Is this my stolen lens on eBay?

StewartR

StewartR

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Stewart
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Some of you may remember that a couple of months ago LensesForHire had its first loss - a customer left a Canon 10-22 on a train, and it was never returned. Since (a) it was in a sealed box bearing the customer's name and address; and (b) he's in the phone book; and (c) the box contained documentation showing that it was our lens, and bearing our contact details; the police and the insurance company agreed that it should be treated as "theft" rather than just "loss".

My neighbour who's a policeman advised me to keep a watch on eBay, because that's where a lot of stolen goods end up. So I programmed a search to look for used 10-22s being sold from UK addresses, and yesterday one popped up. (In fact several have popped up over the weeks. But only this one caught my attention.)

Here it is.

To me it looks superficially like it might be my lens because
  • The seller is in the right part of the country - only about 10 miles from where my one was stolen.
  • There's no mention of a box or a manual, which weren't with my lens when it was stolen.
  • There's no mention of a filter, but it's clearly fitted with one - as was mine.
  • His explanation seems a bit weak/odd - and when you look at his descriptions for some of the other photographic items he's sold (for example this and this and this), I think there's something odd about them too. But I can't quite put my finger on it. (On the other hand maybe he's just not very well educated / inarticulate.)
What do you think? Am I right to be suspicious? (In which case I will invite the police to pay him a visit and check the serial number - my sources tell me that they're generally happy to do this.) Or is my imagination being a bit over-active?
 
Never be to suspicious fella, it could well be your lens. All the facts add up, and seem to slot together.

It says in his advert that if you look at his other items, you'll see he looks after his kit. Fair point. However, he also mentions he bought the lens for £580 brand new around 12 months ago, if this is the case, why hasn't he got a box/manuals/instructions/case etc with it?

He hasn't got all that, so that to me comes across suspicious. Surely, he'd still have the box etc, why would you throw it away?

Speak to your police neighbour, and see what he thinks.
 
Maybe ask the seller for a pic of the rear of the lens? Or ask for the u-number (production code) so you can check the date it was made?
 
Matt. said:
Maybe ask the seller for a pic of the rear of the lens? Or ask for the u-number (production code) so you can check the date it was made?
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Unfortunately EF-S lenses don't have date codes, and asking for the serial number would be too suspicious. I don't want to do that in case it is my lens and I spook him.
 
you'd be well within your rights as a buyer to ask for the serialand hi red photos of the item. That's also a request a genuine seller would expect from a fellow tog.

Did the insurance pay out to cover it's loss ?

If so, I'd be inclined to draw a line under it and move on.
 
i'd ask for hi res photo's of the glass (where the serial number is) and hope he included the serial no. for you to compare.
 
I quite often ask for the serial number of a lens before I buy - I run it by NPS against the Nikon database to a) see if its legit b) see if its Grey.

Most sellers will give your the number if you ask.

Personally Stewart on a public forum I would be VERY careful about what you write - you have made a public link and making assumptions.

If I was a legitimate seller, you'd be heaing from my Solictor about now.

I'm actually really surprised you went public with this. I would urge caution and discretion. A Court case for libel will cost you far more than this lens.
 
Why don't you email the seller, ask for the serial number as they are known to have a few problems with this lens. Then if the seller gives you the serial and it's yours get the cops involved.
 
Stewart ask for the serial number using some excuses like their have been a lot of fake lens on ebay , tell him you are really interested , if he is not too switched on he will not be suspicious , lets be honest it's the only way to be 100% sure , hope it works out for you.
 
Little Man said:
Speak to your police neighbour, and see what he thinks.
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I have. He agrees about the location. But he's not a tog, and he can't judge the significance of the other points I made. That's why I'm aslking here.
 
I would get in touch with Police as you have nothing to loose...but Police sometimes is not as helpful as you would like them to be.let me just give you an example:
some few months ago we had two brass instruments stolen from our college over the weekend(as I remember one of them was trumpet and the other one sax) police was informed and insurance company.I know we had some problems with insurance company as it was stolen during college opening hours,anyway...about one month later(almost at the same time) student that lost his trumpet found his on ebay (trumpet case had same stickers and markings) and price was much to cheap for this instrument(guy had no idea how much is it wotrth) so he get in touch in Police as he was 100% sure it was his trumpet...you will never guess what the Police woman told him....bid on this auction,and if you win and it will be yours instrument we will get this guy when he told me that i said WTF he spoke to someone else that was higher rank and they went to check without buying it...
So they should make no problems with checking this lens specially as you informed police...and if they tell you to buy it first, speak with someone else at the police station:)
good luck with it

P.S. Sax story - guy that bought this Sax for circa 60pounds checked on internet how much was it worth and when he found out it was over 2000-3000quid he called police and gave the instrument to the owner :) ( there are still good people on this planet )
 
badgerbaiter said:
correct me if i missunderstood, but the customer left it on a train and you think this is the guy that found it on the train? or you think this is the customer pretending he lost it?
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Not the customer. Maybe the finder. Or someone who bought it at car boot sale from the finder. Something like that.
 
having a person selling a similar lens within a 10 mile radius of where yours was left / stolen isn't reason for a hanging though. I'm sure that there will be 000's of them in circulation.

Pitty really as I do like a good hanging :D
 
StewartR said:
Not the customer. Maybe the finder. Or someone who bought it at car boot sale from the finder. Something like that.
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my (very experienced) ebay opinion would be that this one is legit.
from his selling history it looks like he is very much into photography and it would have been too much of a co-incidence for him to have found the lens.

i dont know if someone already posted this, but you could always ask him if he still has the receipt.
 
Would ask for some Hi Res images of the whole lens.

But looking at the quality of the photos have a suspician that the photos were taken on a Camera Phone! have checked with PhotoMe but no data has been left in the piccies he uploaded.

The description is dubious, doesn't sound like written by somebody who knows what they are on about.

And other stuff he sold as Brand New but no boxes..as others have said sounds strange!

Go to the Police mate.
 
As he has sold other lenses before it would be a bit too much of a coincidence for me that customer leaves lens on train, lens picked up by another tog (when you think how many people would be on a train). Its only since reading the for sale part on here that I have started keeping boxes and instructions, so when I sold my earliest lens there was no box or instructions, but I had not stolen it or found it on a train!

I would ask him for the serial number and see if its the same and then take further action if it is.
 
DiddyDave said:
If the insurer paid up - it's not your lens anymore, it's theirs - so I wouldn't spend another second thinking about this - move on

DD
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My thoughts exactly, however, I would draw the attention of the Police and Insurance company to this, then walk away and let them decide..
 
susie said:
As he has sold other lenses before it would be a bit too much of a coincidence for me that customer leaves lens on train, lens picked upp by another tog (when you think how many people would be on a train).
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If this is my lens, I think a far more likely explanation is that the eBay seller bought it off the finder, perhaps at a car boot or something like that. (In fact, now i think about it, trawling car boot sales to find things which are being sold too cheaply might be a profitable little venture.) Anyway there are all sorts of ways in which this might be my lens whilst not implying that the eBay seller is in any way dishonest.
 
Anyway there are all sorts of ways in which this might be my lens whilst not implying that the eBay seller is in any way dishonest.

You've already implied the seller is dis-honest with your thread title!

"Is this my stolen lens on Ebay?"

You are demonstrating incredibly poor judgement.
 
susie said:
Its only since reading the for sale part on here that I have started keeping boxes
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I always keep boxes - and all the internal packaging - for anything of any value that I buy. Not so much in case I sell it on eBay in the future, but in case I have to return it under warranty. If you return something in the manufacturer's own packaging, and it gets damaged in transit, they can't blame you for not packing it properly. If you read T&Cs for warranty returns on most things there is always something there about packaging.

In fact, when I moved house last year I found the original box for the kit lens that came with my OM-10 that I bought in 1980 :eek: (I sold the camera to a friend so didn't use the box).
 
It's certainly unusual to have an item of this value posted "2nd class standard"
Maybe one of us, local to the seller, could pop along and see it with a view to cash on collection...armed with Stewart's serial number of course.

Bob
 
bastic said:
so he get in touch in Police as he was 100% sure it was his trumpet...you will never guess what the Police woman told him....bid on this auction,and if you win and it will be yours instrument we will get this guy
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I believe it. This hit the national news several years ago; a woman had her car stolen and reported it to the Police. Some time later she saw it parked up, called the Police and they asked her if she still had the keys. When she said she had, they told her to go and "steal" it back :bang: :bang:
 
StewartR said:
Yep. We do that on our lenses now. But we only started after this one was lost.

[sound]stable door closing[/sound]
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Lesson learnt though.

If you intend to follow up ask him if minds you collecting lens as you've had some bad experiences with RM/couriers. Pos response he's either innocent or d........, neg he may not like callers or he's clued up.
 
well now, if the seller is something of a photographer, why has he put up such bad pics to sell this lens?
 
The seller ended this listing early because the item is no longer available for sale.
 
Hi,

auction had been ended as item no longer available.

Puddleduck - easy seeing it wasn't your lens that went missing ;), but then again you'd get your Solictors to get it back for you :D:D

If it was mine I'd be trying everything legally possible to find out exactly the same as Stewart, and I disagree that Stewart has said the seller is dishonest with the title of this thread, ok he might have said 'missing' instead of stolen, however as mentioned the item went missing complete with address and contact details of the rightful owner, so where ever it is now it certainly arrived there illegally, ie: it should have been returned by the person(s) who found it and seeing that they didn't means they stole it as it didn't belong to them and they knew exactly who it DID belong to.

Only thing I can think that Stewart has done wrong is post all about it here and possibly scare off the seller, me, I would have kept it all to myself and sorted it out and THEN posted about it here once resolved.

Mike.
 
puddleduck said:
Anyway there are all sorts of ways in which this might be my lens whilst not implying that the eBay seller is in any way dishonest.

You've already implied the seller is dis-honest with your thread title!

"Is this my stolen lens on Ebay?"

You are demonstrating incredibly poor judgement.
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I disagree Puddleduck... Thread title is not implying the seller is a thief or is dis-honest just the possibility that it could be his lens.

The seller could have bought the lens in good faith from freeads/carboot sale etc not knowing its origin.

Until the serial no is found no-one will know....... Good luck Stewart
 
To me its very coincidental that Stewart starts this thread and some 72 minutes later [10:14 to 11:26] the lens is no longer available. I suggest that you should consider looking into this further Stewart.

Tom
 
erding said:
To me its very coincidental that Stewart starts this thread and some 72 minutes later [10:14 to 11:26] the lens is no longer available. I suggest that you should consider looking into this further Stewart.

Tom
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Hi,

it ended because I made the seller a cash offer and at the price he accepted it was a steal! :D:LOL:

Only kidding.

Mike.
 
mikeyb said:
Hi,

it ended because I made the seller a cash offer and at the price he accepted it was a steal! :D:LOL:

Only kidding.

Mike.
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:LOL:.......very much so.......:LOL:


(y)
 
If I was a legit seller and the police knocked on my door, asking to check the serial number as one the same has gone missing 10 or so miles away, I'd have no issue with that at all.
 
Hmmm. I sent him an email at 10:46, thus:
I'm interested in this lens. It looks like a fair price. I'd be grateful if you could give me a little bit more information though:
(1) What is the serial number? (I've heard that some batches of the lens have faults in the AF mechanism.)
(2) You say you've used it for about a year. Is it still in warranty? Do you have the original receipt?
(3) Do you have the original box and manual?
(4) Can you send me a high-resolution image of the front element, to demonstrate that it is free from blemishes?
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And the auction ended at 11:26.

That does seem a bit odd, doesn't it?
 
This can't be Stewart's lens. It may have been the one that was nicked but it's no longer Stewart's. It now belongs to Stewart's insurers. I would convey all info to them and leave well alone. Posting on a public forum can only frustrate the activity of the insurer's investigators or the Police efforts.
 
That does seem a bit odd, doesn't it?
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It does but don't get too hung up on it. It always seemed very odd to me that so many people buy westlife CDs but the police have assured me, many times, that there really isn't anything criminal going on. ;)

As has been said, inform the police and the insurance company, take the brownie points and move on. :)
 
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