4 ms·

Ooooooooohhhhhhh!! So I steal some consumer goods, put them in individual boxes, send them to Amazon warehouse and they distribute for me. I simply never put

Ooooooooohhhhhhh!! So I steal some consumer goods, put them in individual boxes, send them to Amazon warehouse and they distribute for me. I simply never put that together. But surely Amazon is literally handling stolen goods? Is there a smoking gun email?

alfiedotwtf 4y ago
I have bought a lot of books from Amazon, and if you look past the scrubbing with a marker, it's always some library within America - so yes even books from Amazon are just books taken from public libraries.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  That's not necessarily a smoking gun; public libraries often give away old books they don't want to keep around anymore. About a quarter of the books in my personal library are ex-library books, but none were stolen. Of course if it's some popular in-demand book, it was almost certainly stolen. Most of the free library books I've scored are 50 year old textbooks about obscure/obsolete topics.
- toast0 4y ago
  Like the other poster said, that's what libraries do when they're done with books. I help at my kid's school library, mostly shelving books, but also processing discards, which is remove from catalog, remove or mark over the barcode and library stamps so the book doesn't come back, then the librarian has to do some procedural junk and if nobody at the school wants the books, they get sold to a used book wholesaler and then hopefully to someone who wants it. The wholesalers don't pay much, but it helps buy new books the discarding has made room for.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
> But surely Amazon is literally handling stolen goods? Is there a smoking gun email? If Amazon were a mom and pop fence, the local cops could bust them in a sting. But Amazon is a huge megacorp, so even if the cops try to catch them in a sting nothing will stick because Amazon will claim their shear scale rendered them completely oblivious to everything and therefore not criminally culpable. Yeah, it's bullshit.
- philwelch 4y ago
  I mean, RICO was designed for this sort of use case. But Amazon does have lucrative deals with the intelligence community.
- tehwebguy 4y ago
  If you can identify your stolen goods at a local or huge chain pawn shop and your local police feel like helping you can absolutely be made whole by following a process. If you can prove Amazon has or sold your stolen goods you can absolutely be made whole by following a process. I don’t really think our system errs on the side of justice but I think the remedies available to victims in these two scenarios are about appropriate to the respective scenarios.
mikeyouse 4y ago
In the big $8 million bust a few years back in the Bay Area, it turned out that they were paying street criminals more to steal specific items like toothpaste, but the police were frustrated by Amazon’s lack of assistance in figuring out all of the involved parties. Can’t find the specific article at the moment but that really stood out to me at the time. https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Bay-Area-retail-theft-bust-nets-8-million-in-16673449.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Bay-Area-retail-th...
- lupire 4y ago
  Amazing that a corpo can get away with "lack of assistance" when it is participating in a crime syndicate. Imagine if you or I tried that.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Plausible deniability and more lawyers than God helps.
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      God probably doesn't have a lot of lawyers, but Amazon has more lawyers than Satan, too.
      - selimthegrim 4y ago
        Doesn’t Satan really mean like cross examiner or something
        endominus 4y ago
        According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan, it means "Accuser" and "Adversary". Apparently (according to my foggy memories of a video essay about some high-art film) Satan was originally just the dude that would accuse you of all your sins you committed while mortal.

alfiedotwtf 4y ago

I have bought a lot of books from Amazon, and if you look past the scrubbing with a marker, it's always some library within America - so yes even books from Amazon are just books taken from public libraries.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
That's not necessarily a smoking gun; public libraries often give away old books they don't want to keep around anymore. About a quarter of the books in my personal library are ex-library books, but none were stolen. Of course if it's some popular in-demand book, it was almost certainly stolen. Most of the free library books I've scored are 50 year old textbooks about obscure/obsolete topics.
toast0 4y ago
Like the other poster said, that's what libraries do when they're done with books. I help at my kid's school library, mostly shelving books, but also processing discards, which is remove from catalog, remove or mark over the barcode and library stamps so the book doesn't come back, then the librarian has to do some procedural junk and if nobody at the school wants the books, they get sold to a used book wholesaler and then hopefully to someone who wants it. The wholesalers don't pay much, but it helps buy new books the discarding has made room for.

MichaelCollins 4y ago

> But surely Amazon is literally handling stolen goods? Is there a smoking gun email? If Amazon were a mom and pop fence, the local cops could bust them in a sting. But Amazon is a huge megacorp, so even if the cops try to catch them in a sting nothing will stick because Amazon will claim their shear scale rendered them completely oblivious to everything and therefore not criminally culpable. Yeah, it's bullshit.

philwelch 4y ago
I mean, RICO was designed for this sort of use case. But Amazon does have lucrative deals with the intelligence community.
tehwebguy 4y ago
If you can identify your stolen goods at a local or huge chain pawn shop and your local police feel like helping you can absolutely be made whole by following a process. If you can prove Amazon has or sold your stolen goods you can absolutely be made whole by following a process. I don’t really think our system errs on the side of justice but I think the remedies available to victims in these two scenarios are about appropriate to the respective scenarios.

mikeyouse 4y ago

In the big $8 million bust a few years back in the Bay Area, it turned out that they were paying street criminals more to steal specific items like toothpaste, but the police were frustrated by Amazon’s lack of assistance in figuring out all of the involved parties. Can’t find the specific article at the moment but that really stood out to me at the time. https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Bay-Area-retail-theft-bust-nets-8-million-in-16673449.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Bay-Area-retail-th...

lupire 4y ago
Amazing that a corpo can get away with "lack of assistance" when it is participating in a crime syndicate. Imagine if you or I tried that.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Plausible deniability and more lawyers than God helps.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    God probably doesn't have a lot of lawyers, but Amazon has more lawyers than Satan, too.
    - selimthegrim 4y ago
      Doesn’t Satan really mean like cross examiner or something
      - endominus 4y ago
        According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan, it means "Accuser" and "Adversary". Apparently (according to my foggy memories of a video essay about some high-art film) Satan was originally just the dude that would accuse you of all your sins you committed while mortal.