Horological Meandering

I lost some watches due to house burglary late last year and I managed to located some of my stolen watches in eBay. However, I am located outside of US and I want to find out if any purists can advice what is the procedure to recover the stolen watches from the seller. Any purists have any experience on how to proceed to recover the stoeln watches?

If this matter is not appropriate to be discuss in public, kindly pm me and I can provide you more details.

 

I would do some detective work before seeking help from any legal agencies. Better still if they surface in your home country. But I will pretend to wanna buy, make some enquiries and get emails and bank account numbers. If Ebay, their pay pal could be linked to their credit or debit cards or bank accounts. At least you nail that son of four legged animal before turning him over to the police.

Best, Horo

Hi Horo

thanks for the reply. However, I am located out of USA. How can I proceed with recovery then? Might need a\kind assistance of purists to help out.

Thank you.

At least you can help the authorities with some identification.

To be frank, I don't know how tom proceed from there. Think better await other purists with experience. By the way, do not discount the possibilities that those that are up for sale are already bought with by the current ebay listers. Then it would be treated as possession of stolen goods.

I wish you recover your watches. Again, sorry to hear that, and take care.

Best, Horo

As Horo suggested, pretend to be a potential buyer, and ask them lots of questions. Try to compile as much information about them as possible. Information that may be helpful should a certain authority decide to investigate your case may include:
- where and how did the seller get the watch (ask where did they buy it and how old). There is a chance that the seller is not related to the theft, and if you could obtain information that way, it may trace further back the chain (eg. if he bought from some pawn shop etc..).
- whereabouts is the seller (pretend to ask if it's possible to arrange a pickup by a friend that could be nearby)
- their bank account details (ask if they accept bank transfers)
- assuming your stolen watches didn't go with the whole set of box and papers, ask the seller if he/she have them, and see if they tell the truth.
- ask them about certain things about the watch and see if they're knowledgeable. If the seller is a genuine owner who bought a stolen watch unknowingly, I suppose he/she should have a bit of knowledge about the watch itself.
- did you say located "some" (more than 1) of your stolen watches? Are they sold by 1 seller? If so, it would be suspicious that one random watch buyer will end up buying more than 1 of your stolen pieces and thus that seller would look very fishy to me, you know what I mean? If they're spread over different sellers, do some investigation on the accounts, are they all from the same area (or they could be hacked accounts), does these sellers have good feedback, have they sold watches before, do their photos look like they're done the same way.

I would also suggest you contact ebay fraud department about this issue. I'm not certain that they are able to help, but you have nothing to lose asking. Hopefully you have some proof of ownership that should ebay ask for, you could supply. Even if they're not able to help, they might be able to point you in some direction as to what other agencies you could seek help from.

The other channel you could go is that hopefully you have your theft reported to your local police. Try going back to them, and letting them know that you've found them listed on ebay, and see if they are able to do something about it, or give suggestions to what you can do.

Hope you could end up with a positive outcome with your lost watches!

what i would do is buy them on ebay, pay for them using paypal and credit card, get the watches and then make a paypal complaint that you purchased watches that turned out to be stolen giving them all the details of the stolen watches. as long as it was reported to the police and you declared all the details to the police then Paypal will support you 100% and will also do their own co operation with whatever legal authority is required. the problem is that you will have to prove they are stolen. if you have the boxes and papers its simple.

if they were stolen from far east and are now in US then they are probably not in the hands of the original thief so the most they'll get is 'handling stolen goods'. your main aim is to get the watches back and then get your money refunded. dont worry too much about the offender.

if you want anymore advice feel free to pm me

Graham

its been known to happen before and thats the worst thing that could happen.

G

Only worry I have about paying first is that what if the seller is a stolen account and the thief could have the time to transfer sleng's money to his own bank account while sleng wait for his parcel to arrive. Timing is very important. I guess at least Paypal covers any losses due to fraud.

Unfortunately it is very sensitive so Sleng really need to tread carefully.

Personally I wouldnt rely on Paypal to give you your money back, they will find any way possible not to give you your money back! (from a costly experience!)

As everyone has said... I wouldnt report it to Ebay until you get as much information as you can possibly get!  Once you have that info, then report them as it might also help and at least they will not sell them onto some other poor collector!

Good Luck!
Andrew

It guarantees that you get the watches back in your hands. Pay by credit card through Paypal, and you will be protected.