Man Finds His Stolen Tools For Sale On eBay

[JohnHenrys48]

See the story below. That's got to stink...I wonder if he had "marked" them somehow...

Even without theft, friends and neighbors helping in or using your shop could honestly walk away with hand tools thinking they belong to them.

What do you guys do ? Mark them somehow ? I can't imagine scribing each tool separately.

One summer during college I worked for the DOT doing signing and road striping. For some odd reason we received a large set of used hand tools...the boss spread them on the ground and sprayed them flourecent orange marking paint. Not the most graceful, but got the job done.

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http://www.wftv.com/news/4240944/detail.html

Man Finds His Stolen Tools For Sale On eBay
Carpenter Buys Items, Contacts Police

INDIANAPOLIS -- A carpenter learned that tools stolen from him were being sold on an Internet auction site, prompting detectives to find thousands of dollars worth of allegedly stolen items at an Indianapolis man's garage, police said.

Police said they plan to arrest Christopher Lamont Hayden, 34, on charges of theft, WRTV-TV in Indianapolis reported Monday.

The carpenter, John Guichelaar, said his tools were stolen, and that he spent a week checking local lawn shops for them. Then, he said, he found them on eBay.

"What I ended up doing was actually purchasing some of my tools so I could receive them and prove that they were mine," Guichelaar said.

Guichelaar called police. An investigation led them to Hayden's home, where they served a search warrant Monday.

Police said the garage contained thousands of dollars worth of common and specialty tools that they believe were stolen. Authorities said they believe Hayden sold stolen tools on eBay.

"This is the first case we ever had where stolen property was solicited (on the Internet) and we found it and we had serial numbers to make the identification marks," Indianapolis police Detective Martha Richardson said.

Police said they believe the tools found Monday may have been taken during more than 100 burglaries.
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[ranger_dood]

When my bro had some subs and an amp stolen out of the back of his car, the first place we looked was eBay. Unfortunately we didn't find them . They're probably in some local punk kid's car..

 

[LK1]

Brings back my childhood. My best friend's father was the head mechanic for the local newspaper. He painted all his tools light yellow, we all knew it and respected them. Never had any confusion about whose they were. He also had them all hanging on pegboard and outlined so he knew immediately if something was missing or not put back. 30 years later I bet he still has them all.

 

[C_F]

Wow, that guy's pretty lucky, I'd say!

 

[iiibdsiil]

I have inscribed my three initials BDS on all my tools. It really didn't take that long, maybe an hour, and I have a pretty good amount of stuff. When I was at the dealer, I was working under a tech as a student, and he kept getting our stuff mixed up. Finally I was like "Listen, we both have Snap-on, okay? See here, that's my initials." When the stuff got mixed up, I got it back every time from then on.

 

[OI812]

Yeah I think it might be time to buy and ingraver. People just don't seem to respect other peoples stuff anymore.

 

[TOO Z MAXX]

I am glad they caught that POS. I absolutly hate theives and they should have their hands removed

 

[spud]

I found my dads stollen antiqe car for sale on the net also, by accident, cops had it that night..

 

[SmokenFasTT]

im wit z maxx i hate theives i have never stolen n e thing in my life and i never will i hate crooked people

 

[rhandwor]

Besides checking ebay do a visit of local pawn shops if your tools end up missing.

 

[jimvannoy]

Only thing I have ever had stolen was my canoe. Had it sitting in the woods by a creek on my land. Someone had to either put it in the water and canoe to the nearest road or drag it a long way through the woods to a road. Filed a report and never heard a thing back. I saw it sitting outside a pawn shop in a town 8 or 10 miles from me almost a year later. Called the cops and they told me to meet them there. They had a copy of the original report with the description noting the color of webbing on the seats and the Minnesota ID sticker on the front dated 1979/80. Asked me when I moved to Mississippi. I said 1980. They said take your canoe. Pawn shop conveniently had no record of who sold it to them. A few months later I was glad to see they went out of business.

 

[Danglerb]

I think I might use some unique discrete punch/stamp so that I could make a positive ID, but a thief might not notice and grind off like initials. Maybe just taking some "good" pictures of your tools would capture enough of a unique wear and marking to ID them?

Given the price of Snapon tools I would not be surprised to see them start putting serial numbers on them.

 

[joenero]

Serial numbers on SO stuff, not a bad idea but it stamp everything that are so many different sizes might cost quite a bit.

 

[wrenchr]

Ratchets are easy!! Scribe your ID mark on the inside of the gear plate

 

[mkdive]

Ratchets are easy!! Scribe your ID mark on the inside of the gear plate

great idea!

 

[Adam McLaughlin]

Besides checking ebay do a visit of local pawn shops if your tools end up missing.

Brother I can tell you guys all stories about this. For my internship I worked Pawn Detail at the local Police Department Investigations Department. The local P.D. had a field day tracking down Pawn Tags for stolen merchandise.

The thing that always amazed me is how the pawn shop owners always asked tool truck prices for their used stuff that they took in. That was a "wow". I thought that the pawn shops would function like a garage sale, where things could be bought for a deal 'cause this is used stuff here.

Nope, not in my local Pawn Shops.

I sure learned to secure my gear because of the ease of which truck brand tools could be sold to Pawn Shops for easy money.

Adam

 

[TNToy]

See the story below. That's got to stink...I wonder if he had "marked" them somehow...

He sounds like a semi-pro woodworker. They probably stool something with a serial number, and he had his original manual or whatever to prove ownership.

 

[bushhawg73]

I mark every tool with my initals for this reason. I also try and mark the same place in each item. I know it is a small chance that the items will be located and identified but a small chance is better that no chance. I am glad that he got his stuff back.

 

[LoneGunman]

"That was a "wow". I thought that the pawn shops would function like a garage sale, where things could be bought for a deal 'cause this is used stuff here. "

Why would they sell stuff at a "garage sale" price when they can get full retail? If you worked a pawn detail then you know what the maximum legal interest plus storage fees are, here in FL it's 25% a month, that's a 300% APR, the money is in the interest not in reselling the merchandise. When I had my shop I sold at about 50% of retail and loaned about 25% of retail.

CID loved me, I called when I thought something was not right, I wouldn't take in merchandise that seemes shady but I'd fill the pawn ticket out and then come up with an excuse to not do the loan and then pass the info on to CID. Hmmmmm maybe that's why my I didn't last too long, i'm not saying all are, I wasn't but it's really easy to be a crooked pawn shop.

What always drove me nuts was every cop always told the victim of a theft to call all the pawnshops. I lost track of the times I told CID to tell the road guys to stop giving that advice. I'm sure it caused a lot of people to not get their merchandise back. By calling the pawnshops you make the owner aware that the merchandise is stolen, 99.9% of pawnshops will not knowingly take in stolen merchandise but 99.9% of them will also not go out of their way to notify anyone if that merchandise came in, they will just refuse to take it until the badguy tries a pawnshop out of the county. The counties in Florida do not share pawn transaction information so the badguy gets away with it and the victim never gets their merchandise back.

 

[LoneGunman]

Besides checking ebay do a visit of local pawn shops if your tools end up missing.

Bad idea, read my last post