# Stolen Camera Finder?



## distant.star (Feb 17, 2013)

.
Anyone familiar with this stolen camera finder service??

http://www.stolencamerafinder.com/


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Feb 17, 2013)

As I understand, if someone were to be dumb enough to post images online that have the exif intact with a camera they stole, it would find the images.
However, camera thieves steal cameras to resell to a unsuspecting third party, who than may indeed post images taken proudly with his new camera. 
However, there is little you can do to recover it.


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## East Wind Photography (Feb 17, 2013)

Well depending on the circumstances you may be able to. A stolen t4i may not be worth it. But a 1dx may qualify for grand larceny and would depend on wether law enforcement wanted to be bothered.

Generally speaking, insure your equipment and replace it possibly with something better. If you find your camera online you can report it to your insurance company and let them deal with it.





Mt Spokane Photography said:


> As I understand, if someone were to be dumb enough to post images online that have the exif intact with a camera they stole, it would find the images.
> However, camera thieves steal cameras to resell to a unsuspecting third party, who than may indeed post images taken proudly with his new camera.
> However, there is little you can do to recover it.


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## jon_charron (Feb 17, 2013)

I tried this. It only works if they post the images with exif in tact on a few particular sites, like flickr. It doesn't scour the internet. My gear was all stolen a year ago, and I've heard nothing after using a few of these services. Unfortunately, they don't track lenses either. Some of my lenses were worth more than my body, but the serial numbers don't get recorded in the exif unfortunately, and the services don't track them anyway. It might be worth it, but it didn't help me.


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## distant.star (Feb 17, 2013)

East Wind Photography said:


> Well depending on the circumstances you may be able to. A stolen t4i may not be worth it. But a 1dx may qualify for grand larceny and would depend on wether law enforcement wanted to be bothered.
> 
> Generally speaking, insure your equipment and replace it possibly with something better. If you find your camera online you can report it to your insurance company and let them deal with it.



Laws differ widely. In California, grand theft is a paltry $400 now. Police won't do much work on such things though. If it shows up as stolen property in a pawn shop or used camera store, recovery is possible -- if you reported it stolen.

I'd have to do a lot more research before I could really talk about the stolen camera world. For example, I don't know how widely a stolen camera serial number would be circulated, probably only within a state. I'd be surprised if the NCIC encompassed such detail as they're more focused on people (warrants, wants, etc.).


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## Menace (Feb 17, 2013)

Worth a try - and if you get a hit, pass on the details to the insurance company. You may not get it back but perhaps it will help your claim (provided one has insurance in the first place).


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Feb 18, 2013)

East Wind Photography said:


> Well depending on the circumstances you may be able to. A stolen t4i may not be worth it. But a 1dx may qualify for grand larceny and would depend on wether law enforcement wanted to be bothered.
> 
> Generally speaking, insure your equipment and replace it possibly with something better. If you find your camera online you can report it to your insurance company and let them deal with it.
> 
> ...


There is a big jump between locating a photo taken with your equipment on Flickr, and finding the person with the camera and actually recovering it. Flickr is not going to give you the name and address of the member, they may not even know who he is, except that they do or should have a credit card number (maybe also stolen). It would take a police department or court order to get them to divulge that information. The person with the equipment may be accross the country from you, and you will have to either hire a attorney or travel to that location to file a complaint with the police. Then, good luck at having them do anything.

So, you may then have to pay thousands of dollars for a attorney and all the court orders, etc to try and get it back.

You have to be pretty lucky to get property given back to you without a hassle and expense. It does happen.

Pawn shops hold property for a period set by the local laws, and search for serial numbers of stolen property. As long as they carry out due dilligence, they will not be charged with being a fence, and the best and quickest way to get your property back is often to just to re-imburse them for what they paid.

If you go to the police, they may seize the item and put it in a property locker for a year or two until you get a court order to claim it.
Thats why I say that there is little chance of recovering it, you have to be pretty lucky, or you just go into paperwork hell.


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## Wilmark (Feb 18, 2013)

I feel this service is currently a waste of time. I just dragged and dropped on of my photos and it correctly identified the camera and serial no. It was unable to find any pictures online taken with the camera - in the past year I have uploaded over 15,000 pictures taken with this camera to my website and facebook and other places. And I have over 750,000 page views of these pictures. So this service doesnt look ready for primetime.


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## jon_charron (Mar 27, 2013)

I paid for it, but have heard nothing from them. I doubt very much that the person who stole my gear has not uploaded any photos to popular sharing sites. Con job I think.


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## East Wind Photography (Mar 27, 2013)

Many sites are now stripping the EXIF information from the images when they are uploaded to conserve space. Considering the numbers of images posted to these sites, that small amount adds up over time.



jon_charron said:


> I paid for it, but have heard nothing from them. I doubt very much that the person who stole my gear has not uploaded any photos to popular sharing sites. Con job I think.


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## digital paradise (Mar 28, 2013)

I would not want mine back anyway. That is way I have insurance.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Mar 28, 2013)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> As I understand, if someone were to be dumb enough to post images online that have the exif intact with a camera they stole, it would find the images.
> However, camera thieves steal cameras to resell to a unsuspecting third party, who than may indeed post images taken proudly with his new camera.
> However, there is little you can do to recover it.


 
I guess I was wrong, some of them are dumb enough  

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/photographer-catches-camera-thief-craigslist-sting-operation-1C9128131


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## Rienzphotoz (Mar 29, 2013)

I vaguely recollect one of the CR members mentioning this website in another thread, last month,
For a layman, Stolen Camera Finder is an interesting website, but beyond that, it isn't all that easy to find out if images from your stolen camera, posted on the net, are from the "stealer" himself or by someone who has actually bought it as a used camera from the "stealer" himself or from a pawn shop or even a low-end camera store. But interesting website nevertheless.


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## Rejay14 (Sep 27, 2017)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> East Wind Photography said:
> 
> 
> > Well depending on the circumstances you may be able to. A stolen t4i may not be worth it. But a 1dx may qualify for grand larceny and would depend on wether law enforcement wanted to be bothered.
> ...



Stolen property of this type is returned ASAP with the proper documentation. By the way, Canadian CPIC keeps all serial numbers of all reported stolen property on file. It is accessible across the country. From any police computer, even in a cruiser. Right down to crappy bicycles...


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Sep 27, 2017)

Rejay14 said:


> Stolen property of this type is returned ASAP with the proper documentation. By the way, Canadian CPIC keeps all serial numbers of all reported stolen property on file. It is accessible across the country. From any police computer, even in a cruiser. Right down to crappy bicycles...



You might take note of the date of the post, and the posters location.

This is a post from 2013.

The poster is in the USA, and whatever is done in Canada is of no help.

He has not posted for several months either.


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## tomscott (Sep 27, 2017)

Put my 5DMKIII on this when it was stolen.

No hits yet, was stolen in March.


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## Valvebounce (Sep 27, 2017)

Hi Folks. 
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for results, I just used all three modes on the free manual search for 2 cameras, 

7DII 
Serial number, Not found, no surprise as it shows unknown on Flickr. 
Internal serial, Not found, is this what Flickr exif lists as Camera ID, it is different from the serial number. 
Image Unique ID, Not found, surprised if this is for example on my 7DII SE0A1234 as there are dozens of shots on my Flickr. 

1DsIII
Serial number, Not found, surprised as it shows in plain text on Flickr. 
Internal serial, Not found, is this what Flickr exif lists as Camera ID, it is different from the serial number. 
Image Unique ID, Not found, surprised if this is for example on my 7DII SE0A1234 as there are dozens of shots on my Flickr

Cheers, Graham.


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