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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."
Just a minute, sir. I'm almost done downloading this pr0n.
A man from Great Neck, Long Island has been arrested on charges of stealing electronic equipment and selling it on Ebay.
A++++ WOULD DEFINITELY STEAL FROM AGAIN
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
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?
Would you rather be able to 'buy back' a hard-to-find stolen part from eBay, or have to either source this part from a supplier (more expensively) or abandon the device altogether?
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
On his most recent sale the GPS unit has an anti-theft feature. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =320065453054
Please do post serial numbers. Please also post name/address of previous owner so we can verify that the item is in a good state of repair. Please also get a sworn statement from a police officer that the facts have been verified and are correct.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Hmmm...Aiding and abetting are we? :-)
What?
You'd have to be some kind of moron to actually leave behind this type of marker before selling it. I mean, it's a great idea to check your local auction site and all that, but most thieves aren't going to be moronic enough to leave behind identifying marks. Although I can just imagine the Q&A...
Q: What is the serial number on this device?
A: 17774677883
Q: Would it be possible to view before buying?
A:
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Don't make any more difficult to get our shit back...
What?
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.
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."
This is one of those rare situations where the general stupidity of human beings is reassuring.
To find out people sell stolen things on ebay! *gasp*
I recently bid on an item that made me wonder.
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.
Then I realised the perfect scam:
1. Sell an item on ebay (possibly stolen).2. Sell the item again, insisting on postage.
3. Hand deliver it, collect the $30 and getting a great chance to scope the house for a future break in.
4. Steal the item from the buyer.
5. goto 1
Maybe I'm a little paranoid, but I was really happy when I lost the bid...
It's interesting to note how easy an anonymous place for selling goods makes criminal activity and refreshing to hear of some crooks being cought out.
I don't therefore I'm not.
EBay ad leads police to stolen snowboard
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
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.
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."
/. is full of criminals???
Because
My P-P-P-Powerbook was just stolen and I found the thief reselling it on ebay! Call the cops!
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.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
Unless eBay was being used to launder them...
It's not worth as much after it's been washed.
paintball
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.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
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...
The wife's PC was stolen a few days ago - I'm waiting for the asshat to plug it into the internet. Come-on buddy, plug it in, plug it in.
Grumble, grumble...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Did this article surprise anyone? Ebay has become the biggest and easist way to fence stolen goods and get full market value. As long as they are not not easily identifiable, it is perfect.
ah the good old days, when I used to live next door to a 10 acre Fencing operation..er...Flea Market.
I like microcars
A couple of semi-obvious tips on spotting a stolen computer: 1. very careless packaging; 2. personal data intact.
In both cases we contacted police. In one case, apparently little was done by police, despite serial number check immediately revealing that the machine had been recently stolen from a school. In the 2nd case, the stolen laptop - full of personal data, mostly irreplaceable - was the only lead in solving a major house burglary. Laptop returned to owner, thief arrested, eventually had to pay restitution to ebay purchaser. In the second case, the ebay seller's transaction history looked very suspicious. If you have any suspicions - random tips: comb feedback logs in detail; if machine has personal data, contact previous owner (in our case, they confirmed the robbery and were very grateful); Try to get as much identifying detail from seller as possible in case it must be given to police; Don't meet them in person; Get serial numbers and check with police before concluding the sale; contact police and ask for advice.
you had me at #!
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
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Dude you got some issues. This is your second post advocating violence to deal with lost property. You really should get some counseling.
You all DO realize that your digital pictures typically have an embedded serial number of the camera in it, right?
I for one would love it if Flickr or YahooPhotos would offer the ability to search on serial numbers. Then I could recover my digital camera that was stolen... think of the possibilities!
Would at least limit the market for the stupid things. They're obviously worth nothing as parts so the entire unit would be sold to some unsuspecting person.