Here are some serial numbers to watch out for when buying players second hand. These players were all stolen by electronic fraud at one time, but many of them are likely to have legitimate owners by now (in so much as they are unlikely to know the history of the goods). Please don't get aggressive if someone tries to sell one of them to you!

I make no guarantee that the list is accurate. If you own one of these players legitimately let me know. If you own one illigitimately you're welcome to let me know that too

Rob

080000255
090000622
090000654
090000683
090000753
090000756
090000799
090000808
090000812
090000830
090000868
090000919

Seriously though... If someone bought one of these players from a hot source... who owns the thing?

The general rule that applies in most western countries is that since legal ownership of the goods never left Empeg Ltd (or whoever owns them now e.g. SonicBlue), that the "owner" is still in fact Empeg Ltd.

Its a common prinicple in common law that you cannot obtain better entitlement to (stolen) goods than the person you bought them from [unless of course you happen to be a goverment, in which case you can do what you like - including passing laws to make certain kinds of theft "legal", but thats a different thread].

The nett effect is that, legitmately buying stolen goods gives you no more rights to the goods than the person you bought them from, even if they to acquired the goods legitimately themselves etc down the chain back to the guys who obtained the goods illegally i nthe first place.

Its true of cars as well - there are occasional situations where people sell cars without obtaining clear title (either since the cars are stolen, or because they never paid the finance company all their money so they never released ownership of the car), then many owners later, the repo guys (or the law) turn up to get the car back. And can do so legally as the (legal) ownership of the car never actually changed hands, so all the repo guys/the law are doing is recovering "stolen" property.

In such a situation you are not only out of pocket for your "repossessed" car, and you may get charged with "receiving" stolen goods.

Of course, if its a cross-border situation (as undoubtedly these stolen Empegs are) then its very difficult to enforce.

Of course, any recovered stolen Empegs now are worth less than half it was at the time it was acquired illegally- and not just due to depreciation either.

That is a shame that you'd get repo'ed for something you THOUGHT you bought legit and clear.

So, what if anyone here had a stolen empeg and wanted to do the right thing and give it back to SonicBlue? Would they be out the cash? Or would SonicBlue maybe help get the buyer their money back from the seller, up and up the chain untill the thief ended up paying the price? That'd be nice. Kind of a "thanks for giving us our stolen goods back" thing.

There are protections against this happening.

1. If you buy a car from car dealer, then if its later shown to not have clear title, you get your money back.

2. There are "security registers" whereby the finance company has to register their "interest" in the vehicle/property. Any registrations will show up on a computer check and you can then (as a buyer) resolve who owns what.
Of course for this to work you have to have a unique and unchangeable serial number - cars have a VIN stamped in the vehicles firewall, and several makes now scatter VIN labels throughout the car in secret places, so if you cut the car up and reassemble it from stolen pieces, you can identify the pieces.
Of course, this is pretty extreme.

I'm not sure that SB would want a stolen Empeg back - unless its wanted for a criminal trial say (as evidence), that SB wouldn't bother with someone who purchased it.

They might however want to know who you bought it from in order not to press charges for receiving stolen goods, in order to trace the original thieves down.

Is there another way to find out the serial. The label on the bottom of mine has worn away--not intentionally mind you but I carry the damn thing everywhere in my laptop bag. Come to think of it I may have posted it back in the old scam artist thread. If anyone finds it I would like to have it for future reference.

ser#010101499 I found it in the old thread.

Is there another way to find out the serial.

About menu on player. Too tired to link you to the FAQ entry on it.

You could also identify the serial number in the network MAC-address though . DHCP-administrators on the lookout...

Well to add to the list of bad s/n's

90260227 well that was on the box but according to my old ristry entry the s/n was 010101904 so either was it was bad

This one got "removed" from my car without my blessing...

Sorry to hear that! Make sure to contact support directly with that information.

In the UK if the car was bought under the Hire Purchase Act 1964 anyone who purchases the vehicle and is not in the motor trade and is not aware of the HP agreement holds "good title" to the vehicle. This means that somebody selling a car they have under HP is still liable for the payments and the buyer legally owns the car. If the car moves through a trader while under HP the buyer is still ok.

I suspect if you buy it and the person selling the car tells you it's on HP and that they will pay it off using your money and then doesn't pay if off you are stuck 'cos you are not "iinnocent" of the HP agreement.

Gareth

To clarify, we didn't sell any empegs on HP.

We may have sold some _to_ HP, or at least some of their staff!

Rob

I've heard one person who said their empeg helped them get out of a ticket when they got pulled over by the HP.

Anybody else want to give another meaning of HP? I'm waiting for somebody to explain how HP sauce is related to their empeg!

- Trevor

What did he do, give the empeg to the officer?

I was going to point out that cars generally run better on gasoline than on HP, but then thought better of it

Oops.

Highway Patrol.

HP Sauce, Solaris movie, what's next, Irix beer?

Incidentally, in Pittsburgh the HP bus goes to Apollo once a day. No joke.

My girlfriend likes my HP.

There had to be some reason for her to go out with you.

haha, good one. At least I weigh under 300 pounds.

*crickets*

Hey man, I was just kidding. Don't get all emotional.

I've always found it's the nature of walking personality defects to insult another person's physical appearance. But then, that's just my observation, so don't take it to heart.

What's the serial number of your player again..?

heh. 080000255

*Bzzt* [Destruct Mode Activated]

Wait!!! He gave you my serial number