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Been Robbed Recently? Check Ebay
fistfullast33l writes "A man from Great Neck, Long Island has been arrested on charges of stealing electronic equipment and selling it on Ebay. The police were tipped off when one of his alleged victims was searching for a replacement GPS device and found a perfect match on eBay — almost too perfect. A quick check of the serial number (note to cyber-criminals: don't post those) showed that it was the exact device that had been stolen." From the article: "Police and prosecutors were hesitant to provide details of how they determined all the devices had been stolen, but at least two of the laptops were stamped 'Property of St. John's University.' Detective Ray Cote noted that the GPS devices specifically had the addresses of the legitimate owners programmed in and police were now contacting those victims to eventually return the items."
Well, there's another option; you notify the police, and then go through with the sale, in hopes of getting some information that would let the authorities catch the crook. In the worst case, you've bought back your part, and in the best case you'll get your part, plus restitution, plus you'll have sweet, sweet revenge.
A friend of mine got his cellphone and wallet stolen when his car was burglarized, and by monitoring the numbers that the thief called from it, and then calling up the various numbers and pretending to be different people (which is an amusing social engineering story in itself), got the name and home phone number of the criminal. The police, who weren't very much help otherwise, went out and picked the guy up (he was apparently well known to them). My friend got his phone back, plus restitution for the money in his wallet. If he had just waited for the police to do something, he would have been out a phone and a substantial amount of cash.
Sometimes you just need to do some detective work yourself.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It was only after I bid that I noticed the "No pick-up, postage only" clause in the description. It made me wonder why a seller that was apparently less than 10 km away wasn't prepared to let me know what they look like or where they are, yet they wanted my address.
I can think of a few possibilities:
1) Seller cares about his time, and doesn't feel like trying to match schedules with random strangers who may or may not be timely.
2) Seller cares about his safety and privacy, and doesn't want some stranger scoping out his place to rob it.
3) Seller wants to charge $30 for shipping when item costs $20 to ship, netting an extra $10.
4) Seller is afraid that buyer might be a paranoid slashtastic moron, who thinks that every single fucking thing in life is a trap.
I'm not a crook, but there isn't a chance in hell I would agree to in-person pickups.