Stolen goods up for bid at police auction

A visit to PropertyRoom.com proves thieves aren’t just stealing cash and jewelry these days. They have an appetite for air mattresses, paper shredders and gold dental work, too.

All of these items are available on the auction Web site where buyers can bid on lost or stolen items that police recovered but could not return to the rightful owners after a minimum of 60 days. More than 1,500 law enforcement agencies nationwide contribute items to the site.

The site features everything from bicycles to clothing to a glass ornament filled with ash from the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.

An estimated 9,843,481 property crimes occurred in the United States in 2007, amounting to more than $15 billion worth of stolen goods. Police recover about 28 percent of it but can’t always return the property to the rightful owners, and they have to get rid of it somehow.

Former Long Beach, N.Y., police detective Tom Lane, creator of PropertyRoom.com, said he used to loathe cleaning out the property room at his police department. He said the auctions that the department had to arrange to sell the property were a waste of time and money, especially because the same people attended the auctions every time.

“A local auction may get 100 people,” Mr. Lane said. “We have 30,000 visit our site every day and over a million registered users.”

Jeff Owens, evidence unit supervisor for the Prince William County Police Department, said the department has been using PropertyRoom.com for nearly three years. Even though the department has to split profits with the Web site, it has seen its profits increase.

“We would get the same 50 or 60 people coming to every auction, and they would know they wouldn’t have to bid that much,” Mr. Owens said.

Bicycles and video game consoles are among the top unclaimed items in the county. Police departments are often required to hold recovered property for 60 days; in Prince William County, police are required by law to advertise these items in local newspapers for two weeks.

Heather Maurer said that while she hasn’t been on PropertyRoom.com lately, she has purchased about a dozen pieces of jewelry on the Web site, including amethyst earrings for her mother, a ruby pendant for a friend - even loose diamonds for her wedding band.

“I had the ring made by a jeweler, and he said the quality of the diamonds was excellent, and the price was very, very good,” she said.

Many PropertyRoom.com users, like Ms. Maurer, just browse the site occasionally to search for deals, but Kirill Men of Northern Virginia took it more seriously. He surfed the Web site for at least five hours a day for nine months, spending up to $20,000 a week on gold and other precious metals.

“A buddy of mine told me … when all of these problems are in the world, usually precious metals - gold, something you can touch with your hands - goes up in value, and he is very right,” he said. “My friend does eBay also. … I stuck to Property Room because with eBay it’s a full-time job, but with Property Room it’s a part-time job.”

He said that while he usually received authentic precious metals from the site, he once purchased fake gold. He said he wasn’t too upset about it because PropertyRoom.com dispatched a FedEx courier to his house to pick up the item and refund his money.

Mr. Men said he hasn’t bought anything on the site for the past two months after deciding that, considering the competition, “the time is not worth the profit.” But he said he banked $500 to $750 a month during those nine months.

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