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Finally a way to get your stuff back
JustStolen.net offers hope to those who lose valuables
by Steve Bass
Imagine this: On a dreary Monday morning you board the bus into work with your briefcase and laptop for the start of yet another long work week. Minutes later, as the bus pulls over to the curb to let you and the other commuters out at your stop, you get pulled out the door with the throng of people. But wait! You’re missing something. You forgot your laptop on the bus! You rush back inside the bus before the doors close and look frantically under your seat. But your briefcase and laptop are nowhere to be found!
This situation is more prevalent than you may think. In 2003 there were more than 600,000 laptops stolen (Safeware Insurance, 2003 report). That’s more than 1,640 laptops stolen every single day. And to compound the problem, even if the police were to find the thief and recover your laptop, they would have almost no idea who owns it or how to get it back to you! Why? Because you never wrote down the serial numbers and the paperwork accompanying it is long gone. You filed a police report, but with no serial number to report, your laptop could be stored away in some police evidence room with thousands of others just like it across the state or across the country, never to be returned to you again!
Not only would this be a financial drain, but the damage caused by the loss of irreplaceable or sensitive data could be devastating. All those client files, business contacts, personal photographs of long lost relatives and important emails may be lost for good.
But there is a new website that offers hope to those who lose valuable items. JustStolen.net (
Juststolen.net -- Home) was established by Police Officers to assist consumers and business owners retrieve lost or stolen valuables. The website is a powerful database that members can use to register their personal property. Once items are registered, law enforcement personnel can use the site to find the owners of recovered goods.
Tom Shea, the creator of JustStolen.net, understands the importance of recovering personal property and returning it to the owner. A police officer with the Brookline, MA Police Department, Shea said “When you're filing a police report all you’re really doing is filing an insurance claim. There is not much of a chance that you will ever see your property again.”
Because the FBI reports that only two percent of all stolen property is ever recovered, coupled with the fact that the vast majority of stolen items are not recovered in the cities where they are stolen, a distant police department would have no idea who the owner was even if they recovered the items. The important thing to do, Shea says, is to register your valuables before a theft or loss happens. When the registered item is recovered by police, they just log onto the JustStolen.net website, enter the description or serial number of the item and the owner’s email address instantly shows up.
Computers aren’t the only items that can be registered on the site. Users can register anything they can describe including DVD players, jewelry, cameras, motor vehicles, TV’s, iPods and artwork. As the website says, “The list is only restricted by your imagination.” Another feature of the site is the ability to upload photographs of the items to aid in recovery.
Best of all, the website service is completely free. There is no charge to the user and no charge to Law Enforcement to take advantage of this service. This characteristic alone makes it one of the most innovative locations on the internet.
A recent addition to the website is the ability of police to post photos of items they have recovered that have no ownership information. This is a boon to law enforcement, as it gives those departments with overflowing evidence rooms the ability to locate the owners of these items before they get auctioned off for pennies on the dollar.
The website has been getting significant attention recently. Boston’s WBZ-TV and KCAL-TV in Los Angeles recently ran a story on it, as well as newspaper articles in Metro Newspaper, the Suffolk University Journal, the Irish Emigrant, American Police Beat Magazine and the Officer.com website.
Shea says that there are two goals of JustStolen.net, "The short term goal would be to get your property back. The long term goal is to find the person responsible for the theft." A side benefit that is emerging is the forging of a closer relationship between police and consumers. It seems there is hope for us after all.
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