I bought a stolen Macbook.

The macbook air I just bought turned out to stolen from Best Buy. So much for my Apple days, I am going to have to stay PC for awhile again.

 

That doesn't sound good. I hope you don't mind telling us what exactly happened...

 

ouch that bites...but dont blame apple!

 

how did u find out it was stolen

 

Yesterday I made a post about buying one used and some people replied that it might be stolen because the info in it said Best Buy Macbook Air. I went in to my local Best Buy today to buy Snow Leopard so I could upgrade it. I noticed there was no Air on display so I asked if they had one and she said it was stolen over a month ago. I knew what I had to do.

It is not Apples fault other than being out of my price range, even moreso now.

 

Did you get anything for turning it in?

 

Besides the fact of knowing they might catch a thief, no, I am out $1100.

 

that is nice of you to return it. not many people in the world would do something like that +1

 

hope you know the guy who sold it to you..see if any legal action against him to get your monies back

 

It's the right thing to do. I had my house broken into and was robbed of about $2000 of stuff so I know what it feels like. Just because it was Best Buy shouldnt change my reasoning.

 

+rep for doing the honest thing when you get nothing for it.

 

I commend you for acting honorably.

 

amazing, amazing.

 

Commendable, if I were you I probably reformat and use it.
I am not so great.
Reason being the world nowadays place little emphasis on honesty and moral values hence honest is less frequently rewarded than otherwise I am quite disillusioned with how the world operates.
To me morality has lost its meaning everything I do now is based on laws and rules instead.
I know morally I am wrong but I think of it this way, the corporation which originally owns the Macbook Air is rich and can replace it easily I will suffer greater damage then the Corp which owns it since I already paid for it.
If the system belonged to another user I probably then consider returning it to the owner.
The store should have given system discounts since poster was honest about it and suffered loss for being honest about it. It is not like they can't do that.

 

I know I wouldn't take an $1100 hit without specifying whom I bought it from and what I were doing to make sure the seller of it was arrested.

 

hopefully you can track down the seller

 

I am sorry, but this sounds "not right"! A month ago? and their didn't put new one?

 

It happens. It's not so easy to source display models if the previous one had been stolen, since that's the manager's *** on the line right there accounting for the loss.

@OP, that's simply brutal. Good luck with tracking down the thief and recouping your loss, that's tough.

 

Sorry for my stupidity & ignorance but the more I think about this incident that the OP posted (I'm not doubting him or anything), the more things doesn't make sense to me.

I mean is it really that easy to just steal the MBA from Best Buy? How will someone be able to take that notebook & go out the store without being stopped since there is always at least one employee at the door, no? Doesn't BB even have a closed security video camera surveillance system in place? Of course, if that MBA was stolen by a BB employee, then I guess what I've just asked does not apply.

I still wonder how the OP knew that his used MBA is specifically that stolen MBA from his local BB store... I mean did he check with his local BB store when he turned it in that the notebook is in fact the stolen MBA from that particular store?

Once again, I apologize for my lengthy & very stupid questions.

 

That particular Macbook Air was stolen twice but the first time the guy did not make it out of the door. When they put it back on display they used some sort of glue to adhere the security device but they figure it was not working since it did not alert them. This is according to the manager.

On Saturday I purchased the laptop from a pawn shop that is about 2 miles away from Best Buy. When I came home Saturday with it I posted right here on this forum asking how to reformat because the name in the Mac was Best Buy Macbook Air. A couple of the next replies said it was hot, swiped, etc. because od it saying BB as the user but that did not register with me.

The pawn shop takes the serial number along with the sellers information and thumbprint and are required to hold it for 30 days to give police time to check. Same situation for a loan but that number goes up to 60 days to allow the person to pay back the loan.

So Sunday I went to Best Buy and was waiting for the salesperson to get Snow Leopard out of the locked cage and noticed no Macbook Air. I asked her and low and behold she said it was stolen like a month and half ago. Right then it clicked. The pawn shop is literally 2 miles away so chances were high.

I understand your skeptism as I wish this story was untrue since it does sound odd.

The sad part for me is the pawn shop is not liable since the Mac was legal for them to sell since it made it through the 30 day police hold. I believe it was the police fault for not catching it or Best Buys fault for not reporting it. Had Best Buy reported it stolen with the serial and the pawn shop purchased it the police would have caught the seller(or theif). I do not know where the breakdown occured so I can only speculate.

I do know that the police now will be able to go after the person who sold the Mac to the pawn shop. But it is my burden to try and recover my loss from him, which if he is stealing stuff I would assume they have nothing and it will only cost me more time and money.


The Best Buy manager did offer me a discount but I do not have any money now to afford one. I know now I will never buy anything used again.

 

If you purchased via retail "PawnShop"
You should be able to get a 100% refund.
In the end, THEY sold you stolen goods.
If you paid via credit card, file a dispute of charge.

 

Can the moderators of this website or anyone that has any power please try and write to corporate HQ of BestBuy and explain to them this person's situation and the honesty that he performed should be rewarded. Is anyone here with any power able to do this ?? God Bless

 

Agreed, not only BEST BUY, Make someone at Apple aware of this.
Retail stores are given a rather steep discount/commendations on display models.

 

I thought that when you bought something stolen it becomes yours.

The person who it was stolen from has to catch the theif.

 

You can be charged with posession of stolen goods. I hope this helps. God Bless

 

Sounds to me like Best Buy should have some liability here. The Manager didn't report it to avoid trouble and in the end cost you $1100. Call your local news station's investigative reporter. They love stories like this where someone did the right thing even though it hurt them personally. Just having the reporter look in to it will put pressure on the pawn shop, Best Buy, and the Police.

Good luck!

HM

 

A thief can not pass a clean title. They did not have a legal right to sell it, so the property still belongs to the original owner (or their insurance company if they were paid for their claim).

 

I don't know if the manager reported it stolen or not. He was really nice and asked me if I understood what I was doing, I guess in a way saying I did not need to bring it in. In my eyes right is right no matter what the cost and I want the gulity party to be held accountable. Knowing what would happen it was ultimately my choice.

As far as the police I don't understand why that slipped through the cracks. It seems like a perfect way to catch crooks, but again I don't know what happened.

The Best Buy manager did offer to discount me a computer so that is some compensation. I really don't know what more they could do since they were the original victims.

 

Best Buy has a rather LARGE budget for customer satisfaction/appreciation.
Even though you did not purchase it from them directly, they have the means to make you whole and NOT a single individual would come out harmed other than the thief if found.
You did the right thing, at this time YOU also need to pressure both Best Buy and the Pawnshop to make you whole....

 

best buy should install lo jack on all their laptop floor models. it would cost them peanuts and would be perfect for them.

although I was under the impression that display models nowadays have a special wire when cut / removed it sets an alarm off. so no idea how he managed to get it.

 

see what I dont get is how in his original post he said and I quote

then goes in this post to say he bought it from a pawn shop. Thats different then buying it from someone.
I donno that makes the situation a little fishy to me now..

 

doesnt seem all that fishy to me. a pawn shop is someone; OP chose to keep it generic in that statement, at least from my perspective.

 

The anti-theft systems they used for any of the retail box stores utilize an adhesive button that get's triggered if removed from the surface, however, during my time working in a big box retailer, people have found ways around it by skillfully ramming a piece of thin plastic or metal blade between the adhesive. What Best Buy should be doing is actually utilizing a steel cable laptop lock that comes most notebooks alongside the black alarm cable trigger system. I've also seen stores like Staples actually using a metal braket to hold in the unit, but they often get damaged or scratched horribly rather than preventing from being stolen. So it's a lose-lose situation.

 

pawn shop is a place of business
a person would be like he got of craigslist, ebay, a friend.

to keep generic he would have said he bought it used from a store.
I have never myself referred to a store as "someone" or heard of anyone doing the same

 

Because I wasn't specific in my original post about where or who I purchased a used Macbook Air from makes it fishy? At the time of my original post I had no idea it was stolen. I was more excited about figuring out how install stuff and use my Mac than give a descriptive account of where and when I acquired it.

Anyways if you really want to research call Best Buy in Melbourne at 321-768-6840 and ask them about the stolen Macbook Air. Or contact officer B. Kleeberg with the Melbourne Police Department and ask them how case number mp09-63884 is coming.

 

This really s**ks man. IMHO, you definitely have to try to get back your money if at all possible after the thief has been caught. I sincerely wish you luck in getting back your money. You certainly do not deserve to lose so much money for others' fault based on your true story.

 

I am sorry but "kreidel" or whatever your name is, the more i read the cheesy replies on this thread, the more i feel like if i don't put an end to this bullcrap stunt you are pulling i will explode anytime soon.

someone needs to call you out on this. come on admit it. you whipped up this story in your dreams. this story of yours is as far from reality as it can get.

you mean with all the talk about depression and recession around you, you would rather loose $1100 dollars.

lets get real here! if you consult with Dr Phil on this issue, even He will tell you that was a DUMB move on your path. pls I don't mean to be offensive here but the word DUMB is the only word that describes what you just did AND you KNOW it.

it is not your fault the macbook got stolen and was sold to you. and you should have contacted apple and/or demand that bestbuy/apple refund you the money before you turn it in. or you could have given them more info to help the investigation. i would have just kept the macbook!

that one macbook that bestbuy/apple lost DOES and i repeat DOES NOT put a DENT, not even a single scratch on their sales profit. Look even if one of their retail stores burns to the ground, the impact will be negligible.

i don't think you realize what it means to be a BILLIONAIRE which steve jobs / apple is by the way... his family and generational line is set in stone, i mean, these people can never live in poverty for hundreds of years to come.
well maybe not Hundreds of years but you get the point...

how could you let yourself get the shorter end of the stick. it is almost like as if you wanted to take ownership of the bad situation.

have you ever heard of the idea that good things can come out of a bad situation. you can turn oil into gold.

let me use a very STRONG example... God forbid anyone, but imagine a situation were a mother gives birth to the child of a serial rapist. the child grows up to become honest & successful. it is not the mother nor the child's fault the hand life dealt them...

now it seems like i am just blabbing on and on but you get the point.

this is either all fantasy or DUMB!
SORRY!

 

yeah.. those stupid rich people, they deserve their stuff to get stolen, you tell them! now we need to tax them 99% so they will be poor too and we can use the money to pay for the whole worlds healthcare!

 

First off surefire, I could care less what you think.

Secondly, you probally have never been a vicitim so you won't understand.

In the time it took to write all your babble you could have called Best Buy and found out.

I do not want to own stolen anything period. Just because you might not have personal convictions that you value is your business, but why call me out for mine?

Wrong is wrong no matter who it is. Whether you are rich or poor shouldnt affect that. Where do you draw the line? Okay for you to steal from Best Buy because they are rich? What about a family thats earns more than $200k a year? Please tell me the cutoff point so that if a crook reads this they know what is right and wrong.

PM me if you need any more info.

 

The Face of Boa would never say that.

 

Look at the dates on the reciepts and the times. These are the items I bought and returned since I turned in the Mac.


Here is the sticker on the laptop from the pawn shop and the card the officer gave me while I was at Best Buy sorting through this mess.

Here is a picture of my sister checking out my Macbook air yesterday at my house while I was having my parents and inlaws parents over to celebrate grandparents day. This was photo was taken at 2:14pm 9/13/09 (yesterday)

 

quick question did the macbook air have a (license plate) on the bottom? (its a sticker with a barcode and the SKU of the product) it should of been white and yellow somewhere on the back.

 

Dslade, I really never noticed.

Here is another one from my Iphone right after I got home with the sticker still on the Macbook Air.

 

You maybe getting defensive but you need to remember WE, as forum goers, don't now we have to ask questions so we can get info to help best we can.

Hope things work out in the end. Glad pawn shops over there work same here and they can help recoup your money.

 

the reason i ask i work at best buy and every time we display a new laptop we have to create a (license plate) for it. most of the time the sticker never comes off easy and always leaves residue where the sticker was

 

Then please shut up and go crawl back under your bridge.

Let's get real here.......you're a troll, and nothing more.

 

LOL at the trolls in this thread. OP sure owned them bad... Mod should just close this.

 

kreidel, I'm not sure whether I should commend you or slap you for being really being gullable on a possible story that you thought made sense to you.

First of all, I would have to say that stolen property from Big box retailers are very common. This is what they call this as "Shrink" and they deal with these only per store quarterly basis. Depending on the retailer, there's a fixed "acceptable" budget each quarter an if that number is more or less than the acceptable value, it get's shoed under bed for the entire district. So this is a common much bigger picture that happens everyday and they have their respectable departments or contractors to deal with preventing things from being damaged, lost or stolen.

Secondly, Best Buy was responsible for taking care of the unit, whether instore or if it was stolen. They did not do that, and they would be equally at fault for "losing" the MacBook Air. Someone was able to swipe it the first time, being caught and not actually pressing charges. Then gets swiped again for the lack of security on the problem unit, and then completely fail to report it to the authorities.

Thirdly, how are you so sure that this unit was the same exact unit? Did you actually even match the same serial number that the Best Buy said they lost? Could it been so happen that someone sold a previous "demo" unit from a different store to the pawn shop? Demos are often sold at a heavily discounted price when either the model is discontinued or replaced. Was it even the exact same model of Macbook Air before or after the refresh?

Fourthly, your the complete loser here. In the case of the thief, he's gotten his payout, the pawn shop got their profit, and Best Buy get's their store stock numbers fixed. You were likely the "saviour" to the that Best Buy's Store Manager, as he as actually responsible on the unit itself in the end and would have to report to their district Manager about it being stolen (as a Shrink total report). Since it's been recovered one way or another(store stock wise), that's no longer an issue to them anymore. So your the only person that walks away empty handed.

I can commend your honesty, but however I can't help but say that you were real stupid in the end for turning it into Best Buy. It would have been better if you turned it in to the police instead and have them do an investigation with the pawnshop. You could have gotten your full cash back with that method. And with the Police having the actual evidence, it could lead to actually finding the culprit since Best Buy would still be "missing" the unit and an active criminal offense. Let the authorities actually piece the whole crime together with a proper investigation instead of your speculations. Since you've actually helped Best Buy recover the stolen property, the matter would be so much less important to the police. Good luck trying to recover your funds.

 

I understand it is hard to understand my logic, I have a hard time also. It seems the police should have taken it in for evidence. I went with my gut reaction, and I know it wasn't well thought out, but it seems like the right thing to do.

I was so happy when I was getting home with that Mac, it is hard to imagine that 24 hours later this ride is over. I wish that scum bag gets caught and maybe I can seek restitution, as long as it doesn't cost me alot more to do it.

I still hope to join the Mac camp one day, I just took a couple steps back.

 

Did you contact the cops at all?

Maybe you should, even now after you gave the notebook back.

Someone owes you money!
Go get it.