No

Smiley, please contact her and tell her that if she doesn't get back with you in the next 24 hours, you'll have her charged with receipt of stolen goods. Even if you don't know her real name yet, act like you do...and when you find it out, do call the police.

As much as I'd like for Smiley to get her badge back, I wouldn't recommend this. Calling the police will do little -- she didn't report it stolen when she realized it was missing, so it's going to be very hard to report it stolen now, especially if there was no sign that her car was broken into. The police will consider it lost, not stolen.

And Smiley can't have anyone charged with receipt of stolen goods, even if it was stolen. She can report it, but she can't charge anyone. No point in making threats you can't back up.

If Ebay can't or won't help here, I'd contact the buyer, explain the story and offer to pay her what she paid for the badge, including shipping. Be ready to throw in a little extra for his or her trouble.

Good luck.

I guess I'm just shocked the Ebay hasn't done anything. The seller lied about the pin (claiming it was vintage) and where she got the pin (an estate sell), that alone should have caused a :confused: to Ebay and the sale should have been halted until they could investigate further.

If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know.

I'm not trying to defend the seller, because I can't tell enough from the seller's description. But I would point out that if the seller thought it was vintage (and actually, he called the design vintage, not the badge itself) or reasonably believed it was from an estate, he may have been terribly mistaken or ignorant, but he wasn't lying.

This isn't a good idea. There was no police report filed, thus, the pin isn't legally considered stolen. All that this would do would be for the buyer to report smiley's email to ebay for harassment.

First, the buyer doesn't need to know that she never filed a police report. Second, if eBay isn't going to respond to Smiley about her problem, then they won't respond to a harassment report either. I've been told they're awful about responding to anything.

I think that if smiley can prove it's her badge, then she has a case.

If it was stolen, you shouldn't have to buy it back...notify eBay.
Good luck! I'm still looking for 2 stolen 1974 badges.

This is probably the best advice yet. For only $26 (+ shipping/extras) you could get your pin back.

I can prove the pin is mine. Still, I have no idea when the pin left my possession. I don't know if I lost it or if it was stolen. Honeychile has contacted her for me, because my ebay account is not allowing me to send emails to anyone. She gave this woman my contact info, but she has never tried to reach me. There is little I can do at this point.

If I just bought something and someone claimed that it had been stolen from them, I think I'd want more than their word.

But to be clear, you said to threaten the buyer with a receipt of stolen goods charge. Why make empty threats? The police will certainly want some proof of it being stolen.
I think she certainly can prove that it's her badge. Smiley herself has said she doesn't know whether it was lost or stolen, so all she can say is that it's her badge.

Smiley, I'm really sorry you're having a hard time with this. I'll still keep my fingers crossed that she calls you back.

I hope she gets it back too!

But I work in a jail 2 nights a week and we have quite a few men who were not only arrested for but convicted of receiving stolen goods when all they did was buy something from an ad in a paper, like a lawnmower, with no clue it was stolen. I used to not believe that they could get jail time for that (how could they know it was stolen?) but the corrections officers told me that it's pretty common and that the buyer is supposed to check into things like that. No idea how.

I wish I could say that I've heard something from either the buyer or the seller, but obviously, the seller is waiting for ebay to get involved, and the buyer has no shame. I've offered the buyer a trade, pin for pin, now - let's see if that wakes him up.

And people wonder how pin collectors get a bad name!

Hmm. The laws are a bit different between where you and I live.

That said, I'm not sure that the same would apply to eBay, given that distinct possibility that the buyer and seller (and Smiley) live in different states.

Regardless of whether it the buyer could be charged with receipt of stolen property (and remember that Smiley says she can't say if it was stolen or lost), I still think that going straight to the threat of criminal charges is a very bad and counterproductive idea. Kind of the catching more flies with honey than vinegar thing.

Shoot, if the buyer bought it for $26, I'd offer him $50.

But I'm glad to see from honeychile that the seller still has it, at least for now.

The seller and Smiley are actually in the same state... just thought I'd throw that in there.