Not related to original post....but not unrelated either...
Couple years ago, bought a new Stihl pole saw. Something like $700 I think?
Used it ONCE to trim something. Went out to use it the second time and ended up at neighbors house, leaving pole saw in my backhoe which was parked on the (dead end) road and we (about 5 of us) were standing about 150 feet away from the backhoe. Truck drove into the area.... came out and when they left, I noticed my pole saw in the back of their truck.
Called Sheriff but got out here too late.
Since it was brand new, I went home, got my receipt which had the serial number on it.
About a year later, got a call from the police.... my saw had shown up at a pawn shop about an hour away. The "seller" of it had violated his probation so I could wait through the court process & get it back afterwards OR, drive there to pay them $150 to reimburse them their fee to him.
I drove the next day & got it.
Couple months later, I got a county (state?) check in the mail which happened to be the reimbursement of the $150 that they must have fined him so in the end, I got things back.
When this began, I specifically told the detective that I do NOT want to know who the perp was...... because if he ended up floating in the lake, I wanted as much ignorance of him as possible lest someone look my way for his demise.
(didn't happen)
I can see where the pawn shop was in a quandry..... it's not fair they're out the money (they should have caught it prior to buying it) but, it's not fair that I had to buy it again (not knowing if I'd get reimbursed or not)
But it wasn't a $30,000 item either, ouch.