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Comment by ggreer | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious how thieves profit off the theft of these devices. The phone will be tracked and can be remotely bricked. If the victim knows the laptop's serial number or uses iCloud, it also has a decent chance of recovery. Even if the thief wipes the machine, I'm guessing Apple will notice the serial number if it's ever brought in for repair.

The only thing I can think of is trying to flip it on Craigslist. That would require an odd arrangement where the buyer didn't meet the thief at their home. I'd be very suspicious if a seller only wanted to meet at a coffee shop and, once meeting there, didn't show me an ID or Apple receipt (or show me the serial number in their iCloud account, etc).

With so many incentives against stealing these things, and such a tiny reward, I'm honestly confused why people do it.

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>I'd be very suspicious if a seller only wanted to meet at a coffee shop and, once meeting there, didn't show me an ID or Apple receipt (or show me the serial number in their iCloud account, etc).

I wouldn't be that suspicious. It is not unreasonable that someone would want to do the trade in a public place, and not give out their personal address. And I typically don't think to ID people who are selling me something.

When it's something expensive and easily steal-able, I make a token effort to ensure it's not stolen. That means either:

1. Meeting at the seller's place.

2. Seeing a receipt of original sale or some other evidence of ownership.

3. Seeing an ID so, if it's stolen, I'll know who sold it to me.

4. Checking against registries for stolen things. Not all stolen things are registered as stolen, but the thief isn't willing to take the risk.

Refusing #1 and lacking #2 is completely understandable, but if they also refuse #3 and #4, I'd be really suspicious. Fortunately, I've never had a seller do that.

Oh, and when it comes to expensive stuff, I really don't feel comfortable counting money in a coffee shop. It quickly attracts attention. It would be quite plausible if someone noticed the money, followed the seller, and robbed them (or just stole their bag).

Now I wonder why the idea didn't occur to me earlier: Meet at a bank. It's safe, secure, and it might even be possible to avoid using cash. I'll definitely consider it the next time I sell something on Craigslist.

I would advise against meeting sellers at their homes (at least in high crime areas). My father has represented several criminals who lured people to their apartment complexes with fictitious Craigslist ads for iPhones and robbed them at gunpoint. I always insist on meeting at a public place.

It's not hard. I have (had?) a client for a while who had a pretty questionable past. He came in to our shop one day with a shiny new laptop, needing the password cracked on it and a new account set up. He said a friend gave it to him but forgot to give him the password. All my alarm bells went right off and I said, sure, and then checked in to it.

I found some of the PO's personal information on the laptop. I called the local police department, and they weren't interested, they said to call the police department where it was (edit: maybe) stolen. I called that police department, they said they'd check their reports and call me back.

I called back the next day, same thing. Second day, same thing. Third day, same thing, so I called my local police again to see if they could speed things up. Still not interested.

All in all, we held on to it for a week before finally returning it to him.

I really hated to do that. I've had my stuff stolen before too, one of my friends had her laptop stolen. It sucks, a lot. I really wanted to at least make sure it hadn't been reported lost or stolen. But all of the authorities involved were totally uninterested, and I didn't feel right about doubting my customer enough to contact the PO directly, either.

Pretty likely that a buyer exists for whom a price exists that would outweigh whatever their level of suspicion. We need theft-mitigation measures but we also need high-profile demonstrations of them so that they eventually become deterrents.

It's incredibly easy now with services like the ecoATM:

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/A-number-you-ne...

Those aren't really incentives against stealing. In the end she's still getting something for nothing, the only potential downside is getting caught taking it.

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