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

What happens to the buyers?

[carterhawk001]

Ive been wondering, what will happen to the people who bought from him? Will they be required to return what they bought to the original owners? Will they be tracked down by the police for recieving stolen goods?

Re:What happens to the buyers?

[hahafaha]

Very good question. My guess is that they will be tracked down and required to return the items, but will be compensated at the expense of the thief.

They will certainly not get into trouble for the purchase of stolen goods, and if they do, any reasonable judge would automatically acquit them.

Re:What happens to the buyers?

[Vellmont]

Very good question. My guess is that they will be tracked down and required to return the items, but will be compensated at the expense of the thief.

I seriously doubt the police are going to bother with this, or even have the resources to do so. Most of these buyers aren't going to be from NYC, so there's a jurisdiction problem. Also who's to say EVERYTHING he sold is stolen? It probbably is, but that's not proof.

The best that could be accomplished is to contact each buyer and tell them the seller sold stolen items on ebay, and the item they bought might be stolen. Then ask them to look for information on the items that might identify the owner.

Re:What happens to the buyers?

[tekiegreg]

Disclaimer: IANAL The legal doctrine here is one of "Reasonable Expectation". For example if I bought a GPS device from a stranger on the street for $20, would a reasonable human assume that the deal is too good to be true and that it was probably stolen? Generally the judges would say yes. If said reasonable expectation were established, yes I'd be required to return the item and no I won't necessarily get compensated for it. However, if I bought a GPS Device for $600 at Best Buy, and woah mamma! Best Buy picks a wrong supplier and it was stolen property. Nobody would have suspected it was stolen. The liability here shifts entirely to the thief and most likely I'm keeping my GPS device. Now reasonable expectation that something selling on auction at Ebay like was said? Tough call, ask your local judge what he thinks of reasonable expectation...

Re:What happens to the buyers?

[CmdrGravy]

In the UK you have to return the goods and there is no compensation. A lot of people buying second hand cars get stung when the police turn up and tell them the car was stolen.

The car is the returned to it's orginal owner or sold by the insurance comany and the buyer gets nothing. This is why it's a good idea to check whether a car is stolen before you buy it because not even your insurance will cover you for this. I would guess its the same with any stolen goods in the UK.

The Seattle Police were not as curious

[newscloud]

When my house was robbed, I found my $2,000 LCD monitor on ebay complete with picture of serial number on the back which matched (except for one number slightly too fuzzy to verify a match). This was the week after the robbery. When I called the detective assigned to my case, he did nothing with the information. He said finding my monitor in the hands of a fence would do nothing to catch the people who robbed me. Yeah, but investigating the case might have helped... I learned from this experience that the insurance industry subsidizes the majority of property crime in this country because we're certainly not funding the police well enough to do much about it.

Re:The Seattle Police were not as curious

[LoRdTAW]

Thats exactly what happened to me. The police don't really care. Just last week on jan 2nd someone broke into my car by my friends house. It was because I had forgot my ipod in the center console in plain sight. The thief also helped himself to my stereo too, thankfully I bought it used from a friend for 50 bucks so no real loss. But now I have to replace my $250 ipod, new radio(haven't bought it yet) and my window cost me $150 to fix. The cops answer? Go report it to insurance and have them pay for it. They didn't even bother to lift prints as they said they didn't have a print kit. I understand they cant do everything but it is annoying.

This Actually Happened to Us

[beadfulthings]

My Aged Mum, who was then 80 years of age, lived in an apartment residence for the elderly. Two years ago (on Christmas Eve, no less) she was the victim of a ruthless home invasion. The thief had worked very hard to gain the trust of the elderly residents, and on the night she struck (yep, it was a woman), my mother admitted her to the apartment.

Mom's phone wires were cut her call bell was de-commissioned, and she was savagely beaten--actually unimaginably beaten, and left for dead on the floor in her living room. One of the items taken was an antique doll, quite distinctive and large, and also very valuable. It dated back to approximately the 1820's and had been handed down through the generations from mother to daughter for all that time.

Aged Mum survived, though with traumatic brain injuries that left her mental capacities greatly diminished. She grieved over that doll; perhaps it was irrational, but I grieved, too. While the police worked on finding the perpetrator, I began to haunt eBay. Each morning as I started work, and each night before I went to bed, I ran search after search, using every term I could think of. Three weeks after the crime, I hit paydirt; the doll was there. Because I had been so connected to it over my lifetime, I was able to supply an exhaustive description. (Unaccountably we had no photograph.) The police contacted eBay, the auction was stopped, they got a warrant, and next morning they served it on the seller.

As it turns out, he was legitimate; he had purchased the doll at a well known local flea market the week before. He had been on eBay for several years, selling vintage stuff and assorted items he found at local sales. He provided as much information as he could, and the doll was returned to us within 24 hours of my first locating it at eBay. The doll's porcelain head was undamaged, but her arms (which are kidskin leather) were in bad shape.

Stories like this really don't have good outcomes. In our case we've had to see an intelligent, lively old lady suffer the loss of her intellect in what should be a comfortable old age. The police have not located the criminal after two years, and additional violence has taken place at that facility where my mother lived. Aged Mum is in a much better facility now, and the doll is here with me--and has been photographed and appraised for insurance purposes.

I guess the lessons learned are these: (1) Ebay does cooperate with police, and the police know how to secure their cooperation--probably best to leave the interaction to the cops. (2) I had some kind of underlying certainty, which might have been irrational, that the doll would eventually show up on eBay, one way or the other. I searched diligently and regularly. (3) Document your valuables. (4) It may take a while for your items to turn up, and they may pass through several hands. It all depends on whether the scum who has robbed you is versed in eBay or has to use the traditional fences, flea markets, and crooked pawnbrokers.

mmmm... not sure about that...

[foreverdisillusioned]

IANAL, either, but I was always under the impression that you're never allowed to keep stolen property, full stop. The fact that you made (what you thought was) a legitimate purchase doesn't change the fact that the seller did not have the right to sell the item in question.

For example, there have been a couple cases of people being conned into "buying" public property (most famously the Brooklyn Bridge.) Yes, these people were EXTREMELY gullible, so it probably wouldn't pass your "reasonable expectation" test, but let's take a step back for a moment and imagine a scenario where the person was not extraordinarily gullible, but rather was duped through nigh-superhuman effort on the part of the con artist. Let's say that the fraudster knew that the target would have a keen interested in buying the Brooklyn Bridge, if it was ever actually for sale, so he cooked up a scheme involving buying off the subject's friends and acquaintances, slipping him fake newspapers, hiring actors to play all the appropriate officials, figured out a halfway plausible reason for the sale (they're building a replacement, perhaps) etc. and in the end, he actually succeeds in convincing his target that the Brooklyn Bridge was, indeed, for sale, and the target "buys" it from the criminal. Does that now mean that the target legally owns the Brooklyn Bridge? Of course, the only sane answer is a resounding "NO!" The government did not agree to sell him anything.

I believe that the "reasonable expectation" concept you speak of pertains more to criminal culpability--the buyer be held criminally responsible, for example, if he buys the Mona Lisa (a few months after it was stolen) because it's not reasonable for him to claim that he didn't know it was stolen.

I'm not 100% sure on this, but it just makes sense--if ownership of the stolen property was actually legally transfered to the buyer, it would be utter chaos. You could steal the hope diamond, trade it to your friend for a candy bar (technically, this is a valid transaction) telling him it's worthless glass, and as long as you could prove that your friend really did think it was fake, it would become his legal property and the original owners would be SOL. Somehow, I really doubt that it works that way...

Re:mmmm... not sure about that...

[shystershep]

You're close. A thief can never transfer good title to stolen goods -- the original owner stills owns it and can get it back from the buyer no matter how far down the chain they are. If the thief sells to buyer 1, buyer 1 to buyer 2, etc., buyer 100 would still have to give it back to the original owner, then try to get his money back from 99, 99 from 98, etc, back to the thief.

Re:Cellular Phones

[networkBoy]

Funny story.
We were carrying Sprint cell phones right when they started rolling out their CDMA service. We had a live demo phone to show off the clarity. My (now wife) GF was helping these two retards from the next door Hometown Buffet (who had stolen the phone from the demo kiosk). They were asking about car chargers and she said: "I'll be happy to help you once you give me my phone back". Well, they bolted (nevermind the Hometown Buffet polo shirts or the name tags), and my GF called the sprint store. These fools went to make a call, where upon a security officer from sprint (pretexting as a customer service rep) said: "Oh, the store must have accidently sold you a demo unit. Bring it into the Sprint store on Fulton for a free replacement and activation." Like all crooks who've been caught, these guys were morons and went into the store. While the replacement phone was "activating" the cops were on the way :-)

Nevermind that my GF was also in the Buffet chewing out the manager about these two. She successfully recovered the value of the demo kiosk (which they damaged when they stole the phone) from their final paychecks, leaving them with (IIRC) under a buck each for the "you're fired" pay check.

-nB