a week or two ago, i posted here about my board being stolen and then showing up for sale online. i deleted the post thinking it may hinder progress on getting it back. well, i got it back. most of you encouraged me to involve the police, which i did, and it worked out.
some key things that helped me get it back and could help you in the future
- board stolen, i figured it was gone for good. i did not report it.
- the board showed up online for sale about 2 or 3 weeks after it was taken, way over-priced (by like $400 lol)
- it was unique enough to begin with (board model name), so that helped w/ me searching daily to see if it showed up (assuming the model name would be used in the post. thankfully, it was).
- i had done some cosmetic things to it that made it easily identifiable
- when posted for sale, the kook used a phone number that was visible in the post. i figured it was a burner, but it wasn't.
- i googled the phone # and that didn't help...only brought up searches like "pay to find out who owns this phone #".
- i found out you can use facebook to search phone #'s and was extremely lucky that the same phone # in the ad was used on the poster's legit facebook account (just copy the # and paste it into the facebook's search bar and it yielded a specific person w/ a photo, location and some general info (because their account wasn't completely private))
- called police and made report and provided the suspect info/ad/facebook account etc.
- they asked if there was any proof board was mine. i had detailed knowledge of size/spec and a photo of me surfing it (officer was surprised i knew specific dims to 1/4" by memory, but what surfer doesn't : ) i didn't have serial # but had enough pics/info to make the case i guess.
- **take photos of all your board's serial #'s just in case. **
- i don't know how the police proceeded, but they got the board back, contacted me and i picked it up from the station a few days later.
i feel extremely lucky and am thankful for the police’s response and work on this.
keep pics and serial #'s of your boards handy, just in case they get nipped and show back up online. i really figured it was long gone.
thanks everyone!