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STOLENCOMIC.COM - Website to report or search for stolen comic books started
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55 posts in this topic

I'll qualify my comments upfront as I collect OA and not comics.

 

If a CGC comic is stolen and someone cracks the slab, how can anyone verify that it's the stolen comic if reintroduced into the marketplace at a much later date?

(shrug)

 

I'm sure on a super rare high end book, (i.e., Action #1), a new copy being introduced into the marketplace after one is reported stolen would raise a few eyebrows. However, a more available comic might be harder to detect. How would you recover a stolen comic then?

 

Cheers!

N.

 

 

 

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These guys are just thumbing their nose with blatant impunity...

 

This book sold on CLINK on 3/20/2010...a CGC 7.5...

http://www.comiclink.com/itemdetail.asp?back=%2Fcgcitems%2Easp%3Fid%3D3909%26FROM%3D%26TO%3D&id=828543

 

RADBDEAD20091227_153430.jpg

 

And now up on eBay through cdpaoli as a 9.2...hey grading's just an opinion right! :tonofbricks:

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/X-Men-4-2nd-App-Magneto-Very-High-Grade-NM-9-2-Vol-1-/220594863781?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item335c7a7ea5

 

Brpr9vwCGkKGrHqYH-CoEvF-uvfNeBL0lDn.jpg

 

I'm surprised they didn't try to erase the 1-2... :insane: Do these guys think like 50 days is an eternity? Nope...nothing's stopping them so they don't even care anymore... :boo:

 

 

 

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I'll qualify my comments upfront as I collect OA and not comics.

 

If a CGC comic is stolen and someone cracks the slab, how can anyone verify that it's the stolen comic if reintroduced into the marketplace at a much later date?

(shrug)

 

I'm sure on a super rare high end book, (i.e., Action #1), a new copy being introduced into the marketplace after one is reported stolen would raise a few eyebrows. However, a more available comic might be harder to detect. How would you recover a stolen comic then?

 

Cheers!

N.

 

 

 

That's a good question. I had this book stolen from me over a year ago (there was a thread or two about it). It was mailed to me and the postman who was substituting for my regular carrier thought he would "help me out" by leaving the package by the elevator door instead of leaving a slip in my mailbox like he was supposed to. The next day, the woman who cleans the building (who knew me luckily) found an empty box with my name on it in the garbage can of a different floor..and just decided to show me it. It was the box my book was shipped in, with tracking...etc.

 

I had a scan of the book, which I immediately sent to all the comic book stores in the area. My thoughts on this were, there is no way the person who opened the box knew what was in side of it when he opened it. In fact, the book was sent in a used laptop box, so he probably thought it was a computer. This told me he wasn't a comic book expert, and would probably try to pawn the thing off to a comic dealer...identifiable bar code and everthing. Here is the scan (I added the circles showing the defects which could identify it afterwards):

 

Photobucket

 

Sure enough, a couple days later, the thief brazenly walked into one of the comic book shops and tried to sell it. I called the police to tell them, and since I had stupidly not filed a police report yet, they couldn't do anything. By the time I finished the report...the thief had left. There is much more to this story (including a couple parts where I pretended to be an interested buyer and called the thief and spoke to him) but the long and short of it is, he figured out the barcode was probably a bad thing, and he broke the book out of the case (did a surprisingly good job actually) and tried to sell it at yet another comic book store, where it was once again recognized...(thanks to those identifying marks..and it was the same guy) and a bunch of brave comic book store employees basically ganged up on him, holding the book behind them, and said "we believe this book to be stolen - you can either leave now and we will return it to the rightful owner, or you can wait for the police and explain your story to them."

 

I wouldn't recommend anybody do this, but regardless, it worked..and I got my book back.. It was clearly the same book - as the marks were identical in every way..

 

To further answer your question, when somebody has a book stolen, and if it is of any value, they have hopefully made a very good scan of it before hand. If not, the CGC might very well have a scan of it. If not that, it is possible the previous owner has a scan of it....or eBay might if it was purchased on there...etc, etc..

 

The book would be uploaded to the stolencomic.com database - and would remain there until it was reported as found...even a year later - or 10 years later.

 

The great thing about the comic book community is, they are sort of a self policing unit..and find looking for stolen books a fun pastime - as evidenced by the sort of detective work I have seen on these very boards..especially ones like what was just posted on this thread...

 

If the books do happen to be different...(like...someone sees a book on ebay which appears to be the one which was reported stolen..and they both have the bottom right hand corner nicked in the same exact place) that's for the two parties to decide and contend amongst themselves... Stolencomic.com is just a database service...for now anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by ivegotneatstuff
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That's a wonderful idea! I would love to read the stories behind both the theft and recovery of the books listed on this site. If anything those stories could boast viewing of the site and improve the odds of recovering some of these books.

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As some of you may recall, I recently had a break-in at my home and 38 cgc comics were stolen. Anything that can help with the recovery of my books, or the books of anyone who is unfortunate enough to suffer the same loss, is a great idea.

 

David has already been kind enough to add one of my books (Silver Surfer #4) to his site and I am very impressed with the effort. Hopefully, we will be able to add the rest of the books soon.

 

If they're removed from the cgc case, it will obviously be more difficult to identify them but many did have unique "characters" that would make stand out.

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Good stuff.

 

I shared this info on the CBCA forum. (thumbs u

 

BTW, a FF 1 was "stolen" from me through a fraudulent PayPal transaction (it was charged back later as "unauthorized use.")

 

I don't have a police report as it happened through an ebay/paypal transaction. Is this something you would post?

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Nice idea, but this could be an unintended playground for mischief...

 

I have not looked the site yet, but I would recommend that only stolen books where there is filed police report or open postal investigation be allowed to be listed.

 

I can just imagine some unscrupulous person posting book that are, in fact, NOT stolen on the site -- just to give the rightful owner a hard time.

 

My 2 cents:

I would also recommend that the person filing the stolen book post fully identify themselves and the circumstances of the theft. The poster should list their full name, address and contact information either publicly or, at least, to the site's admin. That admin should authenticate the poster's story and, only then, should the book be listed.

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You may want to contact board member walclark. Here's a link to his thread from this past April.

 

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=3938024&fpart=1

 

Big time GA books stolen (More Fun 52, Tec 38, Flash 1, More Fun 54, etc...) from his home in Tennessee.

 

I never heard if there was a resolution.

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Good stuff.

 

I shared this info on the CBCA forum. (thumbs u

 

BTW, a FF 1 was "stolen" from me through a fraudulent PayPal transaction (it was charged back later as "unauthorized use.")

 

I don't have a police report as it happened through an ebay/paypal transaction. Is this something you would post?

 

Thanks! nice of ya

 

I would need more information regarding the details of this.. can you send me a private PM (unless you dont care..then just put it here :)

 

Did you buy a ff1 which was never shipped to you? or, did you sell it to someone and they never paid for it? I'm confused

 

 

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Good stuff.

 

I shared this info on the CBCA forum. (thumbs u

 

BTW, a FF 1 was "stolen" from me through a fraudulent PayPal transaction (it was charged back later as "unauthorized use.")

 

I don't have a police report as it happened through an ebay/paypal transaction. Is this something you would post?

 

Thanks! nice of ya

 

I would need more information regarding the details of this.. can you send me a private PM (unless you dont care..then just put it here :)

 

Did you buy a ff1 which was never shipped to you? or, did you sell it to someone and they never paid for it? I'm confused

 

 

I shipped a FF 1 to a buyer. Book was delivered per delivery confirmation and positive feedback was left. 45 days later I got a Paypal charge back claiming someone unauthorized used the Paypal account and I had to give the money back. In effect, someone used a Paypal account to steal a FF 1 from me. I can PM further details.

 

:hi:

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Nice idea, but this could be an unintended playground for mischief...

 

I have not looked the site yet, but I would recommend that only stolen books where there is filed police report or open postal investigation be allowed to be listed.

 

I can just imagine some unscrupulous person posting book that are, in fact, NOT stolen on the site -- just to give the rightful owner a hard time.

 

My 2 cents:

I would also recommend that the person filing the stolen book post fully identify themselves and the circumstances of the theft. The poster should list their full name, address and contact information either publicly or, at least, to the site's admin. That admin should authenticate the poster's story and, only then, should the book be listed.

 

Thanks - I am thinking along those lines too. I am also listing everything as "reported stolen" ... but with that being said, I think, all in all, people reporting comics stolen are pretty honest....and the site obviously is not an official go to source to report something stolen... the police are. I can't see how someone can benefit by reporting something stolen here that actually isn't...as it isn't a place an adjuster will use to pay a claim on, etc. The only way to benefit financially is to actually complete a police report - and in that case, if they did it fraudulently, they would be committing a crime.

 

In my case (the FF49 on the site was stolen from me), the police response was very slow and ... lets just say it could have been better (they pulled the thief over in his car while he had the book in his car...and the police did nothing about it..despite knowing it was there..they just took his word for it). The postal authorities took days to call me back, if at all. I feel like we (the collecting world) do a much better job of policing in these cases than sometimes the proper authorities do - and don't get me wrong, I love the police - I just think they are usually quite busy dealing with much more important cases than to chase down comic books.

 

The reason I might not require a police report is that it often takes a fair amount of time to get one done...during which time the thief is pawning off their priced books. I might make it a requirement to get a police report to me within 48 hours or something - or the books will be removed from the site - what does everyone think of this?

 

and thanks for your suggestions :)

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You may want to contact board member walclark. Here's a link to his thread from this past April.

 

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=3938024&fpart=1

 

Big time GA books stolen (More Fun 52, Tec 38, Flash 1, More Fun 54, etc...) from his home in Tennessee.

 

I never heard if there was a resolution.

 

 

Thanks - I will do that!

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Good stuff.

 

I shared this info on the CBCA forum. (thumbs u

 

BTW, a FF 1 was "stolen" from me through a fraudulent PayPal transaction (it was charged back later as "unauthorized use.")

 

I don't have a police report as it happened through an ebay/paypal transaction. Is this something you would post?

 

Thanks! nice of ya

 

I would need more information regarding the details of this.. can you send me a private PM (unless you dont care..then just put it here :)

 

Did you buy a ff1 which was never shipped to you? or, did you sell it to someone and they never paid for it? I'm confused

 

 

I shipped a FF 1 to a buyer. Book was delivered per delivery confirmation and positive feedback was left. 45 days later I got a Paypal charge back claiming someone unauthorized used the Paypal account and I had to give the money back. In effect, someone used a Paypal account to steal a FF 1 from me. I can PM further details.

 

:hi:

That sounds like legal action to be taken against paypal...

They are not the police,and taking your money back from a fraudlent trans that they allowed is paypal's responsibilty to control who accesses funds from people's accounts... 2c

You did your part,and upheld the transaction...i personally would not be walking away quietly from that situation.

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Good stuff.

 

I shared this info on the CBCA forum. (thumbs u

 

BTW, a FF 1 was "stolen" from me through a fraudulent PayPal transaction (it was charged back later as "unauthorized use.")

 

I don't have a police report as it happened through an ebay/paypal transaction. Is this something you would post?

 

Thanks! nice of ya

 

I would need more information regarding the details of this.. can you send me a private PM (unless you dont care..then just put it here :)

 

Did you buy a ff1 which was never shipped to you? or, did you sell it to someone and they never paid for it? I'm confused

 

 

I shipped a FF 1 to a buyer. Book was delivered per delivery confirmation and positive feedback was left. 45 days later I got a Paypal charge back claiming someone unauthorized used the Paypal account and I had to give the money back. In effect, someone used a Paypal account to steal a FF 1 from me. I can PM further details.

 

:hi:

 

Would you be willing to file a police report? I'm confused why you wouldn't? Also, isnt this postal fraud?

 

If the book was never reported stolen, then it isn't technically stolen property..as far as authorities are concerned. I say this thinking of a scenario.. lets say I put it on the website..and somebody finds it at some convention and notifies us. The police won't get involved unless there is actually a police report showing it has been stolen...at least in my experience....during which time the person who discovers it is sort of stalling the thief saying "hey...I've got the stolen book right in front of me.. send the police to confiscate it.." right?

 

It would be cool if everyone chimed in here.. I mean.. I believe what you are telling me is true... .....but what if it is actually found? How would you legally get it back without a police report?

Edited by ivegotneatstuff
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