Theft recovery & pawn shops

[outonbail]

Pawnshops are required by law to maintain and turn over a list of all newly recorded pawns to the police department within a 42 hour window.

Can you point out this law? Not questioning you, just never heard of this before. I know they have to report gun and firearm pawns, just didn't know they were required to report a remote control for the TV.

 

[CdwJava]

Can you point out this law? Not questioning you, just never heard of this before. I know they have to report gun and firearm pawns, just didn't know they were required to report a remote control for the TV.

B&P 21628 ...

21628. Every secondhand dealer or coin dealer described in Section
21626 shall report daily, or on the first working day after receipt
or purchase of the property, on forms either approved or provided at
actual cost by the Department of Justice, all tangible personal
property which he or she has purchased, taken in trade, taken in
pawn, accepted for sale on consignment, or accepted for auctioning,
to the chief of police or to the sheriff, in accordance with the
provisions of Sections 21630 and 21633 and subdivision (j) of this
section.

There are many further rules as well. A lot of the specifics are governed by local municipal codes, too.

We often get pawn slips from surrouning jurisdictions when a local resident has gone out of town to pawn items ... a copy goes to the jurisdiction of the person pawning the items if it is out of city or county.

- Carl

 

[outonbail]

Would the public have access to these records? I had a couple of hand guns stolen from me years back and ended up driving around to every pawn shop in the county for six months,,, but never did find them. I did file a police report of course.
I just took it upon myself to try to find them by searching pawn shops. One revolver I used when I was involved pretty heavy in handgun competition and had roughly a thousand dollars of gunsmith work in it alone. Never did have it returned or show up in any crime reports.
But it would have saved me miles of driving time to have had access to such a list.

 

[CdwJava]

Would the public have access to these records? I had a couple of hand guns stolen from me years back and ended up driving around to every pawn shop in the county for six months,,, but never did find them. I did file a police report of course.
I just took it upon myself to try to find them by searching pawn shops. One revolver I used when I was involved pretty heavy in handgun competition and had roughly a thousand dollars of gunsmith work in it alone. Never did have it returned or show up in any crime reports.
But it would have saved me miles of driving time to have had access to such a list.

If you had reported the handgun stolen with the serial number, that should have been reported when it was pawned or when the info was turned over to the police. Unless people fell down on the job the serial number would have been checked.

As for the records, I don't believe these are public.

- Carl

 

[gawm]

Does this standard apply to individuals also? If a buy a Plasma T.V. in the classifieds and say someone at my Superbowl party tells me that it's his T.V., his house was broken into a few months back, Would he have to pay me what I paid for the T.V. or would he just be able to get it back?

 

[CdwJava]

Does this standard apply to individuals also? If a buy a Plasma T.V. in the classifieds and say someone at my Superbowl party tells me that it's his T.V., his house was broken into a few months back, Would he have to pay me what I paid for the T.V. or would he just be able to get it back?

It depends. If the serial number was reported stolen, then there would be no doubt that it was THE stolen TV and the police would likely seize it as evidence anyway in order to get prints. And if you bought it at a horribly great deal (say, $400) out of the back of a pickup from a guy named, "Fred" in the dead of night, you might be charged with receiving stolen property. You'd probably be out of luck as far as getting repaid.

Non-serialized items tend to be a little different. And pawn shops and second hand dealers have some measure of protection under the law (or so I have been told by our DA) and we cannot generally just arbitrarily SEIZE the property from these businesses when we suspect it is stolen property without a court order. I suppose the difference is because they are a business as opposed to a private person, but I cannot cite any authority one way or the other ... that's simply the practice in our three-county area.

- Carl

 

[StickyFingers]

Uh ... gee ... yeah, I do. Perhaps you'd like to enlighten us on how simply showing possession equals "knowing"?

- Carl

That is the whole point...isn't it?

Don't get me wrong...I understand.

But.... I just don't understand where the victim has to pay the penalty for the merchandise they never pawned.

Life is unfair....but this is ridiculous.

Both you an I know Carl.....a lot can happen and chances are the victim will get their belongings back without paying the pawn shop for them. The price for receiving and selling stolen goods.

**sigh**

 

[CdwJava]

But.... I just don't understand where the victim has to pay the penalty for the merchandise they never pawned.

If your car is stolen and then recovered, who do you think gets stuck with the towing and storage bill for the recovery impound? (Answer: It ain't the police or the suspect ...)

A lot of things are frustrating. And there are state restitution funds that victims can access in many cases that can help. But, sometimes, the victim just plain loses.

Both you an I know Carl.....a lot can happen and chances are the victim will get their belongings back without paying the pawn shop for them. The price for receiving and selling stolen goods.

Sure ... it has happened. It has also happened where the victim has arranged for repayment of the note to get the goods back now rather than wait a few months for the court matter to be resolved.

I think that most of the time the victim gets their property back without a big legal hassle ... the pawnshops may not want a lot of scrutiny by law enforcement, so they often will be very accomodating with all but the really big ticket items (jewelry, major appliances, etc.)

- Carl

 

[atomicperm]

Now wait just a minute. You are catagorizing all pawnshops in the same way. In this day and time pawnshops are very strickly regulated by local, state, and federal laws. I happen to work in a pawnshop and we have detectives that come in every week to spot check all of our item descriptions as well as serial and model numbers. We are also fined if they find any thing wrong. Which never happens because we are careful.

We are not here to rip anyone off as everyone seems to think. Granted there are a few out there for everything they can get, but a lot of us are just trying to make a living. Yes, from time to time an item will be turned away because the customer's story sounds fishy, but have you ever met someone who can lie on command, it 's not always easy.

Additionally, as to the TV analogy, a customer can not just walk into a shop and see a Black Sony 27 inch TV and say that "It's mine" and have it returned to them on the spot. Sony made how many black 27 inch TVs? The best chance of ever having stolen merchandise returned to the owner is for it to be pawned and the owner to have recorded the serial numbers. The thief must present id and in most places a thumb print as well. The items are reported to the police department and a list of stolen property is compared. How much easier can that be?

 

[CdwJava]

The problem has come from the person pawning the goods presenting false identification of residence or an old ID that does not represent where they committed the crime, and thus the slips are not forwarded to the correct law enforcement agency. And far too often, goods without serial numbers get overlooked (such as jewelry) because they are stolen from jurisdiction A by a thief who presents ID of living in Jurisdiction B and Jurisdiction B doesn't have a thing on the guy.

The problem with the system is not that pawnshops are always overtly doing anything wrong, but that they are an easy way to unload stolen items for a thief with a half a brain.

Not too many people know the serial numbers of their TVs, stereos or cameras, so these things don't get entered into NCIC anyway.

- Carl