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EB Demands Payment From Victim of Theft
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Sun Mar 07, 2004 12:56 PM
from the this-is-very-shady dept.
from the this-is-very-shady dept.
blincoln writes "ABC Action News is reporting that a Florida Electronics Boutique bought stolen games and gaming hardware, and made a profit on selling them back to their rightful owner, refusing to return the merchandise unless she paid them. From the article: 'EB Games still insists it will not refund Michelle's money. If she wants her money back, the company said, she can go through the legal system and get restitution from the thief.' In addition, EB appears to be violating the law by re-selling used merchandise without holding it for the required number of days. I was under the impression that purchasers of stolen merchandise could expect it to be seized by the police (who would return it to the owner) and not recover any of the money they spent buying it unless they took action against the thief. Is that not the case in Florida?"
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issue? (Score:5, Insightful)
if I'm not mistaken before they're given away. The article says she went to the store after two days and they had already
sold her playstation. They clearly violated law and should be reported to the authorities, not the manager as she did.
Re:issue? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:issue? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:issue? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:issue? (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be hard to charge her with stealing stuff that she already owned.
I'm sure someone here must know some law on this.
Parent
Re:issue? (Score:5, Interesting)
More to the point.. what the fuck were they (EB) thinking.. is the bad publicity over this whole incident worth the negligable amount of money to this woman.... I think not, this will cost them alot more in the long run, and I hope the authorities come down hard on EB for violating the laws and this persons rights
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I won't be shopping at EB, will you? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:I won't be shopping at EB, will you? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would agree reimbursement is not enough. But I think Corporate should go a step further. Instead of suing, they should very publically revoke the franshise agreement. There are generally some pretty strong conditions on tarnishing the brand. If it was 'common knowledge' as the story indicates that this store didn't do checks (making it a common, recurring practice), etc, and then in this case knowingly sold stolen property (back to the original owner), I don't think they'd have any problem terminating their agreement.
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Re:issue? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:issue? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarily, but when the managers who control the chain do nothing to correct the rogue actions of a franchise, the practices then become representative of the entire chain. Better to do business with another chain or small shop that doesn't engage in such shady dealings (or at least those not known to be shady).
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Re:issue? (Score:5, Interesting)
Lately, it seems like nothing's feasible. I had a truck broken into last year and $2K of tools and test equipment taken out of it. Response from the police? Leave a message on the answering machine and never, ever expect any followup. "It's an insurance matter."
Some of the equipment was licensed amateur radio gear that was very distinguishable. Checked with pawn shops. They told me to get lost: "We don't have to talk to you or tell you if we have your equipment or not. Only the police can check."
Obviously not if the police don't investigate it and relegate the matter to an answering machine (a friend at the police department said they only use those cases for statistical purposes - e.g. demonstrating they need more funding because of greater crime, though who knows what they'd do with more funds. Obviously not chase ordinary criminals that affect most of us).
Insurance company was no help either? Played "let's demand proof for everything" - and when proof was provided, claimed to lose forms, require reapplication, and then "mistakenly" closed my case twice. Never got paid a cent, though they indicated I had a claim. Recourse? File complaint with state insurance regulators. (Hint: their address is
Now we're dealing with a significant theft and destruction to a federally licensed communication site at work (in a matter that is going on across the country), and the local FBI office won't response. They're pretty busy hanging on Internet chat rooms nabbing perverts - maybe playing on the PC is more fun than doing field work. Local law enforcement says it's a national matter and has no resources to investigate.
Conclusion? Seems like a good time to be a crook or an insurance company. Us poor schmucks are outgunned and unrepresented. How's that "no taxation without representation" line go again?
Parent
Re:issue? (Score:5, Funny)
To be honest, I feel like the 'us poor scmucks' need to start investing in our own security
Less insurance payments, more car alarms+electrostatic armor plating *evil grin*
Police won't catch the crooks? My ShockMaster 2000 will fry them dead
Parent
Re:issue? (Score:5, Interesting)
Mine was cable television equipment though. 5 scientific america boxes, to be exact.
Anyhow, they caught the dumbass, who tried to plug in the stolen boxes to see if they worked. Cox can tell you exactly where those boxes are on the network down to the tap port, then all you need is to look at the tag and see which house the line goes to.
Anyhow, in the end, the cops didn't do shit to help me get my stuff back. Cox did though.
Parent
Re:issue? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm. There's an old cliche that "A conservative is a liberal who's been mugged." (And, "A liberal is a conservative who's been arrested.")
But when the one of the "let's cut taxes!" brand of conservative suddenly finds not enough cops to track down the guy who burgled his house (or worse yet, not enough firefighters to come extinguish his house-b-que, or EMTs to come jumpstart his dad's failing heart)...yeah, you just might see a tax (and service) cutter switch to a tax-and-spend liberal.
(Of course, they might just become one of the new "borrow and spend" conservatives that have become popular lately; "don't tax us, our kids will pay for it." Grand.)
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Re:issue? (Score:5, Interesting)
Where I (BC, Canada) live if the police have arrested the thief and have a confession they will go get the stolen goods and return them to the owner, if the owner is known. If they don't know the owner they still take the goods as possesion of stolen property is against the law - and selling goods known to be stolen is also illegal. The store would be completely out for the money paid for the stolen goods unless they sue the thief.
A local guy paid over $30,000 for a newish car from a car dealership, the police discovered the car was stolen and took the car, returning it to the owner. The dealership had done all the correct paperwork before selling so the guy was out $30,000. The true owner of the car automatically got his car back with the police's help.
I find it hard to believe that the Florida police in this case didn't just march down to EB, recover the stolen goods (for evidence at least!) then return the goods to the legal owner.
If this had happened where I live EB would have had no choice but to return the games.
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Re:Duh, what? (Score:5, Informative)
No, if you get your stuff back, you don't get compensation from the thief! If you buy stolen property, YOU have to sue the theif for restitution. The person who had it stolen is NOT obligated to buy it back and then do the suing themselves. They can and should be charged with possession of stolen property, and trafficing in stolen property.
Regardless of the waiting period issue, the second they knew it was stolen, and tried to sell it anyways, they broke the law and should go to JAIL. No stupid bullshit fines. Throw the clerk and the manager in jail. It's just plain illegal, and there is no way around that.
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Re:issue? (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article -
Under state law, all merchants who deal in secondhand goods are required to hold those goods for 15 calendar days before selling them. The law is designed specifically to prevent the sale of stolen goods, and prevent situations like this.
Well, you cannot blame her for not reporting it to the authorities - usually you end up going to the authorities only as a last resort. You try and solve problems as best as you can before that with the company and if that does not work out, you see restitution.
But now that its out in the open, it may turn quite interesting.
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Re:issue? (Score:5, Funny)
They voted on it and are in the middle of their third recount...
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Don't forget the other piece. (Score:5, Insightful)
"He said that he went in there and took it. He was hard up for money for his rent," Wayne Welsh said. "He took them to EB Games in Gulfview Square Mall and sold them...he said that's where they don't do a check and he can sell them without worrying about the police finding out he stole them."
This isn't a random occurrence. He already knew where to go to sell them without any checks.That indicates that this store has a history of such deals. It seems that the cops should be doing a lot of digging into that store's previous dealings.
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EB is not a pawnbroker (Score:5, Informative)
They are more likely covered under Chapter 538: Part 1 [flsenate.gov]: Secondhand Dealers.
Pawning indicates that the pawnbroker will hold the material for an agreed-upon time (not less than the state-mandated minimum) to give the seller time to buy it back, with exclusive purchase rights to that original owner. Secondhand dealers are buying it with no promise to sell it back to the original owner...
I'm not a lawyer, but watch me play one on slashdot...
Parent
Re:issue? (Score:5, Informative)
As a pawn broker in Idaho, it's not quite that way here. In Idaho, we are required to hold ANY property for a minimum of 30 days if bought of 60 days if pawned. We also report full descriptions of EVERYTHING that comes over our counter. Serial numbers, distinguishing marks, colors, model numbers, EVERYTHING. We fill our several copies for each pawn/buy and send them to the police twice a week.
Any police officer may place a "Hold" on an item for any reason, which adds another 90 days. They may also extend that hold another 90 days as many times as they wish.
However, as a pawn shop, the authorities try to take us. That is, quite often, a patrolman will come in and demand that we relinquish property, which they intend to give directly back to the person who's property was stolen. Technically this is against the law for them to do, since we bought it in good faith.
We don't take items that we even suspect are stolen. In fact, I turned down a nice mp3 player yesterday because I suspected it was stolen. I couldn't prove anything so I couldn't call the police, but I didn't take it either.
We are always willing to "Hold" an item for as long as is needed, but we require an inventory requisition sheet be filed and that a disposition hearing be held to determine where the property should go.
If we didn't do this, we would have stuff "stolen" from us continually.
There have been several times in the last couple years when someone will come in, write down serial numbers on some of our stock, and then go to the police claiming it was stolen. Most of them are in jail for fraud, and one is awaiting sentancing right now.
This is also why we hate used stores like EB, Hastings, etc.. They don't have any of the same requirements. In fact, I've never seen a city ordinace that adressed pawn shops and second hand stores together. So don't go describing EB as a pawn shop. It isn't.
Your best bet for protection? Always right down serial numbers! It makes it 85% more likely that you will get your property back.
Calmiche,
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RFID would solve all of your problems (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course RFID tags are manufactured by Satan himself and there is no legitimate use for them, or at least so say the /. editors.
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EB isn't exempt from state laws... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, now, the only question is why it's a local TV station pointing this out instead of the local police? EB's used goods operation isn't complying with state law. That's the bigger problem...
Re:EB isn't exempt from state laws... (Score:5, Insightful)
I assume there is some applicable hefty fine for their infringing on state law. Their not offering the customer the small amount of money she is owed as a result of their infraction is just mind-boggling.
I have to think this is not an "evil corporation" issue. Evil corporations are perfectly happy to pay small amounts of money to uphold an image of benevolence. I think this is more likely an "incredibly stupid store manager" issue.
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Re:EB isn't exempt from state laws... (Score:5, Interesting)
We don't have any EB stores where I live, but we have KB's and Game Stop, both of which sell used games, and I have to tell you their prices are horrible. Both places price games 5$ under retail. I can't imagine not paying the extra 5$ to get a new copy.
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Dealing in stolen goods? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, (Score:5, Funny)
The hell..? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The hell..? (Score:5, Interesting)
This unfortunately has the potential to help EB's PR, though - It provides free advertising about a fact they cannot legally announce - That they will accept and resell stolen property, and do their damnedest to block any attempts to prove the theft or to restore the stolen property to its rightful owner.
Now, most legit purchasers may find this a tad unsavory, but will just assume it doesn't apply if they only buy new merchandise. Quite a few people, however, will consider this a godsend to getting shady "used" merchandise.
Of course, personally, I don't understand why people even still shop at places like EB. If you know exactly what you want, search for it online. You can usually get it for around half-price compared to local stores, and that before you consider not having to pay sales tax. My most recent example - I bought a few seasons of a popular TV series (won't say what, because I got it as a gift for someone, who reads Slashdot) on DVD. Local retail chains had them for a total of just over $200. Amazon had them for $170. Looking around online, and using two different stores (one had a horrible price on the first season, apparently they used that one as the money maker for the discount on the rest), I managed to get them all for under $120 including shipping.
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Well, EB broke at least one law (Score:5, Insightful)
But isn't there a law on the books about buying stolen goods? I always thought that that was a crime as well.
EB is obviously not looking at the big picture here. They want to recoup the cost of the stuff that they bought. However, a good response here (like giving her her stuff and sucking the loss), is going to win a good customer (this store did the right thing, that's why I purchase from them).
EB should be criminally charged (Score:5, Insightful)
Regardless of whether or not EB knew the goods were stolen when they purchased them from the thief, they did not not take reasonable precautions to ensure that they weren't stolen, such as follow the 15 day law.
EB's actions were simply reprehensible, and I, for one, will no longer deal with them.
pawn shops (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:pawn shops (Score:5, Interesting)
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Similar experience on the reseller side of things (Score:5, Interesting)
We've had a few break-ins in the past, the owner of our store tried contacting pawn shops in town to ask them to keep an eye out for iBooks/PowerBooks that might show up soon cause of the break-in. What is truely pathetic is that the pawn brokers just hung up as soon as they heard anything about stolen goods. They didn't want to be involved in the slightest. That really made me mad that people out there are allowed to run such a shady business. But that's America for ya, thanks Martha Stewart...
As I mentioned earlier, we deal in used equipment as well. We're able to track S/N through Apple's service site, so we often catch a lot of stolen equipment. If the names don't match up for example, obvious red flag. Other times it just seems like some scam is taking place, especially when the kids that steal these things don't know how to turn em on, what the product name is, don't know the password or username, etc. So we play along with them, claim we just need to take it in back for a few minutes to 'test it out', run the serial number, call the cops and see if it's been reported, if so we have the police come pick them up and return the product to the customer (another reason not to buy mail-order, sometimes the local guys are looking out for you more ways than one).
But even phoning the police on these matters is rediculous, in our city, you have to talk to about 10 different people, none one at the station seems to care. Which is frustrating, they have an attitude that it's not worth getting off their butts to check for a serial number. And yet, every one we've phoned in was reported and was finally returned.
I wish local police would have a website to allow you to look up serial numbers of reported stolen goods, it'd make reselling and buying for the customer a lot safer and ethical. Although I'm sure it's more a legal problem to pull that task off, but still... I can dream of a perfect world still?
I hope they sue EB for this, it's truely bad business.
Re:Similar experience on the reseller side of thin (Score:5, Interesting)
There's no punishment for them if they don't realize that its stolen property... so they really want to follow a don't ask, don't tell policy.
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This isn't suprising at all (Score:5, Interesting)
The entire company is poorly run. They're still using an ancient, convoluted, DOS-based PoS system that appears to pre-date the existance of the company. District and regional managers play slash and burn with a store's allotment of employee hours, and then throw a fit and fire the store managers when secret shoppers complain that the one employee running the store by herself for 8 hours didn't manage to get through the daily 20-some box delivery from UPS. Orders for specific products are placed at a corporate level, not a store level, meaning that it's extremely common for stores to get in a glut of products they already have an excess of, or products they have no floor space for that won't sell anyways (like all their crappy collectibles, figurines, and trading cards). The store I worked at literally had Playstations and Xboxes and Gamecubes stacked up 6 to 8 feet in the employee bathroom for lack of anywhere else to put merchandise.
There's little to no emphasis placed on knowledge of games or gaming, and communication regarding the availability of new products to the store's emplyees is non-existant. Customer's are viewed as if they're some sort of problem, and treated with agreat deal of disrespect. They're routinely lied to and mislead, either out of contempt or ignorance. I've seen employees tell mom's shopping for their kids that Gameboy Advance games work in the old (circa 1990) model Gameboy, and employees routinely tag a Game Informer subscription on to a customer's order after the customer said he didn't want the subscription. I've personally been chewed out by a manager for talking a guy out of buying Halo (for the Xbox) for his kid's PS2. And of course, all this behavior is reinforced because the managers do it, too.
Gamestop/EB is a terrible chain. Seeing how they're run, I'm amazed they manage to stay in business. And seeing that they've ripped off a customer... well, that's a daily occurance.
Re:This isn't suprising at all (Score:5, Informative)
Gamestop and EBGames are not the same company. EBGames is what Electronics Boutique morphed itself into and Gamestop is the former Funcoland/Software Etc/Babbages. They are, in fact, the last two competing national chains dealing in "preowned" after Gamestop absorbed all those others.
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Sound the Troll Bells (Score:5, Insightful)
Moreover, I can't really think of any retail chain that specifically allows its individual stores to order individual products. Specific ordering on a store level for any chain that buys in bulk is an inventory management nightmare and would come at nothing less than a huge cost, and therefore price, increase.
Why the low emphasis on gaming knowledge? As a former EB assistant manager, I'll tell you. Typically, people who "know about games" don't work. They sit on their asses during paid hours and talk about games with other people you've hired that "know about games." Nine times out of ten, you hire a guy who is "knowledgeable" and you've hired a poor worker. They don't sell. They don't work. They talk about games. They're elist and will, quite undiplomatically, tell customers that the game that customer has brought to the counter "sucks." Give me a good salesperson over a knowledgable gamer any day. That's not to suggest that a good salesperson will not learn about the product she sells. She will. But the ones who write on their application "I know a lot about video games because I've been playing them 5 hours a day since I was five" are not the people you want working in your store, because, simply, they won't work.
In reference both to Dragoon412's comment and to the original article, there is little consistency of quality between any retail chain. I think the EB I worked at was run extremely tightly, with an emphasis on professionalism, politeness, and gaming knowledge. I've been to other EBs where that is definitly not the case, which is just like any other retail chain. They're highly dependent on the personality and drive of the manager. Surprise.
Secondly, as already stated, EB is not the same store as Gamestop. While Babbages/Gamestop - which are all owned by Barnes and Noble - might use DOS still, EB does not use a DOS-based POS. While they are now in the minority, when I worked at EB in the mall I noticed that many other retail stores are still on rudimentory POS. What does that have to do with selling inside the safety period mentioned in the article, or even running a good store? Not a damn thing. A good manager and employees can run a tight, strong, customer-centric store with a pen and a pad (as once nightmaringly demonstrated at my store on a Black Friday).
Yes, you'll find game stores that are run horribly, as the article so acutely demonstrates. You might have to look hard, but what you will eventually also find, though, are hard working people in EB (and presumably Gamestop) who care about their work and their customers. I know I sound like I'm pitching the company line here. Nevertheless, I have as many anti-corporate Steven Morgan jokes as the next guy. Dragoon421's "EB" store and the one in the article are individual stores not indicative of the entire company.
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Re:This isn't suprising at all (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know what store you worked at, but none of the ones in this district allow any of the ludicrous selling behavior to go on that you described. My manager would chew me out hardcore for forcing a subscription on someone who refused it. And when we don't know the answer to a question, we find out for the customer. We never intentionally mislead a customer. You must have really worked in a seriously messed up store, because that just doesn't happen at any of the local stores.
The reason the PS2/XBOX/Gamecubes are stored in the bathroom is because I believe that's company policy. The bathroom can be locked easily while not preventing access to the back room (which is a pain to get into when it's locked).
In this district, when we have product that isn't moving off the shelves, we ship it to a store that does sell a lot of that product.
As for the subject matter at hand, though, we track the serial numbers of all systems we buy and sell, and while we don't hold merchandise (that wouldn't be very reasonable to do given the volume of trade-ins we get), we do have fairly strict policies regarding suspected stolen merchandise. We get contact information on everyone when they do a trade-in, so in the event of something like this, we could track down the individual and report them to the police. I'm pretty sure EB has the same policy here.
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I just canceled a order with them... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B
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+1 for low user ID and love for SCO
EB should burn in hell. (Score:5, Interesting)
EB is NOT making a profit! (Score:5, Funny)
I doubt this is an isolated incident... (Score:5, Informative)
The truly demented part was EB informing the woman that *she* has to sue the thief for restitution. This appears to be nothing less than a ploy to attempt to de facto rewrite property law in this regard. The onus is on THEM to sue the thief, as he committed fraud in selling them stolen property. And they would win, easily, given the Confession. He would probably just agree to hand over the money rather than even show up in court over it. That they're not taking that route can only suggest that they are attempting to absolve themselves of responsibility, and in the process, alter a few centuries of commonlaw.
And, in the larger scheme, why not? This has to happen all the time. How many people write down the serial numbers of their gaming equipment, just on the off chance it gets stolen and pawned? Given their often-outrageous used prices, they must turn quite a tidy profit nationwide through turning a blind eye to stolen goods. And doing anything that causes them to assume responsibility for the goods would only hurt their profit margins.
So, institute a hands-off policy where they assume no culpability at all, and put all responsibility for legal action upon the person who was stolen from. The number of people who would actually manage to sue them would be comparatively tiny. (especially considering most would just sue in small claims court, and not even dream of launching a multi-year legal fight over a $100 PS2.)
It all makes a rather sad sense.
Let EB know about what you think of their policies (Score:5, Insightful)
If enough of us call to let them know about what we think of their policies, they might understand the magnitude of their problem. The call's free folks, and so is 5 minutes of your time on a Sunday.
Re:Let EB know about what you think of their polic (Score:5, Informative)
The gist of the conversation went as such:
I explained that I would not be doing further business with them unless they changed this policy, which conflicts with laws designed to protect against the sale of stolen goods.
The EBGames customer service rep put me through to a manager, who mentioned that this particular Florida incident took place over a month ago (the article above has the data Jan 29) and that they had been in contact with Michelle since then and were trying to rectify the situation.
At this point I told them a press release regarding this matter, and any policy changes that occur from it, would be appreciated.
Parent
As a Former Funcoland Manager (Score:5, Interesting)
If this store is using the model developed by Funco when I was worked for them in Texas the employees were required to get proof of who the person was ( state issues photo ID and if you are under 18 you needed a legal parent or guardian with you who then signed) and the customer was offered in store credit ( much higher $$ per game or to have a check mailed to the address on the picture ID. It sounds like the store manager might have been playing a little loose with the system put in place to differentiate the stores from pawn shops.
I had a situation pretty close to that happen to me in that the kid sold off his families games by bringing in a neighbor who posed as Dad so he could trade in twenty Nintendo games ( dating myself I know) for one super NES game... well grandma comes in the next day just livid at me...I explained the situation to her researched the transaction and asked her who the adult who signed the receipt was....she didn't care that her friend/neighbor enabled the kid to sell his games
Similar story, but better results (Score:5, Insightful)
The preferred method was to have the victim of the theft do all the 'legwork' and only involve the police if there is some difficulty in getting cooperation.
Well, it worked. They found someone had just sold an alottment of DVD's that exactly matched the list of stolen goods (minus one that the thief apparently kept or lost). The store was cooperative and returned the goods. They had the name of the thief on record (and he'd stupidly used his real ID and real name when selling the goods), and were going to deal with the court case themselves.
That was the last we'd heard of the incident.
It would be a happy ending if it wasn't for the fact that the thief (remember he used his real name) turned out to be a friend we all knew. He knew about the DVD's because he'd been invited over on occasion to watch them. Obviously, this incident was the end of friendly relations with the guy. When my friend called him on the phone, he claimed "Oh, yeah, those DVD's, uhm yeah, some homeless black guy said he just found them and he gave a bunch of them to me. I didn't realize they were yours or I would have given them to you, dude." (Yeah, right - some of those DVD's were really obscure rare items, so there's no way he could fail to notice that that exact combination of DVD's was the same as the ones at his friend's house.)
Some people can be real scum.
But anyway, the point of the story is that this incident is an example of how pawn shops are supposed to work when everything is being done legally and with good intentions, unlike what EB games did.
All depends on the area you are in. (Score:5, Interesting)
Luckily, the police were on it fast, got the stuff seized, Gamestop fully cooperated. I been going there ever since.
EB, I used to go there all the time. Never again.
Facts facts facts (Score:5, Insightful)
I have learned, from extensive experience, that news reporting as to details is terribly weak. The news gets it right as to the big picture with astonishing frequency, but almost every news article I have seen published with which I had intimate familiarity with the details contains several material errors. In short, don't believe everything you read.
Note, further, that law does not always provide a civil remedy for every bad action of a person or company, even where the conduct of EB may have been a violation or a crime. It is quite possible that EB may be subject to fines or worse, but that the buyer's sole recourse would be against the thief. It may well be that EB may be subject to restitution for various forms of conversion, plus punitive damages. Who knows? The devil is in the details. Without the facts, we'd just be guessing.
Re:Call the police! (Score:5, Insightful)
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