4/21/2010

Is paying $5,000 for a product that you know didn't belong to the person selling it a crime?

Paying for stolen property is a crime. Admittedly, you must know that the goods that are being sold to you are not owned by the person selling them to be guilty. It is a real question that applies to Gizmodo paying to get a hold of the next version of the iPhone.

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posted by John Lott at 12:36 PM

3 Comments:

Blogger KOOK said...

But is there not a difference between stolen and lost? No one stole the phone from apple. An apple employee lost it. Or so the story goes.

If you are a conspiracist like me you could believe all sorts of wild ideas, but then again there is no proof of any of that.

A young man got a little buzzed on his birthday and forgot his (Company's - one of a kind, extremely valuable) phone in a bar. I have lost phones in airports and in restaurants, it happens.

4/27/2010 9:38 AM  
Blogger John Lott said...

Thanks, Keeper. The problem for Gizmodo is that they knew that the person who was selling them the iPhone didn't own it. The $5,000 price also shows that they knew that it wasn't a phone that was properly obtained.

4/27/2010 11:48 AM  
Blogger KOOK said...

Good point, however if gizmodo's story is to be believed they were not sure what it was they were buying. Was it really an apple product or something else? It seems somewhat of gray area to me. Secondly, again using the facts as they reported them, they spent five thousand and THEN returned it to their rightful owner once ownership was proven.
That is akin to buying stolen property, finding the original owner and giving it to them free of charge.

4/27/2010 11:55 AM  

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