Bob went to some magic event out of town and after breakfast he was walking to his car, a guy approached him and told him that he's quitting the game and wants to sell all of his cards. Bob said sure, let's see what you have. The guy showed him a couple of binders...and they were stacked. Like playsets of duals, fetches and such. Bob said it was probably in the 2k+ range buylist price. So Bob said, he has probably only $200 on him and the guy snap takes the deal.

At this point, it was extremely obvious that the cards were stole, but Bob went through with it anyway. At the tournament, Bob totally scrubbed out and had to sell about $400 worth of cards from the new collection to get some money in his pocket.

Near the end of the event, Bob was talking to some people and someone mentioned that he had a friend that got his car broken into and had his stereo, gps, and all his cards stolen. After describing the collection a little more, Bob figured out that the stolen collection was in his possession.

Now, I am not gonna say what he did, but would like to know what you would do at this point?

First, if he knew the cards were worth that much, he should have bought them and just held on to them. He could have taken it to the authorities, really anything but sell them. I understand he wanted money, but he knew very well those cards didn't belong to the guy he bought them from.

Finally he should have given what was left back to the guy who lost them. Explained what happened and also given the guy the extra money he made. But naturally kept what he put into the deal.

I'm not trying to be overly righteous here, but I go out of my way to be a nice and generous magic player. I also feel like I'm someone with good morals. These types of events are what causes non-magic folks to look down on the game.

People on here ridicule people for all kinds of stuff including people who only want 200.00 for 2k worth of cards. A fool and his money are so departed...

The huge problem is that even if you know the cards are stolen, how is it possible to know how long ago they were stolen, from what part of the country, etc...? What if the binder was stolen from five states away and going to local authorities would not be relevant due to the crime and/or the thief not being in the current juristiciton? I'd say that 95% of the time, you will never run into the victim and doing what he did is not morally wrong since there is no way to prove anything.

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Originally posted by Volcanon:
Legally the owner is the guy who had his stuff stolen. So give it to the owner. Ask for a "finder's fee" if you must. Tell him to, uh, not bring $2000 of cards and leave them in his car in the future.

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Generally if Bob didn't know it was stolen when he bought the collection, he basically obtains legal title to the cards when he buys them from the thief. I'm sure this case would be more fuzzy since it's obvious that something happened to the cards for someone to sell $2k worth of them for $200.

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Originally posted by Bagbokk:
Generally if Bob didn't know it was stolen when he bought the collection, he basically obtains legal title to the cards when he buys them from the thief. I'm sure this case would be more fuzzy since it's obvious that something happened to the cards for someone to sell $2k worth of them for $200.

Regardless, I'd return the cards and $200. But I wouldn't consider the other $200 a finder's fee--it's to make sure I don't lose anything. I don't have any legal obligation to return the cards, but I'm doing so because it's morally and ethically correct to do so.

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Suspecting they are stolen vs. knowing they are stolen are 2 different things.

Bob took the opportunity (like a lot of people) to acquire a collection on the cheap. At a GP or tournament that would always be on the back of my mind.

Knowing they are stolen now gives Bob the opportunity to make things as right as possible.

The guy who had his car broken into and stuff stolen would be elated to get back part of his stuff with the possibility of catching the crook.

Hopefully if Bob hold's back the original $200 paid and give him the other $200 made and his cards Bob will make this persons day and learn several lessons. And hopefully Bob has a good memory with faces.

I think some state laws, if a person buys stolen property, they lose the money/property and could go to jail. I love the U.S. LOL!

The morally upstanding thing for Bob to do at this point is to return the collection to its owner. The details of this next transaction matter, but they matter less than this one point. Certainly, it would be "best" for Bob to return the collection along with $400. Next best would be $200. Next is just a plain old return. The bottom line is that the collection be returned no matter what. Ethically speaking. If Bob has no scruples and doesn't mind doing the wrong thing, then Bob needn't do anything. But if Bob's concerned with ethics, then I think the minimal requirement is a return of what's in his possession at the moment.

__________________
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Originally posted by marlo213:

Now, I am not gonna say what he did, but would like to know what you would do at this point?

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Originally posted by dwiz:
I didn't read any of the replies yet, but "what would you do" on the internet when there are morals involved and e-people are judging you and "what would you do" in real life when there is $2,000 involved and nobody knows about it are way different things.

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Originally posted by hilikuS:
I don't think the dude can get too ****ed about you spending some of the cards either. I mean, if Bob didn't shell out the $200, that collection would probably never be recovered by its owner anyway. You came to the event with the money, which you needed for the day. So selling off some stuff isn't a jerk move.

I can't imagine my backpack getting yoked outta the car. I'd be mortified, and if somebody brought it back to me, I would be so freakin' grateful even if some stuff was gone.

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Sure. And when my wallet was stolen (pickpocketed), I was really relieved to get it back (in the mail) with all my cards and stuff: it wasn't great that all my cash was gone, but better than than everything. Still doesn't make it right to have taken the money, though.

The same applies here: the outcome is better than nothing, but the question wasn't about the best outcome; it was about what was right. And it wasn't right to sell cards from a collection seriously suspected to have been stolen without first making an effort to locate the owner. Nor was it right to purchase a collection seriously suspected to be stolen with the intent of keeping it and making no effort to locate its owner.

__________________
"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think they will sing to me." -T.S. Eliot

RIP Ari

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Originally posted by marlo213:
I met a fellow player over the weekend and he shared a story with us which stirred some strong feelings and gave me a bitter taste in my mouth, but I don't know if I would have done anything different given the circumstance that he was in. For the sake of the story, let's call him Bob.

Bob went to some magic event out of town and after breakfast he was walking to his car, a guy approached him and told him that he's quitting the game and wants to sell all of his cards. Bob said sure, let's see what you have. The guy showed him a couple of binders...and they were stacked. Like playsets of duals, fetches and such. Bob said it was probably in the 2k+ range buylist price. So Bob said, he has probably only $200 on him and the guy snap takes the deal.

At this point, it was extremely obvious that the cards were stole, but Bob went through with it anyway. At the tournament, Bob totally scrubbed out and had to sell about $400 worth of cards from the new collection to get some money in his pocket.

Near the end of the event, Bob was talking to some people and someone mentioned that he had a friend that got his car broken into and had his stereo, gps, and all his cards stolen. After describing the collection a little more, Bob figured out that the stolen collection was in his possession.

Now, I am not gonna say what he did, but would like to know what you would do at this point?

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Needless to say, if Bob just walked out and said nothing, then repeated the story of how he bought a stolen collection to a bunch of strangers would be idiotic to say the least. So this is what happened according to him.

At this point, Bob had spent around $300 of the money he had gotten from selling cards out of the collection. When he found out the victim was there, he did what most of you suggested and return the collection to the rightful owner.

After Bob told the friend that he has the stolen collection, the friend immediately want to the owner with Bob and Bob explained to him what happened with a very slight change in story. Instead of saying he sold the cards, Bob simply said that he bought the collection in its current form.

The owner, at the time of when his collection stolen, told the tournament TO immediately afterwards and gave a list of the big cards and all the "unique" stuff he had in it. With the information that he's getting his stuff back, the owner also grabbed the TO to witness the exchange.

When Bob handed the owner the binders, after flipping through the first couple of pages, it was clear that there were things missing. And of course, Bob's explanation was "that's how I got it". When asked how much he paid, Bob said $30 and it wasn't a big deal, he's just happy that the owner can get his stuff back.

This is where things started to go south, the owner, I guess didn't believe Bob's story and asked to see the rest of Bob's backpack. Bob got angry and didn't want to do it, but the owner got even more angry and started saying that he had so much more stuff than that and started to list all kind of expensive cards that were stolen like goyfs, jaces, blah blah blah, stuff that Bob knew for a fact were not in the binders that he got from the thief.

The TO, trying to be impartial asked Bob to just show the owner the rest of his backpack and if the stuff that the owner named were not there, then the two can part ways. However, the stuff that the owner named were cards that Bob had. But they were his and not from the stolen collection.

At this point, they were making quite a bit of noise and people were starting to gather and someone called the security officer/police officer on duty. When the situation was explained to the police, he told Bob that he was in possession of stolen property and would normally be arrested on the spot, but given the circumstance, if he's willing to cooperate and hand over the cards back to the original owner, then he'll be asked to not return to the mall or wherever they were at and be the end of it. Since Bob was far away from home and couldn't afford to get arrested and he was indeed in possession of stolen property, he agreed.

So in the end, the owner stripped most of Bob's decks and two binders, worth about $2-3K. Even now, Bob isn't sure if the owner stole from him or if the thief actually pieced the collection out and Bob only got part of what was stolen. Because there were 4 polluted deltas in the owner's binder and 4 in Bob's deck, the owner only claimed the 4 in his binder and left the ones in Bob's deck alone. However, the owner claimed a bunch of small stuff that Bob knew were a couple dollars at most.

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Originally posted by marlo213:
Needless to say, if Bob just walked out and said nothing, then repeated the story of how he bought a stolen collection to a bunch of strangers would be idiotic to say the least. So this is what happened according to him.

At this point, Bob had spent around $300 of the money he had gotten from selling cards out of the collection. When he found out the victim was there, he did what most of you suggested and return the collection to the rightful owner.

After Bob told the friend that he has the stolen collection, the friend immediately want to the owner with Bob and Bob explained to him what happened with a very slight change in story. Instead of saying he sold the cards, Bob simply said that he bought the collection in its current form.

The owner, at the time of when his collection stolen, told the tournament TO immediately afterwards and gave a list of the big cards and all the "unique" stuff he had in it. With the information that he's getting his stuff back, the owner also grabbed the TO to witness the exchange.

When Bob handed the owner the binders, after flipping through the first couple of pages, it was clear that there were things missing. And of course, Bob's explanation was "that's how I got it". When asked how much he paid, Bob said $30 and it wasn't a big deal, he's just happy that the owner can get his stuff back.

This is where things started to go south, the owner, I guess didn't believe Bob's story and asked to see the rest of Bob's backpack. Bob got angry and didn't want to do it, but the owner got even more angry and started saying that he had so much more stuff than that and started to list all kind of expensive cards that were stolen like goyfs, jaces, blah blah blah, stuff that Bob knew for a fact were not in the binders that he got from the thief.

The TO, trying to be impartial asked Bob to just show the owner the rest of his backpack and if the stuff that the owner named were not there, then the two can part ways. However, the stuff that the owner named were cards that Bob had. But they were his and not from the stolen collection.

At this point, they were making quite a bit of noise and people were starting to gather and someone called the security officer/police officer on duty. When the situation was explained to the police, he told Bob that he was in possession of stolen property and would normally be arrested on the spot, but given the circumstance, if he's willing to cooperate and hand over the cards back to the original owner, then he'll be asked to not return to the mall or wherever they were at and be the end of it. Since Bob was far away from home and couldn't afford to get arrested and he was indeed in possession of stolen property, he agreed.

So in the end, the owner stripped most of Bob's decks and two binders, worth about $2-3K. Even now, Bob isn't sure if the owner stole from him or if the thief actually pieced the collection out and Bob only got part of what was stolen. Because there were 4 polluted deltas in the owner's binder and 4 in Bob's deck, the owner only claimed the 4 in his binder and left the ones in Bob's deck alone. However, the owner claimed a bunch of small stuff that Bob knew were a couple dollars at most.

Sad story huh?

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Sad part is, in my experience this would have happened even if Bob had been 100% honest. Saw this happen to someone, dude lost whole personal collection + the collection he purchased due to "trying to do the right thing" where as the supposed victim got to walk away with a few thousand dollars in magic above and beyond what was stolen from him.

If you are going to return a collection that was stolen that you bought, take it to the TO, then leave, if your still around when the collections owner gets it, things are likely to go south for you really quick.

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Originally posted by marvinc023:
It's exactly what I said would happen when I posted earlier. He would be blamed for being the thief! So either pass on the cards or buy them and don't mention it. I personally would have passed as it seemed sketchy and if it's too good to be true it usually is.

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or worse yet, it's a scam set up to profit.

Seen this before to, make sure you can recover anything sold, claim collection stolen, wait for someone to say they have it, claim stuff missing, pillage collection for stuff, profit. Rinse and Repeat.

EDIT: You could also have people who are so hurt they lost stuff, they are willing to do anything to make themselves feel better, even if it screws someone else over.