Receiver of Stolen ebay merchandise

May 17, 2006 7:59 PM

I bought an ibook recently on ebay here in Australia. I've just been emailed by the police today, informing me that the laptop was stolen merchandise. I'm resigned to the fact that I'll have to return the laptop to the original owner. (I would want no less if it was stolen from me) - but do I have a chance of getting compensation from ebay? the laptop was about $1,200 AUD. Any tips on approaching ebay and negotiating this are very welcome.
posted by Dag Maggot to Law & Government (13 answers total)

Call my cynical, but I'd make sure that the e-mail really came from the police. My gut instinct is that it's a prank/scam. But you'd be a much better judge than I would.

Assuming it is legitimate, the reimbursement ought to come from the seller, as b1tr0t says, but eBay should certainly be notified. The question is whether the seller knew it was stolen or not. (The police would certainly want to investigate how s/he came to possess and sell a stolen laptop?)
posted by fogster at 8:24 PM on May 17, 2006

How do the police know it was stolen? Is it THAT distinctive or are they privy to the serial number?
posted by chiababe at 8:30 PM on May 17, 2006

Response by poster: It's definitely legit. I called the police about it, and it all checked out. There were two people involved, one is in police custody while the other is "at large" and this laptop is only one of evidently 100s of items that they fenced. So they probably were not the actual thieves, but fenced the items for them. The police say that eventually after them being found guilty, they would attach their assets to pay off people like me. In the mean-time I'm out the laptop and the dough.

Maybe it's unrealistic to expect ebay to cough-up for this. But I guess my thinking is that they facilitated the sale and happily took their cut, and now they would throw their hands up and say, woah - nothing to do with us. Doesn't seem quite right.
posted by Dag Maggot at 8:37 PM on May 17, 2006

Response by poster: yeah chiababe, they matched the serial number over the phone with me, to a reported stolen laptop in the Sydney area.
posted by Dag Maggot at 8:38 PM on May 17, 2006

As I understand it, under australian law, you're screwed if you bought it from the thief, but if you bought it from someone who believed it to be legit, you can ask for your money back.
posted by wilful at 8:45 PM on May 17, 2006

How did you pay for the ibook?
You might have some recourse through your credit card company or PayPal buyer protection.
posted by Fins at 8:57 PM on May 17, 2006

Response by poster: The most popular payment method in Australia is bank account transfer, unfortunately - that's what I did.
posted by Dag Maggot at 9:03 PM on May 17, 2006

Surely there's a principle of "good faith" in the law which says if you had no reason to suspect it was stolen, you get to keep it?

Then the other person gets to claim it on their insurance and everyone's happy.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 11:24 PM on May 17, 2006

Surely there's a principle of "good faith" in the law which says if you had no reason to suspect it was stolen, you get to keep it?

Surely not!

Then the other person gets to claim it on their insurance and everyone's happy.

Except for people who don't have insurance. The insurance company wouldn't be too happy about this arrangement either. Thankfully it doesn't work that way.
posted by grouse at 12:45 AM on May 18, 2006 [1 favorite]

As far as eBay 'facilitating' the transaction - what about if this had been sold through a newspaper advert. Would you hold the newspaper responsible? Probably not. There's only so much that eBay can do to avoid these unpleasant scenarios. As long as they act quickly to ban folks who generate complaints and cooperate with the police in tracking folks down, I'm not sure what else they can do to prevent this from happening...
posted by daveleck at 5:36 AM on May 18, 2006

Best answer: I had this happen to me with a iBook I bought in the US last January - the guy who sold it to me wasn't at fault (and is still selling), but the guy he bought in on craigslist from was. They haven't found that guy, but the one was the one who ate the cost.

I used PayPal with a Mastercard, and both were complete champs in disputing everything and making sure I got my cash back. PayPal was the best (although from what I understand, YMMV on that.), and MasterCard was waiting in the wings to take over if PayPal crapped out. We got a full recovery, shipping and all.

Bad news? Took almost 2 months to get the whole thing over and done with.

I also work for a bank in the US, and if Aussie banking practices are anything like Canada and the US, you should be able to file fraud charges with the bank and have them reverse the bank draft.

I would take this story to them - and forget eBay. They're just the medium, and responsible for none of this. Just like the phone company isn't responsible for prank calls, eBay isn't responsible for this.

Best of luck. The whole experience sucked ass, and I had a good feeling I was protected. I can't imagine how sick you're feeling.
posted by plaidrabbit at 5:55 AM on May 18, 2006

Stupid early mornings. The top sentance should read "...but the one who sold it to me is who ate the cost."
posted by plaidrabbit at 5:56 AM on May 18, 2006

All the people telling you that eBay won't get involved are wrong.
Ebay offers purchase protection up to a value of AUD$400.
I would definitely try the bank reversal route first, but $400 is better than nothing if all other avenues fail.
See here for details.
I have disputed credit card and Paypal purchases where no goods were shipped (a laptop too) and got 100% recovery, but I can't give you any words of comfort on the transfer reversal.
posted by bystander at 3:38 AM on May 22, 2006