OT: CNBC does major story about "efencing" (fencing stolen stuff on ebay)

[dekeuk]

 

CNBC did a major report tonight on the phenomenon of how ebay has made it so easy now to fence their stolen stuff. People are making big $$ stealing and selling.

 

They showed one college kid who made $45k for tuition.

 

And another group attacking a store in mass stealing designer hand bags.

 

Funniest was an organized group that targeted Home Depot type stores. These guys actually managed to steal and re-sell 800 water heaters before getting caught.

 

800 !!!

 

A water heater is a very large item, you don't just slip it into your pocket. Who was on security duty at this store?

 

So don't feel so bad if someone stole a comic from your sales table at a convention. Home Depot is no better at guarding water heaters.

 

They also said ebay was not very co-operative with companies trying to investigate the theft and resale of their merchandise on the ebay site. Ebay cites its "privacy policy" and tells the company to come back with a court order to reveal user info. Make sense though, ebay is making $$ on the fencing, and they don't want to be known as the company that easily gives up your confidential info.

 

 

[Stronguy]

Old joke...

A worker at construction site is leaving for the day and the foreman sees him pushing a wheelbarrow covered with a tarp off the site. The foreman stops him and asks him what's under the tarp. He replies nothing and pulls the tarp back.

 

The next day the same thing happens, once again nothing under the trap. This goes on day after day.

 

Once the job is done and th site is cleared and inventory is done. Guess what was missing... wheelbarrows and tarps.

 

 

True story...

A warehouse was experiencing loss in large items like refrigerators and deep freezes. They called in a loss expert consultant who studies the situation for a couple of day and comes up with a simple solution... cut the weeds. The losses stopped immediately.

 

You see, behind the warehouse, just out of sight of a large roll-up door, was an 8 foot chain-link security fence -- weeds had grown up 3 or 4 feet on the outside of the fence. But how do you get a refrigerator over an 8 foot fence? Easy, just take it apart and throw it over one part at a time hiding it in the weeds and retrieve it at a later time. Once the weeds were cut there was no place to hide the parts and the theft stopped.

[CKB]

Sometimes I think half of the "consumables" I buy on eBay "fell off the truck". Why can I buy electric toothbrush brushes for my Sonicare for much less than half of the retail price? Why can I buy rechargable Energizer batteries for even a smaller fraction. I'm reasonably certain that I am buying these items at less than wholesale. And none of the "expiration date" or "remanufactured" scams like with printer cartridges.

 

I'm sure some of it is overstock and retailers going out of business and odd-lot kind of things - but not all.

 

 

 

[whetteon]

So to stop theifs at Comic Cons, cut the weeds. Insightful.