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."

Comments

note to cyber-criminals: don't post those

[iminplaya]

Hmmm...Aiding and abetting are we? :-)

Idiots

[PinkyGigglebrain]

I've always said that the prisons are full of stupid criminals. And no, I am not counting those who are wrongfully convicted or getting unfairly prosicuted. Only the ones who did a crime and then did something that made it easy to catch them, like putting stuff up on eBay, looking right at the camera, or sending a letter to the FBI taunting them about how they will never catch you, only to have them pull DNA from the back of the stamp linking you to more crimes you didn't mention and giving them a starting point to search thanks to the postmark.

Serial #s

[LordLucless]

Actually, it would be quite beneficial if listing the serial # of items on eBay became a de facto SOP. If legitimate traders started including identifying information, such as serial #s, as a way of verifying that the goods were not stolen, other merchants would be pressured into doing the same. Listings without a serial number would be regarded as suspicious, so people wouldn't get burnt dealing with crooks.

You don't know most thieves

[Stephen Samuel]

There are mastermind thieves (PhD in Mech Eng who learns how to crack safes with a magnet), then there are 'most' thieves (meth head looking for an easy way to get his next buzz). The former are gonna cover their tracks really well, but the latter are gonna think that they're geniuses just by the fact that they thought of selling their (your) stuff on ebay.

but most thieves aren't going to be moronic enough to leave behind identifying marks. Although I can just imagine the Q&A...

I think you'd be shocked at just how stupid some of these people get. I had a roommate who relapsed to using meth, so I got to meeting some of them. A few of them start intelligent, but a couple hundred hits of meth (or whatever), and your brain starts to yearn for some of those missing cells.

Re:Want to be robbed soon?

[wombert]

5) Seller has been burned by negative feedback for "item never received" (or is just paranoid) and wants to ship with tracking to prove the item got sent.