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Comment by junto | Hacker News Reader

The author seems completely annoyed at the fact that he had to pay to get his treasured top-of-the-range laptop back from the pawnbrokers (who were also out of pocket otherwise).

In my opinion the net outcome is extremely positive. He might have never got it back and then he'd be forced to buy a new one (albeit with insurance money), but he would have lost all his files assuming he has no backups. Even if he had backups, restoring his laptop back to its exact previous state isn't easy for most people.

I'd be completely stoked if my stolen laptop turned up and I just had to pay the pawnbroker for what he was out of pocket for.

The author is a "glass half empty" kind of guy.

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Anyone who buys something from someone else, but especially a professional like a pawnbroker, has a duty to make sure the goods they're buying aren't stolen. Failing to do that is a crime in many countries ("handling stolen goods" in UK parlance). The very least the pawnbroker should pay is the cost of whatever they're out of pocket for, but really they ought to be facing criminal charges. People being willing to profit from stolen goods is what keeps people stealing. If no one was willing to buy something that had been stolen then people would stop taking things (or at most they'd steal what they need themselves).

Perpetuating criminality is in no way a good thing.

Anyone who buys something from someone else, but especially a professional like a pawnbroker, has a duty to make sure the goods they're buying aren't stolen.

Isn't that what the pawnshop did, by submitting the serial numbers to the cops?

The very least the pawnbroker should pay is the cost of whatever they're out of pocket for

And they would've, if she had followed the legal procedure, she just didn't want to wait.

"Isn't that what the pawnshop did, by submitting the serial numbers to the cops?"

Yes, after they shelled out $225 to a thief.

What do you expect them to do?

The business model of a pawnbroker includes the risk of handling stolen goods. Even if you pay for stolen goods, they don't belong to you.

This is recognised in any basic assessment of the business domain of pawnbroking, e.g. wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawnbrokers So it's not really correct to say the pawnbrokers were out of pocket - dealing with this problem is an expected part of their business.

Like other commenter, I'm quite surprised by the requirement for the author to pay in this regard - she seems to have chosen to pay rather than wait out a police seizure. Since she's a writer, I'd guess her income is quite dependent on having a computer.

While it is quite lucky that he was able to recover his laptop, I feel that he is still being punished for being a victim.

It doesn't really sit right with my sense of justice.

it's all too common that a victim loses not only by crimes committed but also by being a victim. Having had a motorcycle stolen, the police recovered a bag which had been attached to it, and it took my time and money to get to the police station and identify it, and the bag was never returned to me after the court case was dropped.

Isnt this some form of laundering, and illegal? I mean, someone could run a very profitable business selling known illegal goods back to their owners..

.. I personally think that if you are buying something, you have to be pretty damn sure it's not stolen, especially when youre planning on reselling these things. That's why a lot of countries have laws in place to enforce exactly that kind of behaviour.

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