Photographer Finds His Stolen Camera Lens on eBay — It Sells for $65,100

https://petapixel.com …-ebay-it-sells-for-65100/
I hope the seller got screwed good on this one. I expect to set relisted.

Perhaps the $65k bid was intended by the bidder to delay things, so the 'owner' could be located in the duration in which the 'winning bidder' dragged his feet in making good on the bid. After all, the law does not recognize the validity of an illegal 'contract', so the bidder is not in breach of contract (since no contract exists)

Wilt wrote in post #18602107
Perhaps the $65k bid was intended by the bidder to delay things, so the 'owner' could be located in the duration in which the 'winning bidder' dragged his feet in making good on the bid. After all, the law does not recognize the validity of an illegal 'contract', so the bidder is not in breach of contract (since no contract exists)

Unfortunately, since the (alleged) theft victim chose not to report the lens stolen, in the eyes of the law the eBay seller is the legitimate owner.

imageswest wrote in post #18607940
Unfortunately, since the (alleged) theft victim chose not to report the lens stolen, in the eyes of the law the eBay seller is the legitimate owner.

Thousands of paintings were 'stolen' by the Hitler war machine during WWII...and they were eventually returned to the families of the original owners. That they were originally not reported as 'stolen' in the 1940s did not prevent their eventual return. A movie was made about the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, also called The Lady in Gold or The Woman in Gold) and the owning family made efforts over 65 years after it was stolen for its return.

imageswest wrote in post #18607940
Unfortunately, since the (alleged) theft victim chose not to report the lens stolen, in the eyes of the law the eBay seller is the legitimate owner.

I could be wrong, but I don't remember this in law school. (U.S. - Massachusetts)

imageswest wrote in post #18607940
Unfortunately, since the (alleged) theft victim chose not to report the lens stolen, in the eyes of the law the eBay seller is the legitimate owner.

Cool. So if I steal your car without you knowing, it's mine to sell until you report it?

imageswest wrote in post #18607940
Unfortunately, since the (alleged) theft victim chose not to report the lens stolen, in the eyes of the law the eBay seller is the legitimate owner.

Archibald wrote in post #18608652
Cool. So if I steal your car without you knowing, it's mine to sell until you report it?

No, of course not.

I think that what Images West means is that until there is some form of inquiry into the matter, law enforcement cannot act on this.

Just because somebody says that something was stolen from them does not mean that it is necessarily true. . Law enforcement would need to seek some form of verification of ownership, or at least ask the alleged victim a few questions, before they would pursue legal action against the alleged perpetrator.

So long as the victim does not report to the police to tell them that the lens was stolen, the police have no reason to act on this.. Many thousands of items are sold on eBay every day. . Are the police going to investigate every one of them, just in case they might have been stolen? . Heck no!

Instead, they investigate only those items whose rightful owners file complaints about. . Until the rightful owner contacts them and says, "hey, this guy stole this lens from me", the police are not going to do investigate the matter. . Why would they? . D'oh - I thought that would be quite obvious!


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Archibald wrote in post #18608652
Cool. So if I steal your car without you knowing, it's mine to sell until you report it?

Without a police report, it's your word against mine, and as the saying goes, possession is nine tenths of the law. Of course cars are different than lenses, because in most jurisdictions you have to register a change of ownership with a car.

If the person who claimed the lens was stolen did not report it to the police, this raises all kinds of suspicions... perhaps he was hard up for cash and sold it, and then had a change of heart after seeing what it was really worth. His story about not wanting to file a police report because he might have missed a flight sounds a bit fishy... give up on a lens worth thousands of dollars to save the $50 - $100 it might have cost him to re-book his flight? Makes no sense to me.

imageswest wrote in post #18608677
His story about not wanting to file a police report because he might have missed a flight sounds a bit fishy... give up on a lens worth thousands of dollars to save the $50 - $100 it might have cost him to re-book his flight?

$50-$100? Filing a police report can take hours (personal experience... and that was in the U.S.). He may not have been able to book until the next day and he would have had no planned hotel stay, so there's more cost there. If he's flying soon after a photo shoot, it is reasonable to think that he had another engagement elsewhere and needed to go. If that was another gig, then could he afford to call it off or be late? Of course... We're both assuming too much and are just speculating.

As far as I'm aware there is nothing that requires you to report a theft to the police immediately that it is discovered. There are often good reasons to do so, since it is usually much easier to investigate sooner rather than later, although as most people will discover it can be very hard to get the police to investigate simple property theft. He in the UK most police forces seem to have a limit of between £1500 and £2000 in stolen property before they will investigate the incident. Some thirty years ago now I had a firearm stolen from the boot (trunk) of my car, while it was parked in the private car park of a rifle range. Because it was only worth about £100 the police wouldn't even investigate that. They just gave me a "Crime number" so that I could report it to the insurance company. And there was me thinking that my day was only going to get worse from the point the break in to the car was reported to the police. Fortunately they didn't get the bolt, as that was stored separately, so the rifle wasn't actually useable.

So in a case where photographic equipment has been stolen, and I've something important to do, like catch a flight to somewhere then yes I would probably think that waiting to report the incident to the police until later was a quite reasonable thing to do. Especially if I didn't have a clue to the identity of the person committing the crime. In situations where you don't have insurance to cover the loss there is often very little point in even reporting a small incident of theft. It's only if you happen to be lucky enough to chance across your property while the thief is attempting to dispose of it, or the police recover it in the process of another investigation, do you stand any chance of recovering that property.

Since British and US law are based on the same tenets I suspect that in the US, as it is in the UK, that even if you purchase stolen goods in good faith if they are discovered to be stolen property they will be seized and returned to the rightful legal owner. The only recourse that person may have is to sue the person that sold them the goods, but that may not always be practical or even legally possible. Back in the 1950's my dad bought a car from an auction, which turned out to be stolen. It was seized and returned to the legal owner, and it was my dad who was out the money he had paid.

Alan

The seller didn't get hosed on this, it will cost him nothing for having the lens closed out as it did.The buyers aren't paying, and the seller won't pay the fees. The lens will just get sold elsewhere. Too bad for the victim, but the rest of the energy of folks wrapped up in the story was wasted.

What a Heartbreaking story. The guy buys and builds it into his grail lens, only to have it stolen.

as having been stolen from in similar situations, lesson is hopefully learned on his part. In a broken down country, someone walking around with easy to sell property makes an easy target...