Resolution of Stolen Equipment

[autochromatic]

Username: tldoxmf87 "Ryan" cooperated with me and police to bring about the arrest of the man who was selling my stolen equipment to him off of craigslist. Ryan is out thousands of dollars but he cleared his name and made it right. The police have the majority of my equipment now and I'll have it returned to me soon.

He's a young man who goes to college at the University of Washington. He put himself at great risk and lost thousands of dollars of borrowed money to avoid a conflict with me and the police. While he made some serious mistakes up front, he made very good decisions and avoided a very bad outcome for himself.

Which brings me to a finer point on my transactions on this board. I posted a "vigilante" remark on his thread. While it's true he was indeed (unknowingly) selling stolen equipment, he is not a thief. I have verified this with the police. Ryan called them himself and surrendered the equipment. He even went so far as to call the seller of my stolen equipment and set up a meeting with the police. He then wrote a six page report detailing his actions.

I must also commend the adminstrator and owner of this forum. They cooperated with me the entire time to help solve this problem, even after some direct language coming from my direction (sorry). They were very patient to say the least.

Thank You all,

Thomas Boyd
Staff Photographer
The Oregonian
thomasboyd.net

[CyberDyneSystems]

Tom,
I am very happy to hear that this is getting worked out!!! :)

Ryan turned out to be a true hero in this case and we all owe him a huge THANK YOU as well as an apology for jumping to conclusions.

thank you Ryan! and all that made an effort to help in this.

[tldoxmf87]

It really was not an easy decision as it involved a lot of money that I borrowed from my family and friends. But I made up my mind in minutes, because... jail is a scary place :S
By the way I seriously did not think the items were stolen, I bought a 70-200mm IS lens for $800 and sold it for $1450 just the day before I bought this stolen gears.
After earning almost $750 in just a few hours off the 70-200mm IS lens, I was amazed how easy I could make money and did not doubt anything in the process.
The time frame was way too short to think about any of that, I was in a hell of a rush trying to borrow some money from everyone I could.

By the way here's the scary story.
Autochromatic just told me the 'behind stories' and it seems like that I was 2 hours from getting arrested when I called him and the police.
If I decided NOT to call him and the police, I probably would have been in a very bad and serious position.
It would definitely not look good on me if I had all the stolen gears when the police came to arrest me. That just scares me to death.
I'm no hero, everyone would do the same if they were not dumb, and everyone should.

I could not read the police reports he sent me until the very next day in the morning (I requested proof, but he did not reply; he said he was going to be out for a several hours, I had to turn off the computer and pack my LCD monitor to send to Samsung for repair, so I just turned off my computer, packed the LCD monitor and went to sleep. This is not an excuse: I sold one of my LCD monitor to fund the purchase of those stolen gears. So instead I had to use this other monitor that was flickering like crazy. I have been contacting Samsung for almost a month about getting this repaired, I finally got the shipping label from Samsung just on Friday, so I packed my LCD that night and in the morning dropped it off at UPS. Tracking number for proof: 1ZX246279043358456)

So not being able to use my computer, I used my brother's computer that morning after shipping my LCD monitor to check emails and read the police report that autochromatic has sent me for proof.
I IMMEDIATELY tried calling him but it was a wrong number (he gave me the wrong number.. a digit 5 instead of a 4).
So I emailed him immediately and told him I would contact the police and ask them about the case number before I fully trust him.

So yes, the police confirmed the case number actually existed and confirmed the items that were stolen.
(Until I verified with the police I really thought Autochromatic was trying to scam me claiming that items I'm selling are his when it is not: this is easy to do because I posted that I could get a really good deal on a 400mm lens, for the detailed list of stolen gears, I thought he might have contacted the seller and asked what he sold to me, this was a possible scenario.)

Anyways.. I'm very glad that we caught the guy and also recovered more than 90% of the gears.

P.S. Thanks to Autochromatic and The Oregonian for even considering recovering some funds for my loss.
It is hard to describe how much I'm thankful. I explained my situation (being a student at UW receiving financial aids and getting into this huge debt for buying the stolen gears) and Autochromatic told me that he in fact discussed this issue with his boss and that he will try to convince them that it is the right thing to do (to reward me for my loss). They are just wonderful!

[Pekka]

Thanks for the info. I happy this ended mostly well, only setback is money lost. It would be really something if The Oregonian would reward you for helping to retrieve the gear, kudos to them for even considering it.

[Shutterbug Doug]

Kudos, bravo and good karma to all involved with this situation.
I, as others stated, hope the Oregonian find it in their heart to reward you. You were an innocent bystander that got run over by a runaway bus Ryan and I wish you much luck in reconciling your loss. Hopefully any seller information you passed on to the police will lead them to the scum that stole the owners property and your hard earned funds by selling them to you!

[blonde]

great job Ryan and thank you for doing the right thing!!!!! as a person that buys and sell a lot of gear, it is very easy to fall for all those "great deals". it is always important to protect yourself and use common sense and remember the old phrase "if its too good to be true...."

Tom- i am super excited that you are getting your gear back. i know how much it sucks having your things stolen but luckily, you are able to get it all back.

so again, thanks Ryan and congrats Tom!!!

Snir

[condyk]

Well done Ryan ... it was clearly both the right thing to do in your situation and also the right thing to do in terms of your future. When we do the right things each moment then things work out in the longer run even though in the shorter term we sometimes think other choices could be easier. That has inevitably been my experience.

[René Damkot]

Good to hear the bad guy got caught & all worked out well...

[tldoxmf87]

Well done Ryan ... it was clearly both the right thing to do in your situation and also the right thing to do in terms of your future. When we do the right things each moment then things work out in the longer run even though in the shorter term we sometimes think other choices could be easier. That has inevitably been my experience.
Yes, I definately realized that :)

Thank you all for supporting me...!