Locating stolen items on eBay

[Crashoran]

I just have a quick question:


If you recently had your GPS unit stolen from your car, and a few weeks later saw the same model pop up on eBay close to your city that only includes what was stolen from you (GPS, car charger, window mount), the eBay user has zero feedback, and the user refuses to send you a photo of the serial number, what would you do?

There's a possibility this could be legit. But there are not very many of the same model gps I used out there anymore.

The bidding ends in 19 hours, and I won't be able to ask the winning bidder what the serial number is because the bidders are anonymous.

I'm stressing out!!

[directmk]

send me the link, I will bid on it for ya

[Crashoran]

There's the possibility I could be wrong - I wouldn't want you to bid on it, and after winning it turns out to have a different serial number.

http://cgi.ebay.com/TomTom-Go-910-po...lenotsupported

[directmk]

well if the person is local, we can bid on it, win it, meet him and exchange money for the item, then through him a blanket party if the numbers match :-)

[Crashoran]

And if the numbers don't match? It's not close enough to actually meet up, one major city away.

[danchez]

did you report it stolen??? do you have case # from the police? call the police back and tell them you think you found it on eBay, let them investigate it. Also, keep your eyes open on CL. Lots of stolen items get sold on CL.

[texkam]

I would contact the Police and share all this info.

Interesting legal case.

[Rson]

You buy it, use paypal, get it and then file a claim with paypal.

They have a specific entry for stolen goods. You can always open a paypal account, get it, file claim, get your money (while claim is in progress) then liquidate the account. Leaving PP to hold the bag.

[texkam]

let them investigate it

Spoke with a lawyer. Comes down to if you can convince the cops it's worth their time and effort, but thinks legally they could make the seller disclose serial number.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Contact EBAY, they can ask for the serial number from the guy and if you gave them your #SN then they go after the guy.

As stated above the $ amount is so low that the local cops won't do anything, hell most burglars (unless caught with drugs) get processed and released quicker than the cops can get the stolen goods back (heck to be honest most stolen goods recovered by the cops get resold at auction by the cities and not returned to the owners who have filed their own insurance claims on their losses already).

Also if you are going long form you can claim unreimbursed losses do to theft/fire loss/etc on your income taxes.

[Rson]

I don't agree with contacting Ebay.....You will NEVER see it again. it isn't like Ebay will be sending out the police and Tactical team to get your TOMTOM back. THey will send out an email....the listing will be killed and your TOMTOM will disappear.

[sporkthedork]

If you aren't absolutely certain this is the unit, I wouldn't bother.

[CaroleHayes]

I think you would have had better luck getting him to upload or send you pics if you hadn't told him that you thought it was stolen....

I was going to ask him to send me pics, but now he won't want to send them to anybody. : (

ETA: Okay, I tried my best, but I haven't heard back yet, obviously. I'm hoping, since I'm in Dallas, that he won't suspect anything.

[Crashoran]

I'm just mad. I paid $500 for it.

He replied with a serial number but gave no picture of the serial number.

Maybe I'm trying too hard.

Crashoran added 4 Minutes and 18 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

Here is the info for anybody that reads this thread and may happen to see a TomTom Go910 anywhere for sale in the future. An Alpine-cda9827, Nike backpack with schoolwork, and large leather case of CDs were also stolen.

DeviceName=TomTom GO 910
DeviceVersionHW=GO 910
DeviceSerialNumber=V75117I03469
DeviceUniqueID=AKUSG A2JQ2
RamDiskVersion=20081205

Thanks

[CaroleHayes]

I would definitely have asked him for pics, but I wouldn't have mentioned that you suspect he has your stolen unit.

He replied to my message, saying that the camera was out of the office until tomorrow, but that he was looking at the unit and it looked perfect.

I told him I"m just not that trusting, especially since he had zero feedback.

Sorry it didn't work...