remember he used his real name) turned out to be a friend we all knew. He knew about the DVD's because he'd been invited over on occasion to watch them. Obviously, this incident was the end of friendly relations with the guy. When my friend called him on the phone, he claimed "Oh, yeah, those DVD's, uhm yeah, some homeless black guy said he just found them and he gave a bunch of them to me. I didn't realize they were yours or I would have given them to you, dude." (Yeah, right - some of those DVD's were really obscure rare items, so there's no way he could fail to notice that that exact combination of DVD's was the same as the ones at his friend's house.)

Some people can be real scum.

But anyway, the point of the story is that this incident is an example of how pawn shops are supposed to work when everything is being done legally and with good intentions, unlike what EB games did.

Boycott

[Voltronalpha]

I read the article and thought about it, at first I thought it might be reasonable for EB to require compensation but then I thought about how they took the risk of footing the bill by selling the items before 15 days. I think they should have no right to charge a profit however. That is asinine.

Call me old fashioned but I wrote a very well stated E-mail that suggested in very friendly and non aggressive terms how I felt (that they should replace this merchandise free of charge to the victim for making the mistake of not holing it long enough) and I suggested that I would stop spending the $200.00+ that I spend with EB every year if they don't rectify the problem. (enough of us together and that'll make a dent) It is certainly better than just complaining here; they might even fix this problem for the victim. I would suggest you go and do the same if it upsets you that this is what has happened.

Re:Boycott

[geminidomino]

I suggested that I would stop spending the $200.00+ that I spend with EB every year if they don't rectify the problem.

Crap, I gotta get a life... I pay that much almost every MONTH between EB/Gamestop.

RTFA - selling back at PROFIT.

[dAzED1]

I've seen so many people say crap about them just wanting to recoup their losses. First, they have to do that via the *thief*, not the victim. Second - RTFA:

But when Michelle went back to EB Games to pick up her lost property, she got another shock. EB Games insisted on selling her back her own property for roughly twice as much as they had paid the thief.

Re:Similar experience on the reseller side of thin

[GISGEOLOGYGEEK]

The pawnshops didnt want to hear about it because the police will walk in and confiscate the goods from them, and they will be out the money they paid the their.

Instead you need to make sure the police know, and tell them to search the pawnshops. The police check them out regularly anyways in most places.

Telling the pawnshop to expect your stolen ibooks is just telling them to hide the merchandise where the cops wont see it.

Re:Similar experience on the reseller side of thin

[C10H14N2]

There's a rather substantial criminal penalty, in California at least. If you knew--or should have known--that you were being passed stolen goods for resale, you are subject to the following:

(a) For the first offense, a fine of up to one thousand five
hundred dollars ($1,500) or imprisonment in the county jail up to two
months, or both.
(b) For the second offense, a fine of up to five thousand dollars
($5,000) or imprisonment in the county jail up to four months, or
both.
(c) For the third, and any subsequent offense, a fine of up to
twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) or imprisonment in the county
jail up to six months, or both.

Since they didn't wait for the proscribed period of time, in California 30 days (no idea as for Florida), and within that time period had the victim walk into their store saying "oy, that's mine," and they didn't bother to even register the items with the police, it's safe to say that in California they'd be up shit creek. The laws on this vary slightly from state to state, but generally they follow the same models...

You mean chain's previous dealings.

[Inoshiro]

ELBO, with its stores in the USA, Europe, Canada, etc, doesn't care where games come from, only that they come in at one price and go out at a higher price. It's how they make the lion's share of their money.

Gamestop's the same way. Check it out sometime, they're all like it.

Re:You mean chain's previous dealings.

[swv3752]

They will take anything if you are not a minor. If you are under the age of 18, they will not touch you. Apparently, kids will sell their games then Mommy comes in a demand the game back. A number of cases the store was out the money for buying stuff from a minor. Seeing how the minor can not make legally binding contracts...

US laws sucks

[terminal.dk]

Here in Denmark, buying stolen goods is a criminal offense. I wonder why this isn't so in the US ? The only excuse is good faith, and that usually requires at least a receipt with a name from the seller, or the original receipt.

In Denmark, the law is made for the good of the society, not to protect the criminals. And as long as it is legal to buy stolen goods, somebody is willing to sell them. If you accept an offer too good to be true, then you will be guilty as well. So this is a law made to make crime less worthwhile.

Call you senators. Also make it criminal to accept stolen or fraud money for the campaign :)

Re:US laws sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

You see, Florida is probably one of the scummiest states in the United States, much like Holland/Netherlands is the focal point of scum for the European Union.

Re:Similar experience on the reseller side of thin

[peeping_Thomist]

they'd rather deal with a stolen good without knowing that it is stolen than do the right thing of turning it in.

Pawn shops are very heavily regulated. They have to keep extensive records, including records of who they are trading with. These records are open to legal authorities.

Pawn shops are not the best place for a criminal to get rid of stolen goods. A place like EB, or just about any store that deals in used goods, is. But pawn shops, no.

I won't be shopping at EB, will you?

[Anonymous Coward]

I presume that everyone reading this on Slashdot will pass it on to everyone they know who may have ever done business with EB. I know I did. With a little luck, this could end up costing them huge in lost business. As far as I'm concerned, there's one thing EB could do to redeem themselves. The chain's corporate HQ could sue the franchise holder for damaging the corporate name through his illegal actions. Reimbursing this lady is necessary, but it is no longer enough by itself.

Re:I won't be shopping at EB, will you?

[DarkManaX]

Well, I will continue to shop there just because I can get cheap used games; a lot more then other places. HQ should do something; probably something along the lines of giving her a new unit plus some extras; always pay back and then some and save face. But EB as a whole is still good; just one store that got too lazy in the way they handled things.

Re:I won't be shopping at EB, will you?

[sallen]

The chain's corporate HQ could sue the franchise holder for damaging the corporate name through his illegal actions. Reimbursing this lady is necessary, but it is no longer enough by itself.
I would agree reimbursement is not enough. But I think Corporate should go a step further. Instead of suing, they should very publically revoke the franshise agreement. There are generally some pretty strong conditions on tarnishing the brand. If it was 'common knowledge' as the story indicates that this store didn't do checks (making it a common, recurring practice), etc, and then in this case knowingly sold stolen property (back to the original owner), I don't think they'd have any problem terminating their agreement.

Re:I won't be shopping at EB, will you?

[Anonymous Coward]

" Well, I will continue to shop there just because I can get cheap used games; a lot more then other places. HQ should do something; probably something along the lines of giving her a new unit plus some extras; always pay back and then some and save face. But EB as a whole is still good; just one store that got too lazy in the way they handled things."

I'm writing their management and if there is not a nice followup story on slashdot I will boycott them because then it will be managements fault for not rectifying this after being given notice. This came just in time for me to renew my yearly customer loyalty discount card and buy a grand or so in stuff in the coming month.

Re:I won't be shopping at EB, will you?

[Andrea_from_Arg]

Considering that they provide shipping to Argentina, and is a bit cheaper than other places online, I have no other choice but to keep buying things there, or get ripped by paying 50.00 dollars as shipping for a 30.00 dollars items :(

Re:I won't be shopping at EB, will you?

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer to get my stolen goods from a guy I know that sells them from the back of his pickup. Cheaper prices.

Re:I won't be shopping at EB, will you?

[DarkFencer]

I could be wrong, but I am almost 100% sure that Electronics Boutique is not a franchise operation. Each store is owned by the main company.

So, in otherwords, this is all the companies fault, they can't blame a franchisee. The most they can do is say (if it is the case) that the manager violated company policy.

Re:I won't be shopping at EB, will you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, yes I will be shopping at EB. Their handling of this has nothing to do with my (a) purchase of games, and (b) selling of games. If I sell something to them, and they don't hold it for a required amount of days, I'm not sure how that affects me at all.

It's interesting how quickly people call for boycotts on things that don't affect them. EB handled the situation as policy dictated. It got a little out of hand, but in the end it wasn't EB's decision to not hold the system that caused the trouble.

When the woman found out that her games were stolen, she should have gone to the police, not to EB.

Re:I won't be shopping at EB, will you?

[Allison Geode]

I will, personally, continue shopping at EB, regardless of one franchises illegal actions. I have a friend in my local EB who is always friendly, and the store itself does a lot with the local gaming community: they're organizing a halo tournament right now!

Re:I won't be shopping at EB, will you?

[WarmBoota]

This is a good enough reason for me to avoid EB entirely. I've found their locations conveniently available, but GameStop is never much farther away and usually has the same games (new and used) for a lower price.

Re:I won't be shopping at EB, will you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course I will keep shopping at EB. Now I know where I can unload all of my stolen video games.

Seriously, I think what EB did is bad not only because one consumer got cheated, but because everyone is cheated when theft is uncheck. This causes higher prices (for the consumer), lower profit (for the honest retailer)and a lower quality of video games (because no one wants to make a product that is easy to steal and resell).

Re:I won't be shopping at EB, will you?

[zonker]

highly doubtful that will happen. a more likely scenario:

she gets her ps2 back and is given a choice of any 3 games she wants as long as she signs an agreement not to sue eb and not to discuss it with the media. the manager gets fired. it gets forgotten and they go about business as usual.

Re:I won't be shopping at EB, will you?

[jp10558]

Makes you wonder why that is maybe...

Pedant Time

[StarKruzr]

In point of fact, it's not the police, exactly, who enforce the court's decision, but the county/city/whatever jurisdiction the court has's Sheriff's Dept.

It *is* illegal in the US.

[porkchop_d_clown]

Which just makes this even weirder. (1) The cops should have seized the stolen property and (2) if they didn't and EB didn't return it, she should have sued them, not paid for her own stuff back.

Punative damages

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is why we need punative damages. Sure no lawyer is going to waste his time over $400. On the other hand this is so flagerant that it would once be worth some decent punatives maybe $10,000 or $20,000. Unfortunatley the Supreme Court of the US limited punatives to 4 or 5 times actual damages (have to respect corporations due process rights you know). Don't you just love republican appointees...

You might want to have a look at www.ATLA.org (Association of Trial Lawyers of America) if you want a (somewhat self interested) look at just how badly the system is stacked against the little guy.

Buy low, sell high?

[Inoshiro]

Fuck, here I was buying stock for about 40$ and selling it for 20$. No wonder I kept running out of money -- these profit margins you describe, if I had them, I think I, too, could run a business!

Seriously.. if people are willing to buy the used one for 2$ less, then more power to the company. It's capitalism, pure and simple. Personally, I just wait for the prices to go down to where I'll buy them, I don't whine like a little bitch.

"Of course, that's provided that you buy new and your "new" game isn't simply a re-shrinked used game being sold as new."

They don't do this anymore, AFAIK, because they were sued over this in Canada.

Re:Did you read the article? OF COURSE NOT.

[Red Alastor]

They made a profit on what they sold and she wasn't able to get back.

They're trying...

[The Tyro]

read their own corporate website.

Our customers also want flexibility and customer-friendly store policies, and Electronics Boutique employs several. For example, we maintain a popular pre-owned program that allows customers to trade in their previously played games for store credit toward the purchase of the hottest new titles, thereby satisfying the rapid play tendencies of avid gamers. And, since we sell an extensive selection of pre-owned titles, we provide a lower priced purchase option for more casual gamers.

Yeah... great. Apparently they've been drinking their own corporate koolaid. I'd say they need to add a few more customer-friendly policies, instead of felon-friendly ones.... something that complies with state law would be dandy.

Re:Did you read the article? OF COURSE NOT.

[Dun Malg]

What they paid the thief = a refund of their "profit," which makes it a loss to them since it did cost them shelve space and man hours to put it into and out of inventory. But don't let facts stand in the way of your comment!

Purchasers of stolen goods are not entitled to reimbursement of any expenses from the rightful owner. If they want what they're out, by law their only recourse is to go after the thief.

But don't let the law stand in the way of your opinion about the facts!

Did you read YOUR QUOTE??

[FreeForm Response]

YOUR QUOTE:
"Their response? They will sell it back to her for what they paid the thief. As for the Playstation, she's simply out of luck." (Extra double emphasis mine)

I somehow suspect that the money they made from selling the Playstation was a larger amount than any "restocking" cost they might have to keep stolen merchandise for a day or so before reselling it.

Jesus man, try to check your own facts before you get all high-and-mighty.

Re:Did you read YOUR QUOTE??

[Anonymous Coward]

> Jesus man, try to check your own facts before you get all high-and-mighty.

If I'm not mistaken, Inoshiro works/worked at EB. He may be trying to save some face.

-AC

Sound the Troll Bells

[superultra]

First, Dragoon412 is describing every retail store. During peak periods, for example, "this past holiday season", there's not a retail store anywhere that's backroom is not stocked "6 to 8 feet in the employee bathroom for lack of anywhere else to put merchandise." That's because it was Christmas. 20-box deliveries are normal, but only during Christmas.

Moreover, I can't really think of any retail chain that specifically allows its individual stores to order individual products. Specific ordering on a store level for any chain that buys in bulk is an inventory management nightmare and would come at nothing less than a huge cost, and therefore price, increase.

Why the low emphasis on gaming knowledge? As a former EB assistant manager, I'll tell you. Typically, people who "know about games" don't work. They sit on their asses during paid hours and talk about games with other people you've hired that "know about games." Nine times out of ten, you hire a guy who is "knowledgeable" and you've hired a poor worker. They don't sell. They don't work. They talk about games. They're elist and will, quite undiplomatically, tell customers that the game that customer has brought to the counter "sucks." Give me a good salesperson over a knowledgable gamer any day. That's not to suggest that a good salesperson will not learn about the product she sells. She will. But the ones who write on their application "I know a lot about video games because I've been playing them 5 hours a day since I was five" are not the people you want working in your store, because, simply, they won't work.

In reference both to Dragoon412's comment and to the original article, there is little consistency of quality between any retail chain. I think the EB I worked at was run extremely tightly, with an emphasis on professionalism, politeness, and gaming knowledge. I've been to other EBs where that is definitly not the case, which is just like any other retail chain. They're highly dependent on the personality and drive of the manager. Surprise.

Secondly, as already stated, EB is not the same store as Gamestop. While Babbages/Gamestop - which are all owned by Barnes and Noble - might use DOS still, EB does not use a DOS-based POS. While they are now in the minority, when I worked at EB in the mall I noticed that many other retail stores are still on rudimentory POS. What does that have to do with selling inside the safety period mentioned in the article, or even running a good store? Not a damn thing. A good manager and employees can run a tight, strong, customer-centric store with a pen and a pad (as once nightmaringly demonstrated at my store on a Black Friday).

Yes, you'll find game stores that are run horribly, as the article so acutely demonstrates. You might have to look hard, but what you will eventually also find, though, are hard working people in EB (and presumably Gamestop) who care about their work and their customers. I know I sound like I'm pitching the company line here. Nevertheless, I have as many anti-corporate Steven Morgan jokes as the next guy. Dragoon421's "EB" store and the one in the article are individual stores not indicative of the entire company.

Re:Sound the Troll Bells

[Bromrrrrr]

I can't really think of any retail chain that specifically allows its individual stores to order individual products. Specific ordering on a store level for any chain that buys in bulk is an inventory management nightmare and would come at nothing less than a huge cost, and therefore price, increase.

Are you suggesting that stores don't get stocked on the basis of what they need but rather on the basis of what they should have needed??
Sounds like a daft idea to me! Retail chains are, as far as I can tell, not in the business of moving products to where they are not needed but rather doing their best to move products to where they ARE needed.

Anyway, I've never worked in retail so for all I know you could be right. But I fail to see how this could be profitable.

Re:Sound the Troll Bells

[superultra]

Are you suggesting that stores don't get stocked on the basis of what they need but rather on the basis of what they should have needed??

That's it exactly. What other way is there? It's much easier to examine patterns in the past to deploy inventory than it is to merely follow an employee's suggestion. Me? I would've loved to have had twenties copies of REZ the day it came out. We got two. One was bought by an employee a few days after the release, and the other by one of our regular customers. We never saw the game again. In all honesty, had we received twenty copies we may have eventually sold them, sure. But maybe not. What we did always have enough of were NCAA Footballs. Sports games, in fact, make a good case for predictability in stocking. If NCAA 2002 sold, say, 200 copies during the intial 21 days, and NCAA 2003 sold 250 copies, it's safe to say that that particular store may need upwards 300 copies for NCAA 2004.

Does this mean that from time to time, there are stores that have extras and stores that are out? Well sure it does. What would happen in our district is that the district manager would quickly shift inventory between stores to compensate on a local level, while the predictive system - which is now showing a quickly sold out inventory in that second store - ships extra quantities as well. I can't say for certain, but I'd imagine a similar process happens at Amazon, be it by computer or by human. If Futurama Season 1 sold X amount of DVDs, you can rest assured that Futurama Season 2 will probably sell in the same ballpark.

I'm not sure what you're suggesting, but there's not another way to do it. While not perfect, from what I understand in having talked to longtime customers of EB (upwards 5 years), the system now used by both EB and Gamestop is far preferable to what it was before, when it was humans deciding what they needed.

Re:Sound the Troll Bells

[jeko]

Dragoon421's "EB" store and the one in the article are individual stores not indicative of the entire company.

Actually, they provably are.

If this had been an abberration, then EB heaquarters could have fulfilled their duty by providing the victim with restitution and then some to apologize. A spare gamecube and a handful of games probably would have turned this woman into a fan for life -- at the very least, it would have shown a jury you weren't trying to profit by receiving stolen property. It goes without saying that the punishment against the store manager and franchise owner should have been Draconian to say the least.

Instead, EB headquarters endorsed the local manager's decision to deal in stolen property. Therefore, the crime attaches to them and they should be sitting at the defendant's table.

More importantly, as a man with several children, nieces and nephews, the words "EB" and "thief" have forever been linked in my mind.

Way to go, guys. You took a small local problem and turned it into a national embarrassment. Brilliant.

Re:Sound the Troll Bells

[Ephemeriis]

I work at EB, and used games are hell. We'll get a couple hundred traded in every day where I work.

Yes, we're supposed to take down their ID... But then we'll have a little kid come in and want to trade in his games - no ID, no trade - and then his parents get mad at us. The corporate policy is basically to give the customer whatever they want...if they complain loud enough, they get it. So, when people complain loud enough about trading someting in witout ID, they get to trade it in without ID. Which sucks...because then the District Manager comes down on you, wanting to know why you don't have any ID for the transaction. But if you refuse the trade-in, you get an angry phonecall from the District Manager wondering why you wouldn't take their games...

Plus, our trade-in prices are crap, so we get plenty of people complaining about that. Yes, we only give you $25 for a game you bought NEW yesterday for $50. Yes, we are going to sell it to someone else for $45 tomorrow. No, there isn't anything I can do about that.

I don't know about waiting periods... But we really don't have any place to keep the stuff. As has been said, our stockroom is a joke. There's barely enough room to hang your coat when you come in to work... And over the holidays, with the system shipments? Forget it. I don't kow where we'd store the games for the waiting period. There just is not room. Not that it matters... We're supposed to get those games up on the shelf just as quick as we can. Ideally they'll be up on the shelf just as soon as the customer leaves. It isn't at all unusual to take a game in and sell it again the very same day.

Is this good? Is it legal? Is it right? I don't know...I just do what they tell me to, so I get my paycheck, and I can feed my family.

yrs,
Ephemeriis

Re:Sound the Troll Bells

[Anonymous Coward]

> I'm not sure what you're suggesting, but there's not another way to do it.

When I started working 14 years ago now, retailers had to stock the computers they thought they'd be selling. Often the amount in stock was dictated by some central office.

Nowadays, there is virtually noone who still does it that way, virtually all computers are built to order instead of built to plan,. and are built and delivered 'just in time' instead of way in advance.

The drawback:
Customer may have to wait a bit longer, machine has to be built and delivered.

The advantages:
No moving around of unsold stuff, savign a huge amount in transport costs
Shops need less storage space, lowerign their cost substantially
No risk of ending up with unsellable items, saving for whoever is takign the risk on the operation.

Now, you may say the computer market is very specific and can't be compared to other markets. It is very specific, mostly due to the short commercial life expectancy of products, but that is somethign it shares with software in general and so also with games. The flexibility that built to order provides is not relevant to most software, and as such there is somethign which makes computers a lot more suitable for this.

That said, the transportation and storage cost arguments simply remain.

Saying there is no other way.. well, untill someone finds another way. Any business that argued that way is doomed because there will always be another way. In this particular case, there are also strong economical arguments for 'another way'.

Re:Sound the Troll Bells

[shadowcabbit]

I salute you, comrade. I got out about fourteen months ago after very nearly being put on the fast track to management of the store.

I was never terribly fond of Morgan either-- never met the guy myself, but everyone I talked to who had all seemed to say his name like they'd say any other profanity.

[Gamers hired are] elist and will, quite undiplomatically, tell customers that the game that customer has brought to the counter "sucks."

Well, being one of those guys (hired because my answer to "what game systems have you played recently?" was "all of them" followed by naming them, in reverse alphabetical order), I can say that most of the time it was true. I also probably ought to mention that my managers always could count on me for overtime, closing, whatever. I wasn't perfect, mind you, but I knew my stuff and I worked my ass off. So maybe there's a combination of "gamer" and "salesman" out there that'll work. (To be fair-- the only reason I didn't wind up talking all day about games is because a) I never worked with other "gamer"-types and b) the ones I did work with all liked games I wasn't interested in. Oh yeah, and c) by the time I was through working there I was about this close to becoming completely anti-social and going to live on some hill in Tennessee.)

I think the EB I worked at was run extremely tightly, with an emphasis on professionalism, politeness, and gaming knowledge.

Incidentally, which store did you run? I was at the Millcreek Mall in Erie, PA and the Olean Center Mall in Olean, NY. I was about ready to strangle the GameDoctor guy by the end of six months. ^_^

Re:Sound the Troll Bells

[superultra]

Incidentally, which store did you run?

One, ironically, in the hills in Tennessee. Chattanooga, specifically, and was only an assistant. The Game Doctor was pretty horrid, although to be frank it generally paid for a game a month for me. GMRs did the same thing, which was kind a nice bonus.

I didn't want to suggest that there isn't a hybrid super-EB-guy who is knowledgable and works their ass off. We had several of those in our store. And, when the going was slow we would, in fact, stand around and shoot the breeze about games or movies or what we liked to subvertly call, "Code 6" - which is to say really hot girl walking by the store. Or, "code 12," which meant for someone to quietly walk into the backroom and hit the switch for circuit 12 - the demo unit circuit. You should have seen the fun we had with school field trips, the gamecube demo unit and the wavebird. Ahh, the good ole days.

I got out to go to grad school, but like yourself could have easily run a store. I miss retail, until I realize that I don't. What I do really miss are the co-workers and the regular customers; not only were the people I worked with just great people, but a lot of our weeklies were just fantastic and interesting people to get to know. I think if it were just that, the regulars, I might have stayed in retail. I'm not sure it's worth it though when you have "customers" whose apparent goal in life to is weekly figure out how to rip the store a new one by taking advantage of the return policy (even after there wasn't really one), or whine and bitch about something that isn't your fault. Oh the stories I could tell.

I was but one degree from knowing Morgan, and from what I gathered the guy was all about business. I guess that's good, but he's generally the power broker now and represents a paradigm shift in the management of EB. I think I like the nicer, gentler EB of the Firestone days. That guy was pretty great.

Re:Sound the Troll Bells

[swv3752]

It is going to suck for your family when you get thrown in jail or fined.

Re:VIVA LA TROLLKORE-RAZA

[Anonymous Coward]

THINK ABOUT THE POSITION OF YOUR PENIS IN YOUR UNDERWEAR. Does it need to be moved?

I don't have one. Do you have any alternative suggestion?

I had a similar experience at Walmart

[Fished]

A couple of years ago, I bought a compact flash card at Walmart. Someone had taken the 128mb card out of the package and replaced it with their old, 4MB card. Once I managed to explain to the clueless person at the return desk what the problem was, she called the manager, who took it back (for exchange) no problem. I think if I had wanted cash back they might have given me a hard time.

The've lost my business

[Anonymous Coward]

forever. And I spend $$$ on games and hardware.

Partially due to the Florida Police....

[GrnArmadillo]

I remember a while back the Miami Herald found 20 odd "missing" children from foster care the state "couldn't" find by calling the childrens' relatives and determining that a parent had taken the child back in violation of the custody agreements. This isn't necessarily a value judgement on the FLA police - they may be overworked, underfunded, etc. It just seems that a minute of the time of the police officer who took the confession to explain to EB exactly how badly an appearence in small claims court would go for them and this whole story would never have happened.

Reminds me of the time...

[disntrstd]

When I went to Eb Boutique to sell a few Playstation games. I placed the games onto the counter to wait for the clerk, turned my head for a few minutes to play some games, and then they were gone.

Doesn't Common Law on Property Say...

[EXTomar]

Anyone accepting stolen material are out of luck. It is a felony to do it with knowledge that they are handling stolen property.

IANAL, but the property belongs to the person. It is EB's responsibility for suing the theif for a fruadulent transaction. In essence this guy not only stole from the owner but duped EB. I don't see how EB has a leg to stand upon on this.

The whole thing's a mess

[Trailer Trash]

I read this story a couple of days ago when it showed up on FC. I would also recommend that people go and read the other "Hall of Shame" stories on that site, you'll start to see a common theme, which is that people just don't know how to deal with situations like this.

In this situation, the lady who was robbed is, let's face it, dumb as a rock. She paid them for stuff that they know she owns. Holy crap. This was already being handled by the police.

The police are idiots. There's a quote in there about "we think they're breaking the law by not holding the stuff for 15 days." Well, Barney Fife, here's a clue: You are the police! If they're breaking the law, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, CRETIN. Duh. The EB admitted to trafficking in stolen goods. Selling her stuff that they know she owns is trafficking in stolen goods. Why were no arrests made?

Read the rest of them, though, it's a common theme. People are getting ripped off for $20,000 in some cases (pool work, kitchen work, etc.) and saying stupid stuff like "I don't know how they get away with it". Well, genius, they get away with it because you're going to the TV station instead of an attorney.

There's another lady who was being evicted from her apartment because they said she'd been late paying. In fact, she had proof (all the cancelled checks) that she had paid on time, yet it wasn't until the TV station took those checks to the court that the eviction stopped. The apartment was retaliating against her for turning them in for codes violations. Here she'd been to court and didn't even know to just show the court that the other side was lying.

Anyway, it's sad. People don't know what to do, the police apparently don't know what to do, it's just stupidity all around.

This is what I've done...

[chriton]

I emailed EB:
I have been a long time customer of EB, but your actions & public comments concerning your fencing of Michelle Doganis' stolen gaming equipment will change that. I am referring to the following article: http://www.abcactionnews.com/stories/2004/01/04012 9hallofshame.shtml The amount of money you would be out if you had simply returned Michelle's equipment and compensated her fairly for the equipment you sold in violation of state law will be dwarfed by the amount of lost business you will suffer as a result. I am personally alerting all my gaming friends to your behavior. None of them would want to have their equipment stolen and fenced by you and they won't support such activities by keeping you in business.

You owe Michelle and the communities in which you do business a full apology and a sincere and verifiable commitment to change your business practices. You also owe Michelle a full refund of the money you extorted from her for the return of her equipment and fair payment for her equipment you had already fenced before she had the opportunity to claim ownership. Only then will you deserve to stay in business.

Better yet, I emailed the State Attorney General's Office...
I urge you to investigate EB Games. Please see http://www.abcactionnews.com/stories/2004/01/04012 9hallofshame.shtml for information about their organized fencing operation. They are violating state law and actively denying their responsibilities to victims of their actions. I strongly believe this is an organized activity operated under the direction and sanction of EB Games' management and as such EB Games is guilty not only of improperly following laws pertaining to second hand dealers, but certainly also extortion as they have refused to return stolen equipment unless paid by the rightful owner of the equipment. They may even be in violation of federal RICO statutes. This activity is going on in broad daylight and should not be tolerated.

Since I live in Florida, it should carry some weight. Don't get pissed, get even.

RFID would solve all of your problems

[John Harrison]

Oddly enough the most demonized techonology on /. would solve the problem nicely. If these items each had an RFID tag on them and the RFID tag had owner info written on it at the time of sale then you could track it back to the original owner easily.

Of course RFID tags are manufactured by Satan himself and there is no legitimate use for them, or at least so say the /. editors.

Re:RFID would solve all of your problems

[Reivec]

whoa, way off base there my man. No one (with brains) was claiming RFID had no legit uses, in fact I have seen lots of conversations on /. about good ways they could be used. The major concern is that if they are just allowed to be put into everything with no sort of regulations then they could easily be abused. I think most people just want assurance that RFID can not be used against them. I have to totally agree with this, I would have no problem with RFID if the tags had to be clearly visable and removable after purchase or disabled at purchase. RFID is a great tool BEFORE the point of sale.

Re:RFID would solve all of your problems

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Oddly enough the most demonized techonology on /. would solve the problem nicely.

And Mussolini made the trains run on time, so what?

If RFID tech didn't have redeeming qualities in the first place, then there would be no controversy at all because no one would see any benefit to using it.

The reason RFID gets so much play here is because some people care more about "the trains running on time" while others care more about all the "other uses" that infringe on our sense of privacy.

Re:RFID would solve all of your problems

[nytmare]

You're wrong. What they say is that there are significant illegitimate uses for RFID tags, possibly more significant than the legit uses.

Re:RFID would solve all of your problems

[SubtleNuance]

The same database && search mechanism can be accomplished TODAY simply using the serial on a device. No PASSIVE reading/tracking can take place though, if a person is required to type in the serial of an item to be tracked.

...but we dont have such a database do we, thinking that RFID will help create one is senseless.

Re:RFID would solve all of your problems

[John Harrison]

You could have your contact info encoded onto the tag at the point of sale for high value items if you wanted to. No big brother database needed.

I don't see the danger in having a tag on my Playstation that says it belongs to me. It isn't like the black helicopters flying above my house can read the tag. Of course THEY already know all about me so it doesn't matter anyhow.

Re:RFID would solve all of your problems

[John Harrison]

Every time I have submitted an interesting article to /. about RFID and ways to prevent abuse of it the submission has been rejected. Most recently I submitted an article about technology developed by IBM and Metro Group to disable tags at the point of sale.

Not only have my submissions been rejected (which honestly can't count as evidence since I would guess that 95% of all submissions are rejected unless they are dupes) but /. never posts an article about RFID on the front page that isn't clamoring about the dangers of RFID. Yes there are some posters here that can discuss the issue sensibly, but the articles that hit the front page are all of the, "The sky is falling!" nature.

I am glad to hear that you think I am "off base" for thinking that the /. editors are biased. I would guess that most of the readership fits your definition of "off base".

I should make some "All YOUR base are belong to us!" joke here but I won't.

Re:RFID would solve all of your problems

[Asic Eng]

You could scratch your name in the back of the case with the same result. Besides the RFID would only help with the first re-sale, and if it was reprogrammable crooks could reprogram it, too.

Re:RFID would solve all of your problems

[pretentiousPPC]

Of course then arn't you just asking for some kind of ultra-fancy one of these?

Re:RFID would solve all of your problems

[John Harrison]

Not if they don't have the cryptographic keys to enable writing. What do you know about this stuff anyhow?

Re:RFID would solve all of your problems

[Asic Eng]

If every store has access to a key, then it's programmable by basically everybody. If it can be re-programmed, then the first programming is not particular helpful. Is it all that difficult to remove an RFID tag? Replace it with a different one? Sorry, but your idea just doesn't help.

What do you know about this stuff anyhow?

Think you can somehow make this any more lame?

Re:RFID would solve all of your problems

[John Harrison]

I wasn't implying that every store has the key needed to overwrite. If you think about it a little you'll be able to come up with a way that the tag can't be overwritten by just anyone. If you think about it some more you'll find a way to transfer ownership of the tag when the item it sold so that only the owner can write to it.

Your knee-jerk reaction shows you haven't put much thought into this.

Re:RFID would solve all of your problems

[Asic Eng]

Well I don't know what you are thinking of - I can merely reply to what you write. What you have described so far doesn't work, and I pointed out why it doesn't work. I think that's only reasonable in discussion. Maybe you have a good thought there, but then you need to explain that thought. Sure I can think of schemes to transfer tag ownership, I can also think of ways in which these schemes fail. I can not tell if those problems apply to your scheme since I don't know what it is.

On the other hand I ask you to refrain from personal attacks.

Re:Let EB know about what you think of their polic

[Anonymous Coward]

so is 5 minutes of your time on a Sunday.

I don't know about you, but *all* my time is occupied by goatse

Re:Let EB know about what you think of their polic

[Vexinator]

Good advice, and I took it.
The gist of the conversation went as such:

I explained that I would not be doing further business with them unless they changed this policy, which conflicts with laws designed to protect against the sale of stolen goods.

The EBGames customer service rep put me through to a manager, who mentioned that this particular Florida incident took place over a month ago (the article above has the data Jan 29) and that they had been in contact with Michelle since then and were trying to rectify the situation.

At this point I told them a press release regarding this matter, and any policy changes that occur from it, would be appreciated.

All depends on the area you are in.

[Mike the Mac Geek]

My house was robbed, and the items traded in at Gamestop.

Luckily, the police were on it fast, got the stuff seized, Gamestop fully cooperated. I been going there ever since.

EB, I used to go there all the time. Never again.

Re:All depends on the area you are in.

[Mike Buddha]

Luckily, the police were on it fast, got the stuff seized, Gamestop fully cooperated.

That's the HUGE difference between what you did and what she did. She went to EB and said "that's my stolen stuff" according to the article. You went to the police. She bought back her items instead of going through the due process that is required to regain stolen property.

If EB were to hand out every piece of software/hardware that someone walking in off the street said was stolen from them, they'd be out of business right quick.

I wish I was an EB customer...

[Suicide Clown]

just so I could tell them I was taking my business elsewhere.

May the buyer beware

[MMaestro]

The store I worked at literally had Playstations and Xboxes and Gamecubes stacked up 6 to 8 feet in the employee bathroom for lack of anywhere else to put merchandise.

Thats nothing, at my local EBGames, which my friend works at, they have so many Gamecube's, PS2's, and Xbox's that they stack them in the bathroom up to the ceiling (note : this violates fire ordinance).

Not only that, their new "bargain bin" is a bunch of old used, unbought games and toys in a plastic box... on the floor. They don't even have enough wall/table/floor space to put up all the advertisement they get so they often toss it or give it to me (mmm, pretty art).

Oh and for the PC gamers out there? Never buy a used PC game that requires a CD-key to play online. Why? Simple, they're SUPPOSED to cover up the CD-key with stickers or just don't display them, but they don't. I've gotten about 3 C&C:General CD-keys, 2 Warcraft III CD-keys, a Warcraft III expansion CD-key, and a CD-key for The Sims. I haven't tried them yet though, but I'm willing to bet that they're all legit.

Facts facts facts

[werdna]

It is natural to look to various issues of injustice and argue what the result should be. In practice, a seasoned lawyer will recognize that the devil is always in the details, and that the general hypothetical might well be settled either way. In the absence of a comprehensive understanding of the facts, we are just guessing.

I have learned, from extensive experience, that news reporting as to details is terribly weak. The news gets it right as to the big picture with astonishing frequency, but almost every news article I have seen published with which I had intimate familiarity with the details contains several material errors. In short, don't believe everything you read.

Note, further, that law does not always provide a civil remedy for every bad action of a person or company, even where the conduct of EB may have been a violation or a crime. It is quite possible that EB may be subject to fines or worse, but that the buyer's sole recourse would be against the thief. It may well be that EB may be subject to restitution for various forms of conversion, plus punitive damages. Who knows? The devil is in the details. Without the facts, we'd just be guessing.

Re:Facts facts facts

[Alomex]

I have learned, from extensive experience, that news reporting as to details is terribly weak.

That was my experience with the (in)famous McDonalds hot coffee lawsuit. When I first heard about it I thought it was the dumbest thing I ever heard. Then on a whim I took the time to read through the entire court papers and learning about the details that get left out of the press reports and suddenly the thing makes a lot of sense. One can certainly see why the jury ruled the way they did.

Reminds me of Paypal's "Buyer Security"

[Anonymous Coward]

I ordered a game on ebay once, and I paid for it right then (buy it now). It never came, so I filed a buyer protection case. They didn't refund me. I am still angry about it.

Send an email to EB

[faldore]

Tell EB you won't shop with them any more. help@ebgames.com

hmm...

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I guess Florida has another problem, other than election irregularities ;)

Sivaram Velauthapillai

EB Broke the Law

[dmarx]

According to the article, EB did indeed break the law. Michelle should have gone to the police, not the media. She still can go to the police, and with this article she has even more evidance. EB could face some sanctions-and maybe the owner of that particular store will have to do some community service or something.

Re:EB Broke the Law

[Anonymous Coward]

If the store manager *knew* he was taking in stolen goods and selling them, he could get decades in prison. If he knew that he was taking in stolen goods and had the intention of selling them back to the owner, and you could show that he engaged in the practice routinely, he could get *life* in prison. If you could show that some upper management knew that this practice was going on institutionally, you could get into RICO territory. Decades in prison for the lot of them.

Not backroom, BATHroom

[lorcha]

that's backroom is not stocked "6 to 8 feet in the employee bathroom for lack of anywhere else to put merchandise."

Just fyi, the situation he was describing had merchandise not only stacked up in the "backroom" but 6-8 feet in the employee bathroom.

I really hope this is not standard operating procedure for retail stores. Time to go wash my hands.

not this old urban legend again

[Scudsucker]

What about the idiot who won a lawsuit against McDonalds when she poured her own coffee on her crotch?

She didn't sue because she accidently dumped coffee on herself. She wanted reimbursement because the coffee was so hot it cause third degree burns, TO THE BONE, requiring $300,000 in surgery. She just wanted reimbursment for her medical bills, and only sued after McDonalds blew her off, even though the company had recieved hundereds of complaints from both customers and health inspectors across the country about the temperature of your coffee. And even then, McDonalds was only made to pay the amount they'd make from two days of profits from *just* coffee and only coffee, and even *then* the award was further reduced by a judge. So the Golden Arches were hardly hurting here.

What I don't understand is how people, upon learning of the facts, still insist that this is a frivolous lawsuit. Hello? You shouldn't have to worry about avoiding 3rd degree burns when you sit down at a restaurant, any more than it's your responsibility to worry if your car's gas tank will explode if you get in a crash at 5 mph.

Far from being a poster child of frivilous lawsuits, the McDonalds coffee is a perfect example of why we need lawyers and huge monetary awards. Because business are quite happy to screw you over and even put you in danger, if it makes then money and they can get away with it. What was the Slashdot story again? Something about EB games screwing a customer over?

Re:not this old urban legend again

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, I got coffee for someone there once (I don't drink coffee myself) and it was so damn hot I couldn't even hold the cup to walk to the car, I can't imagine what spilling it on myself would have been like (and I think it was after the lawsuit because they had a sign on the coffee pot saying something about the coffee temp.) - and I've gotten coffee at many different places and it was never, ever nearly as hot as that McD's coffee.

Re:not this old urban legend again

[Anonymous Coward]

She just wanted reimbursment for her medical bills, and only sued after McDonalds blew her off, even though the company had recieved hundereds of complaints from both customers and health inspectors across the country about the temperature of your coffee.

2 simple problems with this argumentation.

• I thought the USA had a capitalist economy? if McDonnalds coffee is so badly hot, how about not buying it??
• If this had been complained about so often, why didn't she take a bit more care with her coffee? Btw, she lacks sense of heat or somethign so she didn't notice herself?

Bottomline, McDonnalds sells bad coffee, known fact, and the reason why I don't buy coffee there. Oh, its also too hot it seems, tho that has never been a real problem for me, but I guess you get used to coffee being hot when you actually make some yourself at times. It is simply absurd that McDonnalds is held responsible for 1. the customer lacking the sense to go buy more decent coffee, 2. ignoring senses and repeated warnings of it being hot and 3. failing to draw any conclusions from previous contact with coffee. This is regardless of the temperature of their coffee unless it actually starts melting the cups and poors out on its own account.

Re:not this old urban legend again

[Scudsucker]

It is simply absurd that McDonnalds is held responsible for 1. the customer lacking the sense to go buy more decent coffee, 2. ignoring senses and repeated warnings of it being hot

So, just to be clear, you are perfectly a-ok with businesses knowingly selling you defective products that can cause serious injury or death? Remember, the lady wasn't scalded, she was burned to the bone.

As individuals, we pay consequences if we knowingly put someone in danger. Reckless or drunken driving comes to mind. But why should businesses be exempt from responsibility? Why don't you go to the homes of those people who's families were killed by faulty Firestone tires and tell them, "See, this is a capitalist country, so rather than suing Ford or Firestone for knowingly putting you at risk, just boycott the companies. That'll teach em!"

In the United States, the courts have found that a business has the same rights that an individual person would. But thanks to our Republican and Libertarian minded friends, regulations are hard to pass or enforce. And now thanks to the gullible and naive buying industry propoganda, companies will be shielded from any kind of meaningful responsibility by so called "tort reform". But tort reform doesn't do a shred of good for consumers, all it does is shield companies from paying for their negligence.

Re:not this old urban legend again

[Zhe Mappel]

Excellent post, Scudsucker.

If people prefer to believe narratives that posit poor, abused corporations as the victims of frivolous lawsuits by mean old ladies, then maybe it is because their spirits and dreams have been sufficiently crushed.

Even as recently as the late 20th century, Americans rooted for the little guy - because, well, they're all little guys themselves, after all. But the ethos today is closer to that of TV's Survivor: screw everybody else. Buy that empty promise of social Darwinism, and nobody will be there to keep you from being screwed when you order coffee; when you buy a video game; when you are saddled with venal and moronic leaders.

Re:not this old urban legend again

[Scudsucker]

Thank you. :)

Even as recently as the late 20th century, Americans rooted for the little guy - because, well, they're all little guys themselves, after all. But the ethos today is closer to that of TV's Survivor: screw everybody else.

I don't know that it's so much "screw everybody else", as case of industry and a few politicians pulling some masterful slight of hand. Rather than the Little Guy standing up for himself by taking The Man to court, the Little Guy has been convinced that going to court means Greedy Trial Laywers are filing frivilous lawsuites agains the poor, beleagured industry for their honest mistakes.

The best part is that the Little Guy seems to have been convinced that clamping down on supposedly frivilous lawsuites will actually *save* him money because the cost of a fine or settlement will just be passed back down to the consumer. Nevermind the money the consumer will end up paying because companies will be free to sell faulty products, or extra medical bills he'll get because of a negligent doctor...

Right at the moment I guess I fault the press as much as anyone else. American media loves to take a story and run with it, without questioning the facts too much. Richard Jewel and Atlanta, Gore and the Internet, Bush and his verbal dyslexia, people falsely accused of sex crimes. If the media would just do a little research instead of mindlessly parroting "McDonalds Coffee Lady!!!" it wouldn't be such an uphill battle to convince the Little Guy to start standing up for himself again.

Re:not this old urban legend again

[stephanruby]

In the United States, the courts have found that a business has the same rights that an individual person would. But thanks to our Republican and Libertarian minded friends, regulations are hard to pass or enforce. And now thanks to the gullible and naive buying industry propoganda, companies will be shielded from any kind of meaningful responsibility by so called "tort reform". But tort reform doesn't do a shred of good for consumers, all it does is shield companies from paying for their negligence.

Excuse-me!?! As a Libertarian, I resent what you've just said. I don't know enough about "tort reform" to be for it or against it, but I do like the tort system we have right now. It's probably the only thing I wouldn't get rid of in this government.

Re:not this old urban legend again

[Scudsucker]

Excuse-me!?! As a Libertarian, I resent what you've just said. I don't know enough about "tort reform" to be for it or against it, but I do like the tort system we have right now. It's probably the only thing I wouldn't get rid of in this government.

Why, when did Libertarians stop opposing government regulation? The courts have found that corporations have all the rights of individuals, but Republicans oppose regulation, oppose fines and now want to limit your ability to sue them. Doesn't this seem like a recipe for trouble to you? All the rights without any responsibility or liability for your actions?

gah, i even previewed

[Anonymous Coward]

about the temperature of your coffee

should be "temperature of their coffee"

What does this woman expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

EB is a business and not a charity. If they have goods on the shelf that were once hers she will have to pay for them in order to get them back from EB. - or she could convince her Insurance company to purchase the goods in question for her from EB.

The same thing happened to me (similar circumstance) where a large quantity of music CDs were stolen from my home - in my case the insurance paid the claim after seeing the exetnsive list and photographs of my living room showing the CDs stored there.

Some time later I found my CDs for sale in a local music store. It seems the thief who stole all of my CDs went and sold them all to this store. Several of the CDs where ones I ordered as free samples/not for resale and others exhibited water damage sustained when an aquarium overflowed when changing water. I confronted the store OWNER who was not concerned about this, I contacted the police who were not concerned with this... so with no recourse - I found out who sold the CDs to the store and arranged for him to accidentally fall down several flights of stairs... several times... I suggest you to do the same. It's about all that you can do.

Last time I checked...

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't receiving stolen goods illegal in and of itself? It seems that EB should be in some legal trouble over this alone...

I agree that this would be something worth boycotting EB over. EB has no competitive edge over GameSpot/Babbages/Best Buy/Circuit City/Walmart for game prices anyway (unless you're buying used).

Receiving stolen goods criminal offense

[Anonymous Coward]

at least in my home state of Pennsylvania. The store manager, were he doing business here, might very well have needed to raise bail to get out of pound ass hotel.

Oh, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can cry how outraged you are as much as you like, but when then next game you want hits shelves, how many of you will be back at your local EB store?

Re:Oh, please.

[Hassman]

why would I ever buy there? They are overpriced beyond all belief.

Re:Oh, please.

[shiffman]

Not me. Even if they were the only outlet that had it. (And when is that ever the truth?) I don't go back to stores that have service policies that offend me. And when a case this blatant comes up, how can you even consider doing business with them? Especially knowing that if you were the victim of burglary, they would be happy to help the burglar fence your property?

Given all the outlets that carry the same products as EB, it's no effort at all to avoid them. And even if it did cost me something, I'd feel the same way.

What emergency exit?

[superultra]

Just fyi, the situation he was describing had merchandise not only stacked up in the "backroom" but 6-8 feet in the employee bathroom.

That's what I meant as well. During Christmas, particularly for speciality stores like EB and Gamestop, I can assure you that this is case. I'm sure it violates some OSHA compliance of some kind, but there really was nowhere else to put the infernal stuff, particularly during system launches and Christmas. I remember when I first walked into the back room for the interview and being completely astonished by how small the back room was in proportion to the store. All the EBs I've ever seen have backrooms no larger than a small bedroom, if that. The only exception was a temporary EB in a shoe store space, and walking into their backroom was like walking into stockroom heaven. The Xbox launch for us - with the size of those original boxes - was a real hoot. Walking into the backroom (and bathroom) was like having accidently wondered into a small but highly concentrated forest of tall, black, square, and very heavy trees. Come spring cleaning and stock room reorganization in these stores, suddenly all the employees gain a intense affinity for Nintendo.

Do the right thing or get my Doom figurine.

[nadim]

I think I will buy Doom elsewhere and go buy the figurine from a pawn dea^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H EB.

Trafficking in stolen goods...

[rdean400]

They must not have very good lawyers, because now that the police have the culprit in custody, they are clearly guilty of trafficking in stolen goods.

Most Modern day game stores these days...

[ShadowRage]

this is why I dont like most of the game stores these days, they allow a lot of crap to happen, they dont give the consumer what they want, and store to store, they're biased on different systems.

I remember when funcoland was around, it was great, it had to be my favorite store, but nowadays, since gamestop bought it out, there's not that great of a selection anymore, and few of the stores around here are biased towards xbox or playstation 2 stuff, and one has a gamecube section with 5 games in it.
whilst another has a huge selection of all 3 major systems.. not to mention a nice PC gaming selection..

but I'm pretty disappointed in a lot of these stores these days, electronics boutique used to be a great store, then they changed names to ebgames, then I noticed a quality drop.

It's sad to see. now your best bet is to try to get to little ma and pop type gaming stores to get anything good, and older stuff that's not supported by the industry anymore. and hurry before they drop out of business or get torpedoed by the big chains.

Similar but better in Australia

[mister_tim]

A few years ago my appartment was broken in to while my flatmate and I were away over a weekend. Anyway, I had a bunch of CDs and videos stolen, but since I wasn't insured (soon rectified) and didn't think anything could be done, I didn't report it to the police at first. Anyway, after a few days I decided to report it, and they asked for a list of everything that was taken, which I could actually provide, since I kept a spreadsheet with a list of all my CDs. A few days after that a detective called back and asked me to come in to identify and pick up my CDs - basically, the thief had sold them all at the local CD exchange, and I got about 75% of them back. I was quite surprised but very impressed. And because you need to show your drivers license or similar ID in order to sell second hand goods, they could track down the guy.

I don't know what happened to the thief in the end, as they never called me to testify in court or anything, but I was particularly impressed at the good work of the local police. And since then, I've seen the police in the same shop either picking up stolen property, or have seen the shop confiscate a bunch of CDs from someone who was trying to sell them, because they exactly matched a list of stolen items that the police had provided to them.
Another reason I'm glad I live here and not in the USA.

Re:Similar experience on the reseller side of thin

[johnnliu]

similar experience I heard.

a couple of guys walked into our office (software shop) to try to sell a compaq laptop. We wrote them a company cheque, but when they discover they couldn't cash the check (I think you need to deposit into an account), they returned to ask for cash instead.

Someone in the office called compaq and had the s/n checked - it was stolen. So the accounts lady delayed them a bit - tell them we're waiting for some transaction in the bank to go through, and they went downstairs for some drinks.

anyway, police came and hid in the office, when they returned the police jumped on them. all three were caught.

laptop was probably used as evidence to trial the criminals, but I'd assume it was eventually returned to the owner.

this is Sydney Australia - roughly 4 years ago. anyway, I heard this from my boss & couple of guys working here when it happened. I was not in this company at the time.

ding-a-ling

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you suggesting that stores don't get stocked on the basis of what they need but rather on the basis of what they should have needed??

pmji but yes. While an EB (or any other franchise) will report sales (daily?/weekly?) up to some higher level, and thus potentially make restocking pretty accurate, it's not uncommon for a corporate to say (especially for new stuff) "we'll order 10,000" of these widgets for the Miami district, that's 1000 per store" and just ship 'em 1000 each.

Re:Similar experience on the reseller side of thin

[Anonymous Coward]

if you read this and still work at the Apple dealership does not Apple still distibute the serial numbers of stolen equipment?

I used to work at an Apple dealer in the mid-80's and we would get a monthly bulletin from Apple and then postings on Apple's AppleLink service. We would routinely check any computers in for service against the posted listings.

If they still distribute a list I am certain it must be very large by now.

Someone should tell her...

[Vthornheart]

About regulation 538.08 (in the Florida Laws regarding secondhand dealers)

--- 538.08 Stolen goods; petition for return.--

(1) If the secondhand dealer contests the identification or ownership of the property, the person alleging ownership of the property may, provided that a timely report of the theft of the goods was made to the proper authorities, bring an action for replevin in the county or circuit court by petition in substantially the following form:

Plaintiff A. B., sues defendant C. D., and alleges:

1. This is an action to recover possession of personal property in _______________ County, Florida.

2. The description of the property is: (list property) . To the best of plaintiff's knowledge, information, and belief, the value of the property is $_______________.

3. Plaintiff is entitled to the possession of the property under a security agreement dated __________, (year) , a copy of which is attached.

4. To plaintiff's best knowledge, information, and belief, the property is located at ____________________.

5. The property is wrongfully detained by defendant. Defendant came into possession of the property by (describe method of possession) . To plaintiff's best knowledge, information, and belief, defendant detains the property because (give reasons) .

6. The property has not been taken under an execution or attachment against plaintiff's property.

(2) The filing fees shall be waived by the clerk of the court, and the service fees shall be waived by the sheriff. The court shall award the prevailing party attorney's fees and costs. In addition, when the filing party prevails in the replevin action, the court shall order payment of filing fees to the clerk and service fees to the sheriff.

(3) Upon the filing of the petition, the court shall set a hearing to be held at the earliest possible time. Upon the receipt of a petition for a writ by a secondhand dealer, the dealer shall hold the property at issue until the court determines the respective interests of the parties.

(4) In addition to the civil petition for return remedy, the state may file a motion as part of a pending criminal case related to the property. The criminal court has jurisdiction to determine ownership, to order return or other disposition of the property, and to order any appropriate restitution to any person. Such order shall be entered upon hearing after proper notice has been given to the secondhand dealer, the victim, and the defendant in the criminal case. --- Why on EARTH did she pay for something that was hers? The thought must've occurred to her at some point that there was a process (like the one listed above) to get it back without paying. Of course there is. And of course, it adds shady points to EB for taking advantage of her lack of knowledge and trying to score some extra illegal bucks. That's just low.

Re:Someone should tell her...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why on EARTH did she pay for something that was hers? The thought must've occurred to her at some point that there was a process (like the one listed above) to get it back without paying.

If she didn't buy them right then, there was a chance more would have been sold to some untraceable person before anything could have been done about it. If that had happend and she went through the process, maybe she would have gotten the amount of money the things were worth, but it's not about that.

Maybe it's a hardcore gamer thing or maybe it's a female thing, but I have a certain attachment to my games. I love them. I wouldn't want to trade any of them for the amount of money I paid for them or even for a new copy of the same game or console. If I was in her place I would have done the same thing.

It's like if someone suddenly came up, grabbed her child and said "Give me your purse or I'll kidnap your child before you have a chance to call the police". If she gave the person her purse and got the child back, would you say "There's a process to go through, she should have just went and called the police. If the child was already gone when the police got there she could just have or adopt another one."?

WTF? talk about something you know about.

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress set limits and Laws not the Supreme Court.

The Trial Lawyers Assoc. WTF? They are supposed to be more trust worthy than the Supreme Court? A fucking trade org? Give us a break hosehead.

Franchise?

[Anonymous Coward]

EBs aren't franchised. Those are all corporate stores. I should know, I worked at one in the same district while going to college.

RE: insurance, police and stolen goods

[King_TJ]

I've personally witnessed pretty much the same thing. My roommate had his truck broken into a few months ago, right in front of my house. Not only was his brand new Pioneer MP3 stereo system stolen, but so was his wallet and cellphone.

He actually was able to call his own cellphone and the thief picked up the line! It sounded like he had a number of ringing cellphones in the background, and appeared to be talking from his place. The thief wanted to work out a deal where we'd leave him a few hundred bucks at a pre-arranged drop off site, and he'd "trade" us back for the stolen goods!

(The best we could tell, this guy was going around looking for all the cellphones and other goods he could find in cars, and waiting for people to call their phones so he could "bargain" with them to scam them out of some cold, hard cash too.)

My friend tried to get the guy to agree to meet up with him in person at a local Denny's (and of course, was going to have either local police, or at least a bunch of friends waiting) - but the thief didn't go for it.

Failing to get anywhere that way, he reported the crime to the police - who basically did nothing, despite my roomate being able to log onto his cellphone provider's web site and get a detailed list of calls made that night. (Yes, the thief was actually calling all his friends on the stolen phones and chatting with them!)

He got all his credit cards cancelled, got a new driver's license issued, and of course, had the phone shut off -- but to this day, he never got a thing back. It's obvious the police never even tried, since this was a case practically handed to them, ready to handle as a "no brainer".

Re:Let EB know about what you think of their polic

[El Volio]

An email to info@ebgames.com (or submitting one through their website) also lets them now. Just sent mine.

Yes, BATHroom

[shadowcabbit]

Depending on the size of the store, yeah, it can be. During the 'Cube/XBox launch, we had stacks of all three machines in the bathroom piled to the ceiling. This is because our store was about the size of your average hotel room, backroom included.

Sexists!

[boarder8925]

Those folks at EB are sexists!

Recieviong stolen property

[ducomputergeek]

We had a local pawn/game shop that was raided for "receiveing" stolen property. The evidence was seized and is still being held for evidence until after the trial. Then the owner should get their stuff back. But in most states shouldn't the store and the manager be worried about the possible crime of recieveing stolen merchandice?

Re:John "Eff-ing" Kerry

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Senator Kerry, why the long face?

Nasty...

[GoMMiX]

I've been an EB customer for years. I probably spend upwards of $5,000 annually at their stores.

I just thought I would post here, in case an EB rep reads this article, to say that I will no longer be a customer of EB or any related company.

This is very disturbing. What's even worse is after the excuses start flying they still refuse to refund the woman. Had that poor woman had the police handle it, they would have simply TAKEN the merchandise from EB.

I most certainly hope she takes them to court, they have already publicly admitted to illegal actions. They've KNOWINGLY accepted money for stolen goods, and failed to comply with a state law requiring them to wait 15 days to sell the goods.

Had to pay to get my stolen laptop back in Toronto

[Anonymous Coward]

I was in Toronto a number of years ago with some friends and had our car broken into. They took my and my friend's PowerBook (Duo 210, that's how long ago ). Filed a police report and went on with our lives. Some weeks later we received a call from the Toronto police department saying they had found our laptops at a local pawn shop. We could come get them as soon as we paid them $200(Canadian). Apparently they have an arrangement with the local pawn shops, they pay them for stolen equipment they find they have. And the people who owns that equipment gets to pay the cops for the 'privilege' of getting their own property back. We couldn't do anything but pay. Would have rather paid the deductible and gotten a new laptop. Oh well, live and learn I guess.

Did you get paid to write this?

[Anonymous Coward]

While your notes about the stock situation at Christmas ring true, most of the rest of your defense betrays your own ignorance and inexperience. Unless, of course, you're actually making this post on behalf of EB as a PR ploy.

Frankly, you sound a bit like the type of manager who gives managers a bad name. It is true, of course, that there is a wide difference between managers within the same chain, but corporate policies can easily force bad store environments no matter how dedicated a manager is.

Moreover, I can't really think of any retail chain that specifically allows its individual stores to order individual products. Specific ordering on a store level for any chain that buys in bulk is an inventory management nightmare and would come at nothing less than a huge cost, and therefore price, increase.

WALMART specifically allows store level ordering and it is a key responsibility of their store managers. This store-specific stock tailoring is counted by analysts as one of the key factors to their success. There is some talk at Walmart of moving ALL ordering to headquarters, rather than merely purchase order rationalization to consolidate orders, in order to increase their economies of scale even further and allow better forecasting and stock control. However, there is wide-spread analyst concern that this will only hurt Walmart by removing a key success factor.

Any maximally successful stock policy must use head office order consolidation and product promotion as a tool in the goal of store specific product tailoring in order to foster customer satisfaction and maximize sales.

Why the low emphasis on gaming knowledge? As a former EB assistant manager, I'll tell you. Typically, people who "know about games" don't work. They sit on their asses during paid hours and talk about games with other people you've hired that "know about games." Nine times out of ten, you hire a guy who is "knowledgeable" and

Perhaps gamers are a unique breed, but I have interviewed many people for a busy retail environment. Many of those applicants previously worked at a very large electronics chain reknowned for the complete lack of knowledge of their sales staff. It is well documented that that chain's sales-people are strictly there to move boxes by any means necessary, and are paid poorly for that duty. It is simply their business model.

Many of the people I interviewed and subsequently hired quit the large chain BECAUSE they themselves were quite knowledgable and could no longer stand the corporate behaviour and exploitive sales behaviour it enforced. Almost all of those people turned out to be excellent, hard-working sales staff in my store.

Perhaps you are on your way to becoming a decent manager, but you better figure out that you don't know it all yet.

put 2 and 2 together

[GunFodder]

Maybe the reason they have more cheap used games than other places is that a lot of their stock is stolen? Maybe this indicates a more general problem.

Re:Had to pay to get my stolen laptop back in Toro

[Anonymous Coward]

and this is why the Federal Government should take over policing in Toronto - the Toronto police are virtually powerless to prevent crime in the city - just look at all the random shootings, stabbings, drive-bys, break-ins, etc that are happening. If you read this and aren't from Toronto check out www.thestar.com or www.cp24.com and you'll see the crap our communities have to put up with. I think this past weekend there was a shooting in an elevator and some guy stabbed in his house. Last weekend we had a drive-by in broad daylight, someone shot outside a townhouse and another person shot in a home invasion. Great city this is eh? Wanna buy a house - real cheap?

Re:EB should burn in hell - oh B.S.

[hobbsbutcher]

I know a girl who knows a guy who had one bad experience there, so I KNOW the entire company is a steaming pile of shit. Come on?!?! Have some perspective - I bet most of us have pissed off people where we work; that doesn't make us hopeless assholes or our companies Enronesque does it?

And why are they so cheap?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I will continue to shop there just because I can get cheap used games

Ever stop to wonder why they might be so cheap?
Who knows who may have owned the game before you, and maybe still owns it?

somehow i bet this has been resloved

[Cyberglich]

Store managers are stupid on law and leagal affairs corprate offices (once you get a hold of them) Usally will act VERY fast to reslove this. The story is over a MONTH OLD. I have many 1000's of hours in retail and 70% of store managers don't see past there store botton line no matter the law or the public reltions headachs. But most reginal managers whould see this and run to get the kid his stuff back faster then you can say Sonic the Hedgehog. Glich's steps to getting somthing in a store fixed. 1. Ask the store nicely and tell then where they are wrong. 2. Check company webpage or 411 for a reginal or disrent office and call and ask to speak to the district/reg manager on an issue of a store managers misconduct. 3. explance you case plaining and name names or the store people you talked to. 4. Barring that dos't work email the media contact at the main corprate office. Tell then you issue before calling in the press they are the king/queen or dammage crontol. if they can't get you a resolution your prob compaing about somthing stupid.

Gotta love FL laws

[rs6krox]

I did a quick scan, but didn't see anyone post this. Forgive me if it's already been said...

Florida pawn brokers have a damn good union. A person whose property is stolen is required to pay the pawn broker to get his stuff back, but usually only what the pawn shop payed the thief. If you know your serial numbers, makes, and models, it's not usually too awfully hard to find your stuff, assuming you can actually get someone to look for it.

We had some lawn equipment go missing repeatedly in Florida. Each time, it showed up in some pawn shop, and the theif got their slap on the wrists. And we were out a couple of hundred bucks. Florida sees it as making sure there is only one victim, of course they're a victim twice. Not only can't you use your stuff because it's missing, but you have to pay someone to get it back. Otherwise, they'd be dealing with both the theft victim, and the pawn shop trying to get their money back seperately. Try getting your cash back from a guy that was so poor he was already stealing your weed whacker to buy pot.

Re:Gotta love FL laws

[goatan]

Florida. Each time, it showed up in some pawn shop, and the theif got their slap on the wrists. And we were out a couple of hundred bucks. Florida sees it as making sure there is only one victim, of course they're a victim twice. Not only can't you use your stuff because it's missing, but you have to pay someone to get it back.

this encourages pawnbrokers to ignore where the stuff came from. florida pawnbrokers are just a bunch of criminals

Where am I?

[Mal-2]

This sounds an awful lot like South Africa to me.

Mal-2

I wish we could do this

[DrMorpheus]

Because I have similar issues like the parent posters, but it wasn't theft or burglery but assault and attempted murder.

I won't go into the boring details but I've since come to the conclusion that the police are operating on a market economy.

In any market economy you minimize your risks and maximize your income. The police are doing this when they spend most of their time handing out traffic tickets and avoiding burglers, murderers and others.

Traffic tickets are low risk and high income. Going after real criminals means no income and a pretty high level of risk.

The problem is figuring out how to change this without being labeled as "anti-police".

Yes, EB IS exempt from state laws...

[alizard]

Am I the only /. reader who noticed the date?

1/29/2004, and a Google search didn't turn up any new articles between now and then discussing arrest or a raid or any other legal action by the local District Attorney and/or police.

IANAL, but I think there was enough information in the article to demonstrate that there was indeed grounds to investigate EB for possession of stolen goods. Who else have they bought stolen property from?

Does anybody really think there is going to be any law enforcement action? If nobody's going to enforce the law against them, they have broken the law and gotten away with it.

Which political contributions persuaded law enforcement to look the other way?

Interesting question.

Yes, if you or I had pulled the same stunt, we'd be behind bars.

I'll give your "well run" EB chain a miss, thanks

[alizard]

The article plainly indicates that the decision to victimize the burglary victim a second time can be considered corporate policy.

A spokesperson for EB Games told Action News anchor Ren Scott, "this is an unfortunate situation and this rarely happens. We are not in the business of dealing in stolen goods?we always cooperate with police, but in this case there was a communication breakdown. We were just trying to verify that everything Michelle Doganis said was true."

I find it difficult to believe that the corporation would allow an individual store manager to speak on behalf of the corporation when dispensing information guaranteed to generate bad publicity for the company as a whole, the comment came from an unidentified "spokesperson". I consider this straight out of corporate.

If they'd intended to compensate the victim and fire the manager, they could have easily announced that to the reporter instead and have gotten good publicity instead of bad.

I'm inclined to doubt that your association with EB Games is as "former" as you would like us to believe.

Anybody who dislikes this should buy from the competitors, whether their local EB store is in Gulfview Square or anyplace else.

Re:This just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

that may be true but while you are wasting your time trolling here the rest of us are getting what you are missing and may never actually experience in your hopefully very long, deprived, pitiful life...

did I mention I hope you have a VERY long life??

You dumb ass bastards.

[wubboy]

EB buys new games for $45.00 sells them for $49.00. You cannot run a business on the profit of new software or hardware. Cannot be done.

Microsoft is charging $4.99 for a Links04 update. (after you pay 69.00 per year to sign up to live service.)

We all hate giving out identification to buy anything, what makes selling things any different?

Sure if this was my store I would have found a way to get corporate to eat the loss. But there is no freeking way I am going to lose my pay raise for returning stolen property comes out of my store shrink. (shrink is stolen goods btw)

Parents that drop their kids off in my store and the little bastards rob me blind, as the law protects them. Case in point, if I do not watch the little bastards from the time they enter my store to the time they leave my store with the stolen property I cannot do anything about it.. actually can't do anything about it even if they hold the dam thing up and tell me they are stealing it. Even better, if it's a minor and I were to heaven forbid TOUCH one Jesus I'd lose my house and everything cause this little fucker tried to rob me.

Sure EB was wrong, but I do believe that asshole parents and bratty kids steal many many millions of times more from us, than this one clueless bitch lost.

A few other random thoughs.

Microsoft, Sony, and most PC vendors would LOVE to see EB's and Gamestops all gone. And as soon as downloadable content and broadband make it to the prime time, expect to see mall computer stores gone. Just from a profit point only, 49.00 is more than the 45.00 that eb pays them and they don't even have to press a 5 cent disk.

When you trade your games at EB for 25.00 and you see the same game priced at 45.00 a few hours later I got some news for ya. THAT'S THE SAME MARGIN THE REST OF THE MALL IS GETTING ON EVERYTHING ELSE!

She should get her stuff back, but watch who you boycott, otherwise your just going to fuck yourself in to the microsoft xbox pocket.

Only in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

... can the legal system and the moral sense of justice distorted so heavily by professionals working in the legal system that something like this happens every day.

The question remains, why does it have to be reported? Why does anybody care?

It's not as if you have any say in the matter.

The lawyers will keep screwing you over and over until you put the corporations and their law dogs on a leash.

But how are you going to do that, when the country is run by corporations and legal experts who surely are not going to give up their power without a fight.

Restitution?

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case she should have contacted the police. I'm sure that Florida law is very similar to Louisiana law. If this had been Louisiana, the police would have escorted her to the store and seized all of the property that was hers, and returned it to her regardless of whether they paid for it or not. Had they refused then each employee that refused to give the property back to it's rightful owner would have been an accessory after the fact, and in possession of stolen property. Both of which would be felony offenses. Nice going EB!

WTF?

[SofaMan]

Here in Australia, if you purchase property, that property is yours until you legally dispose of it. If someone steals it from you, and a person purchases those goods from the thief (or even further down the chain), you can seize those goods back without paying a penny, even if the purchaser bought them in good faith.

If you receive stolen goods unknowingly, you won't be charged, but there is no obligation for anyone to compensate you for those goods once they are returned to their rightful owner - legally, they were never yours to start with, so if you paid money for something from someone who had no right to dispose of it, tough shit.

I thought this was a feature of English common law that both we and the US inherited. This whole situation just seems insane to me. What is the legal position on this?

Re:WTF?

[goatan]

If you receive stolen goods unknowingly, you won't be charged, but there is no obligation for anyone to compensate you for those goods once they are returned to their rightful owner - legally, they were never yours to start with, so if you paid money for something from someone who had no right to dispose of it, tough shit.

That is also the case in the UK only in America could it be legal to profit from crime

Re:I'll give your "well run" EB chain a miss, than

[superultra]

I'm inclined to doubt that your association with EB Games is as "former" as you would like us to believe.

Well, if I was still with EB I wouldn't have commented at all, since EB employees are not allowed to comment publicly on the company at all. I'm not suggesting that this wasn't handled poorly. It was. I am suggesting, though, that there are really great EB stores with really great people working in them, that are hard-working, care about the customer, and are not at all representative of the home office or these poorer stores. More times than not, the home office was completely out of synch with the store in terms of customer satisfaction. I don't think that's unusual though, and is generally the indicative of home offices in generally all retail chains.

Having said that, I don't ever remember hearing about pawn laws in my store, and a previous comment from a pawnshop said that EBs are not considered pawn stores and are not subject to the same regulations (he was lamenting this and stating that they should). Personally, I would not have given back the system just because she asked, and even if they guy who stole it came in with a note saying it was stolen I would need something else. A police report might have done it, but the only way I would have sold it at cost was if she had proof of the serial number. I'm inclined to believe that she didn't, because ths story makes no mention of it. You have no idea how many people we had waiting in the wings to just rip us off. However unlikely, it's possible that this lady is one of those people. Who knows. EB certainly wouldn't have said, "This is a lady who's been trying to rip us off for years." The story is definitely too one-sided to really make a judgement call.

Uh???

[Anonymous Coward]

If a game does suck does the customer not have a right to know and choose not to buy it because of that? Oh, I guess it's much better to talk people into buying things they don't want, instead of getting them to buy good things so they're more likely to want to come back and buy more good things.

And omg we can't have people talking at work about the product they're selling... god forbid people actualy enjoy their job.

I buy alot of video games. If I go to a store and the people there talk to me about games, and know what they're talking about, and they seem to be there because they actualy enjoy games, I'll come back to that store. If they don't know about games and seem to be there just because it's their job, I won't. Which is why I no longer buy games at EB, Babbages, GameStop, WalMart, or KMart (actualy I stoped shopping at Kmart altogether when they stoped selling SEGA products, but that's another story) but only GameCrazy and online.

What Should Lawfully Happen

[virg_mattes]

> It doesn't really seem to address the issue of what happens when the stuff is already sold and no longer in posession of the dealer.

Actually, although this part of the law doesn't address it, the main part does address it very directly. When someone buys stolen goods from a dealer, they don't suddenly become un-stolen goods. Michelle (assuming she can prove ownership) can simply claim the goods back from the buyers, who then have to return to EB for restitution. It's not her problem that EB sold stolen goods.

Virg

I'll be shopping at EB, will you?

[ElleyKitten]

I'll be shopping at EB because I've seen the same thing happen at the Gamestop I used to work at, but that didn't get on Action News. Despite working at Gamestop for a year, and having friends working at other game stores, I've never heard of any store that regularly holds stuff for any lenth of time. My store's policy when someone comes in saying that their stuff was stolen and traded in, we tell them to go to the police, or else we can sell their stuff back at the normal price.

My point is that this happens at all game stores, not just EB. There's no more reason to boycott EB than their is to boycott Gamestop, GameCrazy, or any other place that sells used games. If you buy a used game, you have to know that there's the chance that it was stolen.

Re:I'll be shopping at EB, will you?

[xrxzzy]

My store's policy when someone comes in saying that their stuff was stolen and traded in, we tell them to go to the police, or else we can sell their stuff back at the normal price. Then you are no better then the fatherless child that stole it in the first place. Try that in a pawn shop and you loose your license and go to jail. What puts you above the law?

Re:I'll be shopping at EB, will you?

[ElleyKitten]

Then you are no better then the fatherless child that stole it in the first place.

I didn't make the rule, and I no longer work there. I actually never even enforced it; the only time a situation like that happened my manager took care of it. My point was just that this can happen at any used game store, not just EB.

This Thing Called The Internet

[virg_mattes]

There's this thing they call the "Internet" that's full of great porn, and, oh yeah, stuff you can buy.

But that's not the point. To say you "can't" go to EBGames any more is not true. You can continue to shop there. But, you must ask yourself if you want to do business with a company that's willing to knowingly break the law. Sure, it could be one manager that's doing wrong, but the corporate heads haven't come out to say he's doing wrong. Therefore it's reasonable to extend the tendency to break the law to the corporation as a whole. Think about what that means if you find yourself at odds with them for some reason, like buying a game new that turns out to be resold, and you can't register it because the serial number is already in use. What sort of treatment can you expect from them when the inevitable problem comes up?

Caveat Emptor.

Virg

Going Out on a Limb Here

[virg_mattes]

> After all, if you hate this country so much, why would you live here?

Perhaps because corruption in the court system isn't bad enough to offset some good things about living here, but that doesn't mean he should just suck it up when it comes to corruption in the court system. Perhaps because he feels enough concern for America to stay here and fight to correct the corruption in the court system.

Maybe if you weren't so dense as to see it as an all-or-nothing situation, you'd be a better American yourself. "Love it or leave it" is the single most unpatriotic thing an American can say.

Virg

I wish

[superultra]

WALMART

Can you give any other examples besides Wal-Mart? Specifically mall retail? I (couldn't, obviously), and still can't think of any. Wal-Mart is an exception because the store itself orders in bulk. 200 games on one order is an exceptional amount for an EB, and the numbers are usually closer from 20-50 per game (if that). We could, from time to time, request ordering, but it still went through a central home office distributor. A clarification then: for a company that orders in bulk but distributes smaller amounts to a store, it doesn't make sense for a manager of the store to specifically order specialized products.

Perhaps gamers are a unique breed.

They are, but I think that based on conversations with a former Camelot manager, the same thing is indicative of music enthusiasts. I doubt that you would experience the same problem of knowledge interferring with selling in a clothing store or jewelery store.

At the store I worked at, we are all knowledgable. We checked the news sites at least 2 times a day. In fact, I remember that during E3 whoever wasn't working (or actually at E3) would call up the store with news from the floor. That's is about as geeked out as one can get.

But, those kind of people are rare in gaming. And, I stand by my assertion: if it was a pure choice, I would take a better salesperson over a more knowledgable gamer. It's much easier to teach a salesperson game knowledge than it is sales knowledge to a gamer.

Perhaps you are on your way to becoming a decent manager

Not likely. After 2 years at the now defunct Electric Avenue and 3 at EB in assistant management, I am now as far as I can get from retail (grad school, history). Thank God.

Several Scenarios

[virg_mattes]

> What would have happened if she tried to walk out of the store with her goods and EB tried to stop her? I am currious, they call the police, she presents her side, the cops have to do somthing, but what?

This depends entirely on how the clerk handles it. If he calls in the police but takes no action on his own, then they will arrest her on suspicion of shoplifting, and then when she presents her case in questioning, they'd drop the charges. It's likely she'd get her stuff back, but she might face a minor charge like disturbing the peace or other little trump-up for the display.

If on the other hand, the clerk attemped to subdue or detain her, then she'd have a good case for assault against the clerk, since the whole "citizen's arrest" thing that everyone talks about doesn't exist, and detention of someone against their will is generally against the law unless it's a case of threat to life or limb (remember this the next time you decide to lock down a shoplifter, store owners! Don't assume you know the law, read about it or consult an attorney). In that case, they'd be nuts to press a shoplifting charge that would be dropped, and then face criminal assault charges.

So, in the best of cases, she'd still have more trouble just taking the stuff back than getting the courts involved.

Virg

Supply at a Profit

[virg_mattes]

> And for the record, EB doesn't have these kinds of supply problems, from what I've seen. I mean, the local store in my area was willing to have a *used* game from a store 150 miles away shipped into the local one so that I could pick it up.

You say *used* like that makes it even more amazing, when in fact it makes it much less so. To test, try getting them to send in a *new* game from that 150-miles-away store, and they'll tell you to stuff it. The reason the store was willing to go to that length to get the game in is that the profit margin on a used game is much, much higher than on a new game, so they stood to make more money.

Virg

Right and Wrong

[virg_mattes]

> Is this good? Is it legal? Is it right? I don't know...I just do what they tell me to, so I get my paycheck, and I can feed my family.

If your company asks you to break the law to get paid, you need to get out as fast as you can move. Putting aside all of the ethical arguments, look at the pragmatic side. When the local law comes down on the store for breaking the law, who do you think is going to get offered up for prosecution? How do you think the police or a judge are going to respond to "I was just doing what I was told to do"? Do you expect your manager to throw himself on his sword to protect you and your family's well being? Or is it more likely that you'll get thrown to the wolves, your family's needs be damned, so that he can sidestep a criminal charge?

Get real, and get out.

Virg

Stories, You Say?

[virg_mattes]

> Oh the stories I could tell.

Then do it. That's what journals are for. Then link to it in your .sig. We love stories.
br. Virg

She Expects Legal Recourse, Of Course

[virg_mattes]

> EB is a business and not a charity. If they have goods on the shelf that were once hers she will have to pay for them in order to get them back from EB.

You're incorrect. Stolen goods are stolen goods, no matter how many intermediate buyers they go through, according to the law. Which means that she still owns them, legally, even if EB bought them in good faith. Sorry, but you lose.

> The same thing happened to me (similar circumstance) where a large quantity of music CDs were stolen from my home - in my case the insurance paid the claim after seeing the exetnsive list and photographs of my living room showing the CDs stored there.

Your case doesn't apply. By accepting payment from the insurance company, you yielded ownership rights to the CDs. In a legal sense, when you cashed the insurance check, the CDs weren't yours any more. Therefore, when you went to the store later, you didn't have any right of claim to the CDs, because you're not a representative of the legal owner (the insurance company, in this case). Sorry, but you lose again.

Maybe you can take a bit of the insurance check and buy yourself some law books.

Virg

Re:Had to pay to get my stolen laptop back in Toro

[sammaffei]

Here in Philadelphia, PA USA...

We have:
1. Little 10 year old boy shot going to school by warring drug gangs in a turf battle.
2. City that lied about the fire death of an infant 6 years ago and the mother finds the child alive in the hands of another woman!
3. Man growing 30 pot plants in a tiny row home.
4. Daily home invasions.
5. Youths ganging up on pedestrians.
6. You name it.

Society as a whole is going into the crapper. You can't move away from that.

Re:Had to pay to get my stolen laptop back in Toro

[Anonymous Coward]

Only 30 plants - that guy has no ambition. In Barrie, not far from Toronto the police discovered a massive grow operation in an abandoned brewery - it was probably the biggest grow op in North America or at least the largest indoor grow op found in Canada...

Just this weekend another grow op was discovered that occupied eight units in two apartment buildings with at least 800 plants or more found. There were even holes drilled in the concrete floors so that electical connections could be shared to run the lamps and other equipment.

see - http://www.pulse24.com/News/Top_Story/20040308-012 /page.asp

A Recent, Legitimate RFID use

[Embedded Geek]

Apologies that I'm late to the table on this, but I have a coworker who ran in the L.A. Marathon this weekend (I believe on Sunday - the same day as the parent post). He mentioned that each runner was issued an RFID chip (he wasn't too clear, but products advertised on the web were tied to the shoelaces). They were used for registration and also to record a runner's progress. A Google search says that Boston's Marathon offers real time updating of progress on the web.

Here is a link to a product that the marketer claims was used by L.A., but I have no independent confimration of that.

Re:A Recent, Legitimate RFID use

[Embedded Geek]

Try that again:

http://www.plattsys.com/ptschipa.htm is the link.

personal attacks?

[John Harrison]

I was (and am) asking seriously: What experience do you have with this technology? Have you worked with it? Do you know its limitations? This was not meant as a personal attack and I'm sorry if it came off as such.

There are lots of people on /. that know enough to be concerned about and complain about RFID but not enough to suggest solutions beyond sticking the tag in a microwave. This leads to the people who have worked with the technology being drowned out.