paulsomlo
Well-known member
"Oh, you stole my drill? No hard feelings - I'll just drill a hole through the back of your hand!"
"Oh, you stole my circular saw? No hard feelings - I'll just use it to cut your thumb off; are you right or left handed?"
Stolen Tools
- Thread starter P0234
- Start date
"Oh, you stole my circular saw? No hard feelings - I'll just use it to cut your thumb off; are you right or left handed?"
RMERR
Well-known member
Maybe it's the GJ in me talking, but I feel like tool thieves are like the modern equivalent of the old west horse thief. The lowest of the low in the thief "low archy".
engineer2
Well-known member
Someday technology to disable stolen tools will become commonplace, like Milwaukee is doing. Once thieves know the tool will only work if the registered owner is nearby, there is less incentive to steal it.
AffableCurmudgeon
Well-known member
Just a small matter of overcoming the Eighth Amendment to our Constitution, other than that no issues.
MacMcMacmac
Well-known member
I walked into.a drugstore yesterday and a guy was walking out with a pile of chocolate bars and a six pack of Monster drinks. I asked the staff if they had rung this stuff up and they said no. They also said theft was up 37%, and were told by head office they would be fired if they intervened.
There is a Shepherd of Good Hope right next door. There are also semi-permanent osb replacements for smashed windows in the front door.
Staff says they can hardly keep the frozen food cooler stocked.
A guy walked out of a liquor store unmolested a few weeks ago with a couple of bottles after stating he didn't feel like paying today.
If I got the front wheel of my motorcycle an inch off the ground around here I could be liable for a 10k fine for stunt riding, have my bike impounded and my license suspended.
Sometimes I feel like a sucker.
There is a Shepherd of Good Hope right next door. There are also semi-permanent osb replacements for smashed windows in the front door.
Staff says they can hardly keep the frozen food cooler stocked.
A guy walked out of a liquor store unmolested a few weeks ago with a couple of bottles after stating he didn't feel like paying today.
If I got the front wheel of my motorcycle an inch off the ground around here I could be liable for a 10k fine for stunt riding, have my bike impounded and my license suspended.
Sometimes I feel like a sucker.
dcg9381
Well-known member
$10k in Canada? It's $200 down here in Texas although technically they can arrest and impound, they usually write a ticket. Seems like a much better deal in the states.
That's pretty normal. The employer faces a lot more financial liability for someone getting hurt on the job doing an intervention than they do product loss, at least here in civil-court-loving USA.
rsparks64
Well-known member
I think those are mine.
Next time you buy from FBMP, its worth thinking about where the tools came from. Seems pretty obvious in this case, but I'm sure he had a good cover story....
‘The scope of this investigation is enormous’: 15,000 stolen tools recovered in Howard Co. - WTOP News
More than 15,000 stolen pieces of construction equipment have been recovered in Howard County, Maryland.wtop.com
I think they are mine.
cherrybomb
Well-known member
If you have a personal pride and a bit of character, no matter of the situations, just say 'NO'
Here's a ray of sunshine for this thread.
Owner operator gets to work to find his backhoe track machine is gone. What are we talking 100K or so? After a few days he gets an idea, he has a small plane and flies around and spots his machine 50 miles away. Cops nab the bastards.
Owner operator gets to work to find his backhoe track machine is gone. What are we talking 100K or so? After a few days he gets an idea, he has a small plane and flies around and spots his machine 50 miles away. Cops nab the bastards.
paulsomlo
Well-known member
"No hard feelings - these tracks will only hurt for a moment as they pass over your body"
Iron Horse
Active member
- Joined
- May 12, 2024
- Messages
- 28
When I'm emperor these people will be executed by power tool.
bcschief
Well-known member
seber
Well-known member
HondaCBMan
Well-known member
I thought the NYPD cracked down on them after the news story ran. There were a ton of those selling obviously stolen goods along that stretch. Crazy times we live in.
Not going into that neighborhood to find out! Two NYPD officers were shot there just last night.
HondaCBMan
Well-known member
I hear ya.
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Tynee
Well-known member
"This case sends a clear message: We will not tolerate criminal enterprises operating here in Howard County,"
I think the clear message is "If you, the victim, do the legwork for us, we'll be happy to take the credit for it..."
I think the clear message is "If you, the victim, do the legwork for us, we'll be happy to take the credit for it..."
dcg9381
Well-known member
It's interesting by one of the guys who works for me has a 6-figure side business selling tools. Without giving away his secrets, he's able to leverage "bulk" margins from a major retailer and gets one hell of a deal on his shipping costs. Sometimes he buys (power) tools in "sets" and breaks them up.
You'd think all his stuff fell off a truck, but it's legit. His margins aren't great, say 10%, but 10% on 1M a year is "real money".
neophyte
Well-known member
With items stolen from stores like Home Depot and Lowes, presumably, serial numbers could and can be tracked to verify stolen items are being sold if the items are new in box.
Target, probably a couple decades ago at this point, actually registered the exact date, time, and store location a cheap TV I bought years ago, was sold, which made getting warrantee service on the TV I never bothered registering much easier.
Maybe a mistake at a retailer could happen on one or two items, but if more than a couple items are bring sold by the same person, and those items come back stolen, then questions should be asked, or a receipt requested, if the items appear new.
I have purchased tools that appear “new” from sellers one eBay, but usually the items were weird industrial tools that looked like a business was selling off excess or unneeded tools, or from closeout and surplus specialists like Epstein’s or Cripe.
aka Larry
Well-known member
I was on GJ (Grand Jury) duty for a year. We had probably 10-20 cases per month in our small county regarding sale of stolen property to a local pawn shop called "Trade It". In each case the seller was required to have a valid picture ID that was kept on record as well as video evidence of the sale in the store. When the police showed up to find the merchandise that was reported as stolen, the store had records of every sale so the cops knew who to look for and where they lived! Not exactly a group of criminal masterminds. Like the cops always told us, "We don't catch the smart ones".
neophyte
Well-known member
Plenty of people with tracking devices on items that were stolen have been given a shrug and told by the police that nothing can be done.
In this case, the police actually seem to have done some legwork after one possible location containing A stolen item was potentially located.
Police got search warrants on 12 locations, 11 of which were in the same county, which means someone from the police needed to verify stolen items in the one location, then get search warrants for 10 other locations in the same county, and arrange for a search warrant in another county, either in coordination with the Maryland State police, or the other counties law enforcement.
Stolen items were identified that belonged to victims from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and possibly elsewhere, which would require cross referencing theft records from multiple states, which may require checking multiple theft databases, unless there were obvious owner identification marks from victims from each state.
Maybe even the FBI got involved, since the thefts crossed state lines?
Tynee
Well-known member
All good points. I stand corrected.
As a side note, I'm not a "cops are lazy, corrupt, and otherwise jerks" kind of guy. Just calling it like I saw it in this case. Looks like I may be off base, though. No great surprise there...
Recruitment and retention of LE is almost considered “crisis” most everywhere anymore
How much of the strained resources do we want them to commit, For what to a large extent are petty crimes? Even if they are convicted, they’ll be sent to overcrowded jails, and be out in a relatively small amount of time.
It ***** but as far as social problems go these days, take a number.
How much of the strained resources do we want them to commit, For what to a large extent are petty crimes? Even if they are convicted, they’ll be sent to overcrowded jails, and be out in a relatively small amount of time.
It ***** but as far as social problems go these days, take a number.
seber
Well-known member
90% of LE funds are spent on officers cruising and looking for revenue enhancement. Take a few of those off the streets and put that money toward crime prevention and we might actually have some effect.
Maybe they should go after those who are buying the stolen merchandise.
That will slow thefts down much faster.
Claiming "I didn't know it was stolen" doesn't really fly, at least in Indiana.
Hytekrednek
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2015
- Messages
- 373
Yes, same here, but I am also always carrying at least a pistol on my hip. My home is even better protected.
PelicanPines
ALLIANCE MEMBER
I'm from NJ... we have baseball bats, machetes and backhoes.
It's amazing how many girls are into that.
Dakotadadv8
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 30, 2021
- Messages
- 1,482
Go ahead make my day. Love that movie and tool 44 magnum.
bcschief
Well-known member
I own a battery charger that was stolen from me in a burglary, and it was recovered and the lady that bought it from the kid that stole it had scratched here SS# in the top of it. I still have it and that was in the early 90s.
neophyte
Well-known member
How the hell is a person supposed to know the items are stolen?
Most of the time, you can’t find a list of serial numbers to check an item against, let alone a “description list” which might not work well for items sold in the tens of thousands, but which would potentially work for obscure items and tools.
Someone’s initials drawn in sharpie on a tool doesn’t really cut it, since plenty of people sell, dive away, or pawn old tools, and never bother removing sharpie marks or other identifying marks.
Serial number plates sometimes get damaged due to use, or cleaning messy tools.
Price isn’t necessarily a determining factor, since plenty of places offer discounts from time to tome which flippers take advantage of, and there are also closeout deals, tools that get surplussed, sherif’s sales, etc.
Businesses sometimes purchase batches of tools for expected jobs or to keep tools on hand, then when things get tight, or a job gets cancelled, tools wind up on eBay.
Most manufacturers want little to nothing to do with assisting a buyer of a surplussed or second hand tool from determining if the tool might have been stolen.
This isn’t like in the 1700s and 1800s, where craft guilds required members to mark their tools, and then kept a registry of the tools and make if the Guild member’s tools got stolen, which was done because the craft guild insured or partially insured guild members tools.
Not being able to purchase or posses “old tools” because you were not the original purchaser, and you might get arrested and charged with possessing stolen property simply means a huge amount of old tool waste on the market.
Houdini5150
Well-known member
Maybe a bulk purchase of items? heh
Why are you asking me?I don’t write the laws regarding possession of stolen property.
Common sense is probably a good start. Post #56 is probably pretty good example. A price that is “too good to be true”. The inquirer ask about a sales receipt but the seller says he’s selling it for his “dead brother.”
Maybe just assume that most of the tools that are sold on Facebook market are stolen because they probably are
I remember years ago here posters used to brag about getting a $2500 welder for 400 bucks because the seller needed to “make rent”
Maybe that was the case maybe not, obviously it was too good to deal to pass up
neophyte
Well-known member
“a price that’s too good yo be true”Why are you asking me?I don’t write the laws regarding possession of stolen property.
Common sense is probably a good start. Post #56 is probably pretty good example. A price that is “too good to be true”. The inquirer ask about a sales receipt but the seller says he’s selling it for his “dead brother.”
Maybe just assume that most of the tools that are sold on Facebook market are stolen because they probably are
I remember years ago here posters used to brag about getting a $2500 welder for 400 bucks because the seller needed to “make rent”
Maybe that was the case maybe not, obviously it was too good to deal to pass up
Around 2008 I purchased a bunch of individual tools at prices that were “too good to be true”.
The tools were specialty tools used for building, and it was around the time or just after the economy tanked and building companies went under.
The prices on Facom and other tools and brands from Cripe, and Epsteins have in many cases seemed “too good to be true”.
Major retailers routinely clearance tools at prices that are “too good to be true”, but not at all stores, at the same time, on the same products.
At one tool/craft retailer, the wholesale price the store pays seemed to be around 40% of the normal store price, except for power tools, when I got to see wholesale prices once.
That leaves a lot of room for discounting the average customer might not expect.
Seeing a retailer of apparently new tools being randomly sold off the back of a truck would look suspicious to me, especially if the tools match the brands Home Depot carries, and which are in news stories being shown stolen, but I actually watch the news.
Plenty of people don’t watch the news.
I worked in some office with a woman who wanted a cordless drill, but who thought $20 was expensive for a drill.
Rockwell and B&D decades ago used yo have drills that sold for $10 at list price.
Downwindtracker 2
Well-known member
In my search for old Gray open ended wrenches, I have stopped by a few pawn shops. I was always amazed at finding Hilti concrete drills. These are expensive contractor tools, which I would think are rarely pawned by the contractor. Maybe by his ex-employee, though.
Downwindtracker 2
Well-known member
Between construction jobs, I once worked for an importer. A pretty standard breakdown of costing went like this He would pay $1 and then wholesale it for $10, the retailer would charge $20. They all would make money, but not a great deal.