Horological Meandering

sidneyc
2009

• Show profile
• Show other posts

Try to get as much information about them as possible

As Horo suggested, pretend to be a potential buyer, and ask them lots of questions. Try to compile as much information about them as possible. Information that may be helpful should a certain authority decide to investigate your case may include:
- where and how did the seller get the watch (ask where did they buy it and how old). There is a chance that the seller is not related to the theft, and if you could obtain information that way, it may trace further back the chain (eg. if he bought from some pawn shop etc..).
- whereabouts is the seller (pretend to ask if it's possible to arrange a pickup by a friend that could be nearby)
- their bank account details (ask if they accept bank transfers)
- assuming your stolen watches didn't go with the whole set of box and papers, ask the seller if he/she have them, and see if they tell the truth.
- ask them about certain things about the watch and see if they're knowledgeable. If the seller is a genuine owner who bought a stolen watch unknowingly, I suppose he/she should have a bit of knowledge about the watch itself.
- did you say located "some" (more than 1) of your stolen watches? Are they sold by 1 seller? If so, it would be suspicious that one random watch buyer will end up buying more than 1 of your stolen pieces and thus that seller would look very fishy to me, you know what I mean? If they're spread over different sellers, do some investigation on the accounts, are they all from the same area (or they could be hacked accounts), does these sellers have good feedback, have they sold watches before, do their photos look like they're done the same way.

I would also suggest you contact ebay fraud department about this issue. I'm not certain that they are able to help, but you have nothing to lose asking. Hopefully you have some proof of ownership that should ebay ask for, you could supply. Even if they're not able to help, they might be able to point you in some direction as to what other agencies you could seek help from.

The other channel you could go is that hopefully you have your theft reported to your local police. Try going back to them, and letting them know that you've found them listed on ebay, and see if they are able to do something about it, or give suggestions to what you can do.

Hope you could end up with a positive outcome with your lost watches!