My friend's dilemma

He recently left his girlfriend's laptop in the lunchroom. 10 minutes into class, he remembers and goes back to get it. Surely enough, it is gone.

They file a police report, they go to local pawn shops of no avail. Now they're checking Craig'slist and they find someone who just posted a "WTR" thread with specs that match exactly with his girlfriend's laptop and is selling it extremely cheap.

How can we go about getting back the laptop? We have his email, and the seller sounds extremely sketchy. He refuses to send pictures of the laptop, and suddenly says that he is in Canada. More info to be edited in...

 

[Eliza]

If you filed a police report, how about you tell them someone is selling a laptop online with smiliar specs and hopefully they do something about it.

Did she have the computer password protected?

That wont help because the person who stole it, can just reinstall windows to remove the password :S

I was just curious, as some people dont know that, so maybe this person is dumb enough not to be able to get into it.

 

[SmperFidelis]

Alert the police to check out the seller. They will most likely look into it a bit more. And like Eliza stated, was it password protected? You could also track down where this guy lives, and confront him. Or try disguising yourself as a 3rd party, truly interested in the laptop, then go and meet the thief. Good luck.

 

[Braveheart]

I would suggest what the guy above me said, disguise as a third party (easy to do online), meet face to face, if he lives in Canada, say you live in Canada too, but no matter where you are, hopefully you can arrange a face to face meeting, and meet your fellow friend. Things will automatically go on in there.

If face to face doesn't work, let the police do the job, alert them about the Craigslist thing, and sure enough, if they catch him, the thing goes on from here.

Why isn't there a camera in the lunchroom in the first place? The place where I'm studying college now has cameras in every corner and crook. You can't hide, so basically I'm fine leaving my bags on the outside and pop in the toilet, but in the classroom there's no cameras. So be sure where you are placing your valuables.