Tool register

[Stephen Blair]

I would of thought after loosing 50 pieces of kit it would only encourage you to be patient.

[benedmonds]

40 minutes ago, Stephen Blair said:

I would of thought after loosing 50 pieces of kit it would only encourage you to be patient.

I really can't see the police using it.  They don't even bother coming out to investigate, we had a bunch of kit including a large jet washer nicked from the yard.  It was taken in broad daylight from our yard while the operator had popped inside for a cup of tea. It was noticed that it had been taken and cctv was examined showing the scroats taking it off across the field.  The police were  called and the thieves would have still been dragging it across the fields. The police didn't come and unfortunately we went the wrong  way so didn't catch them, but that catching someone in the act is only ever going to end badly.

 

For the register to be of value, you have to have confidence the the police will use it;  be useful in other ways PUWER; Very quick and easy, or taken up by the manufacturers so they make it difficult to get parts for stolen equipment. I think honda ask for serial numbers and dealers are supposed to check..    

Edited May 9, 2018 by benedmonds

[Steve Bullman]

On the contrary, they have contacted me several times to see if items they had recovered were listed.  I also have many of the different forces registered on the site.  

One list they sent me over had nearly 100 saws on it, all of which would have been reunited with their owners had they been listed

[nepia]

And that's the point. If owners don't list their kit there is virtually no chance of later retrieval:  by listing it there is a chance, not only of retrieval of their property but conviction of thieves and handlers.  You can't prosecute for theft or handling if you can't show the goods are nicked!

[openspaceman]

48 minutes ago, benedmonds said:

For the register to be of value, you have to have confidence the the police will use it; 

We know thefts like these are a low priority ( a nephew and an old girlfriend's lodger have both recently joined the police and  both are inundated with sexual offences which take all their time) so it's unlikely any serial numbers will be put on a police report or database so a crowd sourced database that is accessible  has a value for lay persons to check.

 

As I understand it the vast majority of people will not steal,  a smaller majority will not buy stolen goods.

 

Hence it is desirable to have a large corpus of stolen goods and then persuade people who are offered machines to check and not buy equipment where the numbers have been defaced.

 

In the 7 years I worked for a company we had numerous saws and strimmers stolen from vans and two tracked chippers stolen. Only one tracked chipper was found, by coincidence only, and that had been bought by an innocent contractor. Had he been able and willing to check its provenance I'm sure he wouldn't have been defrauded.

 

It's a fair point that it's time consuming for a large company to  upload lists of machines but the database costs money to run and if its no being used, as Steve has said, then there is no incentive to improve it.

 

Similarly it becomes arduous to load lists of recovered numbers or descriptions, what would be required would be some fuzzy logic (like Googles search engine) which would scan reports or a dealers job sheets and automagically do a comparison.

48 minutes ago, benedmonds said:

I think honda ask for serial numbers and dealers are supposed to check..    

So do JCB if you phone up for spares but there is no explanation whether they actively cross reference it.

 

 

[benedmonds]

1 hour ago, Steve Bullman said:

On the contrary, they have contacted me several times to see if items they had recovered were listed.  I also have many of the different forces registered on the site.  

One list they sent me over had nearly 100 saws on it, all of which would have been reunited with their owners had they been listed

That's kind of positive.. As I recall it still took a long time to enter details and the owners of any reclaimed kit is likely to be the insurance companies..  If they insisted all tools were listed and lobbied the police to use the database that might help..?

[David Dobedoe]

I'm encouraged to read that this system is working for some people and the police have used it. Unfortunately I seem to have got my account suspended in trying to change the password. I have collected up all the relavant serial numbers and will add them once password is resolved. Thanks 

[Steve Bullman]

8 minutes ago, David Dobedoe said:

I'm encouraged to read that this system is working for some people and the police have used it. Unfortunately I seem to have got my account suspended in trying to change the password. I have collected up all the relavant serial numbers and will add them once password is resolved. Thanks 

just trying to find you, how long ago did you register?

[David Dobedoe]

Sorry Steve, I have no idea.

[Steve Bullman]

its ok, found you.  You have a pm