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Stolen SD 688


rdsound

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Stolen Gear 09/23/2016 Glendale, AZ

They took my orca bag with SD 688, 3 411's, 2 UM400's and 1 SM, 3 Sankin's, Sony 7506.

Sound Devices 688

 = S/N MR0115071000

I can't find all of the S/N's but this is what I have, 3 Lectrosonics 411 & 411a

 = S/N 496

2 Lectrosonics UM400

 = S/N 348

1 Lectrosonics SM = S/N 1864

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Theft is such a horrible thing. I am very sorry to hear of this. Hope they turn up.

This is a healthy reminder to us all to have an inventory of our gear, along with serial numbers. Fortunately for me, I have shipped overseas, supplied picky inventories to studios, and shipped overseas some more, so I have everything bigger than a connector on an Excel spreadsheet. It also helps to remind us to charge properly for gear when we list current replacement value and can see how much we have invested in gear.

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We have made notes on the known serial numbers in our system in case they show up here for service .

Just so you all know - if a reported stolen unit comes in for repair, we notify the reporting owner and hold the unit until ownership is resolved.  rpsound -please private message me your contact information so we can reach you if they show up at the mothership.  Doesn't happen a lot but it does happen.   We are still waiting for a unit to show up form the NAB show a few years ago when our entire booth stock was swiped - there were three prototype transmitters that were completely nonfunctional - we really expected to see them come in for "repair" - but unfortunately, no sign of any of it.....

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  • 9 months later...

While there are many ways to handle this your best bet might be to buy the items back via credit card and then resolve the issue through ebay. That would potentially get you the name and address of the seller for police, you'd have your gear to keep working, and surely you'd have better luck getting your money back having ebay and your credit card company on your side. If you let the police handle it alone: he might get away since they would have to get a warrant and they'd have to find the gear. Also the police would be required to impound the gear as evidence for trial. Might take awhile until you get your gear back. Not to mention that if the gear is sold the seller could also get charged with selling stolen gear. Might be hard to prove he was the one who stole it.

 

Hope things work out in your favor RDSound, good luck!

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Unfortunately, the auction format makes this tricky.  You need to wait til it's over to buy it back which gives the seller plenty of time to get spooked.  If it were me, I'd make a  Phoenix police report right now, providing applicable serial numbers and let them start the proceedings.  This way, no matter whom the gear finally gets sold to, or if the seller bolts, you will already have a plan in place.  Unfortunately for someone who might buy the lot unsuspectingly, they will need to give the lot up as receiving stolen merchandise is also a crime.  You might have to wait to get it back but I wouldn't take the chance that the seller will pull out and then try and sell the lot in a different market, sending you off on yet another search.  It's all in one place.  The seller is not very smart trying to sell immediately, selling on an easily monitored site, and showing serial numbers.

 

BTW, a similar posting on another site got me off my ass and I have just finished taking photos of all my mics along close ups of serial numbers, pairs of mics in boxes, photos of groups of mics in their appropriate cases and a full .pdf of each case's complete contents.  I feel like I have proof of ownership covered pretty well.  I have put this information in my Dropbox so I have it anywhere that I might travel.

 

Best of luck getting it back but to see it all in a lot on eBay must be both so damned maddening and also so relieved at the apparent ease in recovery.  Wow!

 

D.

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I have my gear back!  Well about 90% of it.  I lost 2 Transmitters and 1 receiver and my harness.  But I have in my house now.  

 

I would love to thank everyone that supported me thru this.  You guys were great.  It means the world to me that you all were looking out for me and had my back.  I can't express enough how much that meant to me.  THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

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RD, I held off posting before now just because I wanted to minimise the online potential to screw things up - I'm English and not too certain about the 'state' situation of law, but I think taking it to the police (and presumably the insurance if involved) was the absolute right thing to do, not trying to go it alone.

Meanwhile I had my fingers crossed throughout the whole week and I am absolutely bloody delighted that it all worked out. We could come up with a sound community t-shirt for the seller if indeed he was the original culprit. Damn, I am almost as pleased as you are for this one.

Best, Jez

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So the backstory is:

The guy who was selling it, his mom works at a hotel in the west valley here in the Phoenix metro area.  The police had arrested some people staying at the hotel.  The mixer was in the room with them.  The police ran the serial number of the mixer, but the first letter was transposed from a "N" to a "M" so the serial number didn't come back.  The police told the hotel workers that they needed to keep it for 30 day incase someone would come forward to claim it.  After the 30 days they didn't know what to do with it, they thought it was DJ equipment.   So one person took it home and gave it to her son to see if he could do anything with it.  He did some research on the web and decided to sell it (he was going to buy a car with the money).  So Monday morning I received a call from the police at 7:10a and they told me that they were going to do a door knock and see what happened.  The mom answered the door and they handed the equipment that they had over to them.  I got it back about 11:00a.

The police are looking into the people that were arrested in the hotel room, haven't heard anything yet.

I requested that the police contact eBay to do a search for the missing gear to see if the other stuff went earlier that we missed.  eBay doesn't play well with others, or at least on normal peoples timelines.

 

 

 

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Re Pindrop, nearest match, yep you would think. Says a lot about the modern world, with all the profiling and surveillance, who doesn't have the cash to pay a team!

 

RD ... rings true, and thus lucky that the lot was put through as a whole batch with serial numbers etc. Lucky obviously that Michael spotted it and checked up and reported back. I hope the seller, obviously a fortune down, sees the good side too. Maybe that JW t-shirt could still be a good idea.

 

Overall moral (apart from insurance) - proof of serial numbers (re Doug's post) and management thereof for us all. Nice one, though, good to have one work out, and hopefully all innocent. With the latter in mind another moral: for such a situation when the recipient expects to hear from the proper owner and doesn't it is good that folks (Michael) continue to keep an eye out.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

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