Dear For-Sale Sites, Please Require Serial Numbers
By Rico, 7:07 am Wed Mar 18 2009 - Editorial - 2 Opinions
Wouldn’t it be harder to thieves to fence stuff online if all reputable for-sale sites required sellers to post the serial numbers of their wares?
It’s been a pretty hectic week for Technograph, involving a couple of stolen Macbook Pros. The unibody was recently stolen, while its 2007 counterpart was found.
In the latter case, the robbed owner encountered a for-sale item on a local user group forum, and upon looking at the serial number of the item, realized that someone was trying to sell his stolen laptop!
To be clear, the poster on the forum wasn’t directly involved with the theft. Reports indicate that he bought the stolen laptop from someone else through another website. In fact, he innocently complied with the forum’s rule that for-sale posts should list the serial numbers of all items offered.
That’s exactly my point: for-sale sites should require that sellers list the serial numbers of their items. Victims of theft presumably watch out for the serial numbers of their lost goods, making reunions that much easier. Sure, sellers trying to fence stuff may post a fake serial number. But using a bogus serial is likely to make any buyer suspicious, once they inspect the item and find out that the actual serial doesn’t match the advertised one.
Obviously, for this recommendation to work, we all need to be vigilant. For-sale websites can do their part, requiring sellers to post serial numbers along with their items, while buyers can check the serial numbers of whatever item they’re getting to see if it’s stolen or not. Or even look for items only on websites that require serial numbers in their listings.
It’s impossible to eliminate theft and fencing outright, but we can make it as hard as possible. You may ask, why should we take the time and help other people recover their stolen goods? Because it’s the right thing to do, and if you do end up as a victim of theft, wouldn’t consider the help of others valuable?
Republished with permission from The Gadget Blog.
Eugene
10:10 am Thu Mar 19 2009
This is an excellent suggestion!
One theft deterrent idea I thought of is to have laptops have some sort of security lock or dongle. You can’t operate the laptop without it and you bring the dongle with you if you’re going to leave your laptop somewhere.
Marinus
10:10 pm Thu Mar 19 2009
Publishing the serial number of an item you legally bought may not always be such a good idea. Some less scrupulous person could file a bogus report with the police, claiming that this item was actually stolen from themselves. Unless you have the original invoice, you could get yourself into some trouble.
A better idea would be to mandate a partial serial number. For example the first 3-4 characters. That way a potential buyer could also find out the date of production, but the legal seller is still protected. In my region it is common practice to demand seeing the original invoice. If it cannot be produced, buyer beware!
I would be all for a national registry of stolen goods serial numbers. If the item is of any high Piso value to the legal owner, for sure they safeguard the original invoice. Perhaps a nice initiative for technogra.ph?
But posting complete serial numbers of equipment you legally own on a market website? No.