Something incredibly weird...

Rylan Zolinski

Rylan Zolinski

Well-known member
So I am selling my XL2 on Ebay and an interested Ebayer wanted to know a little history on my camera. Since I bought my camera used, I am unsure of the manufacture date. Anyways, I find the serial number for the camera and I typed it into Google to try and see if it would find anything. It lead to one website that reported a store break-in and to my horror, an XL2 with my serial number!

Does each camera have a seperate serial number? Or do some of them share the same number? The post about the break-in is two years old.

On a side note, how do I find the date it was manufactured?
 
I'm fairly certain serial numbers are unique for each camera.

Where/Who did you buy it from? Can you contact that person (if they're not already in jail. lol)?
 
PK Gillock said:
I'm fairly certain serial numbers are unique for each camera.

Where/Who did you buy it from? Can you contact that person (if they're not already in jail. lol)?
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It's from Ebay and the guy is still selling stuff. He said in his auction that he bought it from a small video company. This guy is located in Massachusetts and the camera itself was stolen in Texas. So it's possible that the person who stole it; sold it on Ebay and that person who bought it sold it to me.

One other thing though. It came with the original box and warranty cards and everything else. Who keeps a camera stored in a box?
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=massachusetts&spell=1
 
Sometimes equipment is stolen from warehouses. A "friend" once bought a cheap Sony video camera from a guy who stole it from a warehouse (strangely enough, also in Texas). It had the box and everything. Only later did the "friend" realize it was stolen. Much like your situation.

So the good news is, your camera probably wasn't stolen from a fellow filmmaker. :) But it's still stolen equipment and you might want to call the police and ask what you should do next. If not then you'll be knowingly selling stolen goods. Which could get you in trouble if the next buyer does a similar check of the serial number. So protect yourself as much as you can.

Good luck and hope it works out for you.
 
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Serial numbers are unique. You camera is probabaly stolen.

Either way, it's time to contact both the police, and notify e-bay (by phone, to a real person) of the situation too. And a Lawyer isn't a bad idea and will probably be necessary also.

You can't ethically, or legally, sell the camera. Chances are that you will probabaly end up loosing the camera; and your recourse to claims will probabaly be to the person you bought it from, who again goes up the chain until the rightful owner is paid for their goods. (And that's probabaly an insurance company by now.)

- Mikko
 
mikkowilson said:
Serial numbers are unique. You camera is probabaly stolen.

Either way, it's time to contact both the police, and notify e-bay (by phone, to a real person) of the situation too. And a Lawyer isn't a bad idea and will probably be necessary also.

You can't ethically, or legally, sell the camera. Chances are that you will probabaly end up loosing the camera; and your recourse to claims will probabaly be to the person you bought it from, who again goes up the chain until the rightful owner is paid for their goods. (And that's probabaly an insurance company by now.)

- Mikko
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Hiring a lawyer would probably end up costing me more than I paid for the camera. I live in Canada and I wouldn't even know which authorities I should properly contact. If my camera is taken away and the rightful owners prove that it's theirs, I think there is a chance that I may get screwed out of getting paid back, isn't there?
 
I don't know that you need to 'hire' an attorney. Just look up a small claims law firm and give them a call, and explain what you've got and they'll tell you if it's work pursuing or not.
 
If you report this, it's going to cost you.

I'm not saying you should or shouldn't, but your screwed if you report this.

A lawyer is going to cost a whole hell of a lot of money.

The whole police situation is going to take a lot of valuable time away from you.

If you report it stolen, you'll lose it.

If you sell a stolen camera, you could get in alot of trouble.

Either way, your screwed.

If I were you, I'd just keep it and keep my mouth shut. I personally couldn't afford neither an attorney nor the time to screw around with the cops.

Why are you selling it anyways?

I know it's not the ethical thing to do, but your the victim here, and I don't see why you should have to pay, literally pay, for other peoples mistakes.

There might be a chance you could get a refund from the person who sold it to you, but by the time the lawyers get involved, you'd probably end up losing money in the long run.

I feel for ya bud.

Good luck and God bless.
 
Super Trooper said:
If you report this, it's going to cost you.

I'm not saying you should or shouldn't, but your screwed if you report this.

A lawyer is going to cost a whole hell of a lot of money.

The whole police situation is going to take a lot of valuable time away from you.

If you report it stolen, you'll lose it.

If you sell a stolen camera, you could get in alot of trouble.

Either way, your screwed.

If I were you, I'd just keep it and keep my mouth shut. I personally couldn't afford neither an attorney nor the time to screw around with the cops.

Why are you selling it anyways?

I know it's not the ethical thing to do, but your the victim here, and I don't see why you should have to pay, literally pay, for other peoples mistakes.

There might be a chance you could get a refund from the person who sold it to you, but by the time the lawyers get involved, you'd probably end up losing money in the long run.

I feel for ya bud.

Good luck and God bless.
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I am moving to HD (Canon XH A1). I wish I didn't stumble across the message about the stolen XL2.
 
ouch this one is UGLY!

first off it's true that if you tell the cops you're without a camera. if your local cops are total asses they'll even go after you.

in relation to that you can not sell it under any circumstances. even if you didn't know it was stolen you could still be liable for selling stolen goods so in a way it was a good thing you found out.

on the other hand you need to do something. it's ethically wrong to sit down and do nothing. here's what I would do:

1. flag the ebay user you bought it from. report him to eBay and say you believe he is selling stolen goods. they'll do their own investigation. if you're worried, just set up a new account, tell them flat out that you bought something from him that later turned out to be stolen and say that you are using a dummy account because you are worried you might somehow be liable and that you just want to keep other people from getting screwed over.

2. send an anonymous letter to the cops describing the situation containing all the info about the seller. if he had one hot XL-1 you can assume he has more. we're not talking candy here. chances are it's a huge heist or even a criminal ring. in the end you might actually end up making someone very happy by retreiving part of their stolen property.

see, if this was somewhere where people were reasonable like in Europe I'd just go to the police but seeing as you are in the USA where people go balistic with lawsuits and the police do things I don't understand I'd be careful.

one final note (and this is just me - I'm not judging or anything): If I found out something I owned was stolen I'd return it - either in person or anonymously with a letter explaining the situation and giving the info about the source from where the object came from. I wouldn't feel right about using something that was stolen.

again, the whole situation sucks and there really isn't anything you can do about it except try to prevent it from happening to someone else.

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES SELL THE CAMERA THO!

mor10
 
Yes, yes keep it and keep quite. Another option would be to exchange it with a stolen HD camera from the same person.
 
morten said:
ouch this one is UGLY!

first off it's true that if you tell the cops you're without a camera. if your local cops are total asses they'll even go after you.

in relation to that you can not sell it under any circumstances. even if you didn't know it was stolen you could still be liable for selling stolen goods so in a way it was a good thing you found out.

on the other hand you need to do something. it's ethically wrong to sit down and do nothing. here's what I would do:

1. flag the ebay user you bought it from. report him to eBay and say you believe he is selling stolen goods. they'll do their own investigation. if you're worried, just set up a new account, tell them flat out that you bought something from him that later turned out to be stolen and say that you are using a dummy account because you are worried you might somehow be liable and that you just want to keep other people from getting screwed over.

2. send an anonymous letter to the cops describing the situation containing all the info about the seller. if he had one hot XL-1 you can assume he has more. we're not talking candy here. chances are it's a huge heist or even a criminal ring. in the end you might actually end up making someone very happy by retreiving part of their stolen property.

see, if this was somewhere where people were reasonable like in Europe I'd just go to the police but seeing as you are in the USA where people go balistic with lawsuits and the police do things I don't understand I'd be careful.

one final note (and this is just me - I'm not judging or anything): If I found out something I owned was stolen I'd return it - either in person or anonymously with a letter explaining the situation and giving the info about the source from where the object came from. I wouldn't feel right about using something that was stolen.

again, the whole situation sucks and there really isn't anything you can do about it except try to prevent it from happening to someone else.

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES SELL THE CAMERA THO!

mor10
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I wouldn't mind returning stolen merchandise but it would be like handing over $3000....

Also, I have a feeling that the person I bought it from is not the person that stole it. He stated in his auction that he bought it from someone else and THAT person that he bought it from is probably the thief that is selling things on Ebay.
 
Morox said:
So I am selling my XL2 on Ebay and an interested Ebayer wanted to know a little history on my camera. Since I bought my camera used, I am unsure of the manufacture date. Anyways, I find the serial number for the camera and I typed it into Google to try and see if it would find anything. It lead to one website that reported a store break-in and to my horror, an XL2 with my serial number!
Click to expand...
Maybe you should call the person and explain the situation to them as how you got their camera. It's an XL2 (a good seller but not the hottest in it's day and not something people are buying new today) and they may not even ask for it back considering they're in Texas. I wouldn't get the cops involved either.

On a side note is there something wrong with the idea that many of us think cops are a-holes and would automatically come after him for reporting this. Yet I also believe getting cops involved is not the thing to do. The camera may not make it back to it's owner. If it's a warehouse, warehouses are usually insured and they may have collected insurance and may also probably say keep it. Either way people will want to know who you bought it from.

-Nate
 
I think you have to bite the bullet and call the cops. Sure you lose the camera, but 3,000 is better than 1-3 w/ probation, and, 10,000 fine.
 
Nathyn said:
On a side note is there something wrong with the idea that many of us think cops are a-holes and would automatically come after him for reporting this. Yet I also believe getting cops involved is not the thing to do. The camera may not make it back to it's owner. If it's a warehouse, warehouses are usually insured and they may have collected insurance and may also probably say keep it. Either way people will want to know who you bought it from.

-Nate
Click to expand...

It isn't the thought the cops will go after him that is a real concern, but that he'll likely end up $3K poorer from this. I agree that ebay should get involved, as well as the authorities in the originating city of the camera. As far as turning the camera in blindly, I would also want to think about that a bit more. Do not sell or trade it, but you might consider keeping it. It's still a fine camera, regardless of it's shady past.
 
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