Confronting a thief in person is pretty dangerous (if the police weren't there); there's a non-zero chance of a fight, possibly involving a knife or gun. If you theoretically have a CCW and can be legally carrying a gun for self defense, it's still physically dangerous, and legally risky (a lot of legal/self defense advice is that if you're going to confront someone like a cheating spouse or whatever, you should not have even a legally owned gun with you, since if things escalate, it can get much worse.) Even a "righteous" self defense shoot in California is probably going to cost you $50-100k in legal -- absolutely worth it to save your life or the life of someone you care about, not really worth it for anything else, including breaking up strangers fighting on the street.

Much safer to just gather information and give it to the police.

I don't know how much risk I'd be willing to take for a $350 camera. (if it had a 5.0 f/1.0L or 1200mm, capture/torture/killing might be appropriate, though)

My bike was stolen from the hospital where I'm a student. 3 years of going there and never a problem, this night I walked outside and my bike was gone.. The thief had kindly left the chain lying ont be ground where he had cut it.

2 months later and I still hadn't given up on my beautiful 3 yr old trek road bike, Red Lightning. On a whim I checked eBay about 3am (late night studying) and listed all bikes in Sydney.

At 100 per page you can get through them fairly quickly.

Red was on the 6th page with my custom parts still attached. Called he police who came around at 3.30 in the morning- gave them the website, emailed them my serial number and other photos and they went around the next day and recovered it for me-

Such a win!

Unfortunately still took another 2 months to get it back from the police, but it came back and is still with me to this day

I did set up a fake account on Craigslist to pretend that I was looking to buy an iPod of my specific make and model (it wasn't a common color/size) and found a couple of people who were selling such an iPod, but they claimed to have original packaging, which would not apply in my case (though I guess if you're good at being a fence you can get packaging from somewhere).

Mostly, I learned how annoying it is to search through Craigslist noise.

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edit: Some commenters have noted that the OP's story sounds fake, on the grounds that a big city police department wouldn't take interest. Well, yes and no.

My good friend had her iPhone snatched in a park during the day. She chased the perp on foot and managed to get the attention of police and, in her words, no less than two unmarked police cars suddenly showed up. They chased the perp into the projects but at that point, there was nothing the police could do. But they did take her to the station to look at mug shots and file a report.

In my case, I had left my phone unerased for a week (it was Android) and turned on the tracking program, which allowed me to locate him approximately with GPS and even record sound and take photos. I found where he was staying on two different occasions but the police declined to check it out...and I don't begrudge them since a 100-foot radius in a NYC apartment complex is quite large. Also, my detective was involved in investigating an unusually public and brutal crime that weekend and couldn't get back to me.

In other words, the NYPD will call out the troops for a crime in progress, or if you have an otherwise extremely solid lead, as in the case of the OP. Otherwise, yes, they will not go out of their way to track your stolen goods, because they operate on the assumption that it's been sold on the street (in my case, I doubted my phone had been sold, because the Android program lets me know how many times someone has tried to unlock the passcode and other usage info about the phone...it definitely hadn't been hard-wiped to be resold yet).

Later that evening we get a call from Chase asking about a string of purchases on her credit card - panic mode sets in and she realizes that one of her credit cards is missing. Luckily, my wife puts the phone on speaker mode so I can hear the full details of the conversation - and the Chase rep goes through the list of locations the card was used that day. I take note of all the locations, times and dollar amounts.

With this information in hand, we both headed to the first store on the list, a GameStop located about 10 minutes from the school, and the first purchase attempt happened 15 minutes after school ended - the culprit wasted no time. We speak to the manager of the GameStop who understands the situation and is eager to help, but only with the presence of the police. We call up the police and are able to explain everything that has happened, that we want to file a report, and that we are on location of one of the stores who has the camera footage already loaded if someone could come out. We waited about 45 minutes and finally a patrol car shows up.

We start the process of explaining what has happened so far, that we have the full list of locations and times - and just need their help to be able to positively identify the thief on camera. They agree and we are able to access the back video room to attempt to identify the person. Sadly, GameStop (at least this location) had really poor recordings and it was hard to have a 100% confirmation - it could've been one of two classmates and we weren't certain. The next location was a Target, literally around the corner. We went over there, with the two police officers, who went to speak to their security office. Unlike GameStop, we had to wait outside until they had loaded the exact time - I guess to prevent us from seeing any other information/transactions. It turns out that Target had a security system that can take the credit card number used, automatically go to not only the right time, but right checkout aisle and show close ups of the person AND the card being used. One press of a button and the video was burnt to a DVD for the police officers to take back as evidence.

In the end the class mate was trying to buy Playstation 3s to be able to sell, so she could pay off the fines that she received for committing identity theft when she was a minor.... She received 6 months in one county for the theft of the card, then another 8 months for using the card in a different county. Additionally her mom was arrested since they noticed that she had a warrant out for her arrest so they just took care of that one as well.

BTW, in Denmark bicycles are parked everywhere without any lock but a small wheel lock that doesn't attach the bike to anything, but only prevent the rear wheel from spinning. Of course most people don't even bother closing this pretty useless lock.

The part which has really stayed with me is that he said the only offense for which keelhauling was the automatic punishment was stealing. The reason he told us was that on a ship everyone has to trust each other and theft ruins that system. Stealing a shipmate's property, no matter how small, puts the whole ship in danger.

I often wonder whether it would be a net improvement to extend that severity for theft beyond a boat. Whenever I lock up my bike it bothers me what this simple act is saying about society. I now live in a country where it feels as though theft carries a far greater level of social unacceptability, a far higher level of shame associated with it. I like that. In the UK where I grew up however, sometimes taking things that are not yours is reframed as a kind of opportunistic cunning and craftiness. I hate that.

I had my bike stolen a year ago in the UK, and it was a really nice mountain bike worth almost a thousand quid. I hoped it would be easy to find, since I gave the police pictures, serial number of the frame, and most importantly - the brand of the bike(Kellys) is completely non-existent in the UK, they never sold their bikes there,and I brought it with me from my home country. So I thought, it should be quite easy to spot among all other brands, since it's pretty much one of its kind. Well, I was never able to, never popped up on Ebay, Craigslist or any other trading websites. I really do wonder sometimes what happened to it.

#1: I was 19 and had ridden it to a local swimming hole, stashing it in the woods. That sounds dumb, but this was in a county of only 4,000 residents, so you didn't expect much theft. When I came back, it was gone.

How it was recovered: that same day, I went to every house within a mile and asked if anyone had seen it. Four days later, a dad and his son showed up, saying they'd found it abandoned in some woods.

#2: (same bike, a decade later) I parked it behind my house, out of sight of the street. I started out locking it, but over the years I got to be relaxed about it. One morning about 7 AM I hard footsteps and a bike being wheeled down my driveway. It was a shared driveway with my neighbor, and he was also a biker, so I figured he was just heading out early. Nope, that was my bike being stolen. I never found out if the thief knew it was back there or wandered back and happened upon it.

How it was recovered: I live in a smallish city (300,000), and figured if I just kept my eyes open, I'd see it eventually. It became a habit to scan a bike rack whenever I walked by or locked up. Sure enough, two years later there it was, right next to me as I locked up my new bike. It still had the registration stickers from my college on it, so it was easy to ID with the police. It turned out that the current owner had bought it from a pawnshop. She ended up being the true victim, as I got my bike back and she didn't get her money.

#3, eight years later: I had run to the library to pick up a book, only to find that my lock, which always lived in my bag, had been left in my daughter's bike trailer after a weekend excursion. I stashed my bike in the middle of the rack, jammed in between two others. No one can tell it's unlocked, right? Wrong. I came out ten minutes later and it was gone.

How it was recovered: I mailed a picture of my bike to every local listserve. About a week later, a woman wrote me saying she thought she'd seen it on a porch in her neighborhood. "Great!" I thought, and asked her what the address was. Then the conversation started to feel strange, and she eventually stopped replying to my messages. Two weeks later, she finally replied, sending a picture of the bike. It was definitely mine, as I had installed some custom parts and stickers. When I wrote that I was absolutely positively sure it was my bike, she finally gave me the address -- it turned out it wasn't a "neighbor" but a young married couple with whom she was sharing her apartment.

I decided to ask the police to come with me when I went to recover it, which they very kindly did. The husband who had stolen the bike wasn't home, but his wife was. She claimed he'd "found it on the side of the road with a free sign," and that "he would never steal." Clearly hogwash, but in the end, I didn't press charges for two reasons. I went back with a police officer to talk to the couple, and it was very clear they were terrified. He was a young teacher and being convicted of this crime would end that career. My gut instinct was that they weren't habitual thieves. They were both smart, college educated, but just getting started in their lives and without much money. He clearly really wanted my bike. (For the record, it was a semi-desirable fixed gear road bike). He'd fixed up a few worn parts, replaced others with ones that matched his style, etc. In the end, I decided to believe that it was a one-time crime of passion and to let him go with a stern talking-to from the police and a pointer towards the local bike co-op where he could build up his own bike.

Phew, long story. Anyway, if you lose something ... keep trying!

http://cdn.petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2013/03/facebooksear...

Over 22k followers? It seems like this was a fairly petty crime for someone with that strong of an influence. I wonder if the motivation was monetary or for the sheer thrill of stealing and reselling something...

A few years ago I had a bunch of cash and my debit card stolen from a gym bag. I tracked the purchases for the next day and then cancelled the card. I tracked the thief to a gas station nearby where he/she had put close to $100 on it. I asked the gas station owner to review the surveillance tapes, but as luck would have it, they weren't running any surveillance at the time. I filed a police report but was never able to catch the thief.

My only problem with the story is the part about having a friend ready to tackle the thief if he tried to run. This is very risky, not only because you are risking the friend's safety, but also because if the thief gets injured you could be on the losing end of a lawsuit. You have to be very, very careful when it comes to physical aggression. If you try to restrain somebody you had better have a damn good reason or you could be guilty of false imprisonment or false arrest.

Just once I wish a thief had been this dumb.

"The cops questioned him for a bit [...] and arrested him. It turns out he had a very realistic airsoft gun on him, which would have made running away with the camera a helluva lot scarier. When he was fingerprinted at the station it turns out this guy also had a warrant out for his arrest, and that he was using an alias all this time."

A guy running around with a realistic looking gun, a warrant out for his arrest, and this person just visited your party yesterday night. Brrr...

In my case the police officer that got the guys information after I brought it in decided to go meet the guy himself because he recognized the name. Had the console hand delivered to me that night after matching the serial number.

You mention days of the week in the post as well as some details of your exchange with the thief in your replies to his Craigslist ad. He could likely tie it back to you easily if he was informed of this story.

I was tending to my front garden one day when I see this massive shirtless guy walking up the road with a huge pot plant. It was a weird scene so stuck with me.

Later that day two Thai guys walk up the road and ask me if I had seen anyone with a pot plant. I tell them that I had, they tell me they own the local Thai restaurant down the road, and someone has stolen the big pot plants from out the front. I gave them a description of the guy, but I told hem I didn't know where he went.

Anyway, next morning I get up, and one of my pot plants is missing. After cursing for a while, I sat staring out the back window musing on life. When I realize what I am looking at is my pot plant in the back window of an apartment three buildings away. A very low rent building known to house questionable types (the local nickname was junkie towers)

So I got out the zoom lens, took a a couple of pictures and hunted through my garden photos until I found a picture of the said pot plant. I went down to the police station with the photos and told the my story. Well, the police like nothing more than an open-and -shut case. So they got a warrant, and went around and knocked on the door that afternoon. What they found was a veritable treasure chest of goods taken from around the neighborhood, with pot plants being a particular specialty. The police told me tehy're easy to sell at markets and don't have serial numbers etc. but there were bikes, lawn furniture, you name it, anything that could be stolen without breaking and entering.

The guy turned out to have a warrant for his arrest for an assault charge, and a couple of other things. The detective eventually asked if I woid testify at a hearing against him, which I agreed to, despite being a bit nervous of the size of the guy and his previous assault charge.

The big day in court came and the defending attorney made a big song and dance and tried to suggest that the fact that his client had an identical pot plant to mine was mere coincidence. I suggested that the amount of combinations of pot plants was a very high number of permutations, to which he triumphantly declared that given there were possibly thousands like it, it coudld be merely similar and not exactly the same. I countered with the fact that the odds of a similar pot plant showing up at the exact same time as mine went missing were too high to be mere chance.

Anyway, the guy went to jail, I forget how long now. Th detective told me it was some of the best civilian witness testimony he had seen (I'm sure he says that to everyone). I got my pot plant back, complete with evidence tag that I left on for fun until it disintegrated.

I must say, being in the witness stand was quite harrowing, having to point to someone in court and argue you're not a liar. I had shaky and sweaty hands afterwards, a combination of nerves and adrenalin. All that over a $20 pot plant, but a principle was at stake and was not going to let this creep get away with it.

http://gawker.com/5934912/bike-thief-tries-to-sell-stolen-bi...

Oh. Nowadays people learn photography using a "D" SLR... That makes me feel so old!

PS: thanks for the info about http://www.stolencamerafinder.com/, very useful (and not something you could have used with a non-D SLR...)

Car theft used to be a much bigger problem before 1) VINs everywhere and 2) anti-theft systems. The easiest way to steal a high end car now is carjacking (i.e. once all the security systems are dieabled); otherwise, you have to either flatbed it or have the right ECU to swap for a specific model. Opportunistic theft of a late-model luxury car is actually pretty hard now.

European cellphone vendors do this; it really should be done for any product. I'd be ok with the manufacturer charging a small fee to officially transfer ownership, too, guaranteeing that the first purchaser can't then trace the device.

I didn't quite get for what her mom was arrested ("warrant out for her arrest").

Btw, was your wife able to receive the stolen amount? (And maybe something on top of it, for compensation....)

Sounds like jail time was going to put her back on the right track in life. I wonder how she wound up after jail?

Fortunately I was fairly fit and healthy then and I sprinted after the bugger. He tried to change gear and paniced and messed it up and I pushed him off the bike. Scuffle ensued but he managed to get away.

A call to the police resulted in an officer turning up the next day. Description given and the instant result was "oh I know who that was", he wad arrested about an hour later, I was asked to attend the police station to identify a photo of him and that was that - 6 month suspended sentence and community service.

I've never had my bike stolen, but people have "borrowed" my bike before. This has happened a couple of times in various places, but sometimes I'll be in a hurry or on an errand and don't have time to lock (or a place to lock) my bike. I remember a few years back I ran into the library to return a book and just kept my bike parked right outside of the door. I wasn't gone for more then a minute, but when I came back out some guy was riding my bike around like it was nothing. Yelled at him to get off my bike and he ran away.

Bikes aren't the only thing people "borrow" though. Shovels, tools, toys... People have taken them right of my patio and just left with them. I usually find them in the next neighborhood or somewhere in the woods after a few weeks.

Are you sure you didn't just forget where you left it?

Or, if a bike is unlocked in the woods, is it still stealable?

I'm sorry for the pawnshop buyer. Why didn't police follow the thread? I suppose pawnshop owner should have compensate her.