Thieves Arrested After Stolen Coins Found On eBay

Hayward men arrested in Alameda burglary, police say

 

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I wish Ebay itself was into ridding the world of thieves, instead of providing them a safe-haven to pedel their wares!

Ribbit

Ps: I'm glad they got some of their coins back!

 

Right on!!!!!

 

Good deal. Hope it never happens with something we put up at the shop though.

As a side note though anyone that DOES have coins, etc. stolen should notify more than just the police. We got a call last week from a lady in a town about 30 miles from here.
Here house was burglarized and she gave me real good descriptions of three rings that were stolen.
We arer definitely watching for them.

 

Hmmm. How do you propose they do that? Should eBay require sellers to prove ownership of every item they sell on eBay?

 

I just hope more thieves get caught period.

 

Yes. Then send the thieves to me for safekeeping.

 

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

 

Yes, if they matched theft reports in a data base of who was listing coins that were coming up stolen, it would not take long to get a data base of people who were selling a significant amount of goods that were reported stolen. By matching locations and coin descriptions and pictures it would eventually lead to thieves. Instead, they worry about third party graders and real large threats to their business.

 

My thought exactly. I'm no giant fan of ebay (although I do use them from time to time - I prefer Craig's list for most stuff) but there's simply no possible way for them to police their vast number of yearly listings.

You apparently overestimate the abilities of the computer. While what you suggest is technically possible, it would require hundreds or thousands of additional full time employees and several petabytes of data storage to manage the project. Remember, coins aren't the only things being offered on ebay.

In 2005, there were 10.3 million cases of property crimes ( http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html ). In the same year, ebay had 1.4 billion listings ( http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2005_Jan_19/ai_n8701302 ). This would have required up to 14,400,000,000,000,000 one-to-one comparisons to find a single match. Add to this, pictures simply can't be compared by a computer unless they are in the same scale, with equal lighting and perspective. In practice, photos would have to be compared by humans.

There are 31,536,000 seconds in a year. Making 100 comparisons per second (24/7) would produce only 3,153,600,000 comparisons. To fully compare the 14,400,000,000,000,000 needed matches would take one computer 4,566,210 years. Or 1,000,000 computers 4 years, 206 days and 19 hours.

The instant access and matching of data as shown on CSI simply doesn't exist.

 

Why are your comparison numbers ten times that of actual listing numbers? 1.4 billion divided by 31.5 million is just under 45 per second and under half of your 100 comparison numbers.

Ribbit

 

To respond to that comment would be pointless. Unless something can be proven it's call speculation, and if you apply that to every item that can be stolen,, most pawn shops, coin shops, and second hand stores would be out of business.

 

Right on!!!!it is good to see that sometimes the good guys win. Lock'em up..

 

A point that seems to have been missed here is . . . the burglary victim found his stolen coins on eBay. He did not rely on eBay or the police or anyone else to find his coins.

 

I guess there are those of you that don't know what a thief is? Anyone that thought I meant the ones in the OP, needs to get real. The thieves I was referring to are the ones that run scams on Ebay and there is something Ebay can do about it and they aren't doing it.

I just read a discussion somewhere else about this one seller that sold a counterfeit 1796 DBD for 5 grand and never shipped the coin and got NARU'd because of it, only to turn around and make a new ID and start his scams up again and both times, he's listed as a Power Seller. Hence, my comment about Ebay providing thieves a safe-haven.

Ribbit

 

I've seen clubs that offer a listing service for stolen coins. That way others will made aware of the theft, so they will keep a lookout for them, especially online and specifically on Ebay.

We can do that here too so if anyone ever hears of coin thefts, post the information here so we can all keep a lookout for them and maybe find the thieves that took them. I'd love to hear more stories like the one you posted. :thumb:

Ribbit

 

But the thread was not about counterfeit items, it was about stolen items. Ebay can not be required to verify that an item is not stolen just as a pawn shop is not required. Granted, Ebay has nothing vested in the cost of the item, but they can no more verify an item is not stolen any more than a pawn shop or second hand store.

 

DavidH I appreciate your number crunching, Your a man after my own heart, I've always said mathematics were my second language. This led to an accounting degree and an MBA in Finance, which is why I follow the technical analysis of gold and silver so closely.
What I really was trying to get across was that not every theft of a 1921 Morgan Dollar should be included, but the larger dollar amounts and the rarer and less seen coins could be included.
After the 2006 FUN show, American Rare Coin Galleries, of Minneapolis, MN, put their show inventory of over $2,000,000 in the back of their SUV and returned to their hotel to check out. As they pulled into the hotel parking lot, a car rolled up behind them, two men with guns got out and relieved them of all their coins and left. Never to be seen again.
That was the type of theft I was referring too, a large amount and several unusual types and series and varieties of coins.
I have always had two conflicting thoughts of how they could be so stupid as not to use an Armored Car Service to ship their coins back to Minnneapolis. Number one, the theft was an insurance scam. Number two, the coins as sitting in the collection of an Asian or European collector and it was an inside job.
I find it hard to believe that professionals in this business could be so stupid. Or were they?
There was a list of the coins e-mailed to nearly every dealer in the country, but as far as I know and I've been keeping an eye open for it, not a single coin has surfaced. Orlando to Miami, via yacht to who knows where. I believe that if people with money wanted to make it happen they would. An underpaid, coin salesman is all of a sudden offered the windfall of his life just to be stupid?
Vegas Vic

 

I understand that so consider my comment OT.

I'm just getting so fed up with all the scams I'm running across on Ebay and seeing all those peeps getting swindled out of their hard earned money and getting Ebay to do anything about it is practically impossible.

Ribbit

 

There is already a service that does that, to an extent.

PNG runs a stolen coin tracking service that is available only to its members and to police. Stolen Coin Tracking

I thought there was also a public web site devoted to stolen coins but I am unable to find it at the moment. If I am mistaken and there is not such a site that would mean there is a great opportunity for you to create and build that site.