Buying Stolen Goods

Personally, I seriously doubt that many of the health and beauty aides you find around flea markets are stolen. It just doesn’t make much sense to me that someone would risk going to jail over a $2 bottle of shampoo to resale for half that price. There may be a few that would but I can’t see that as being the norm. I know that in my part of the country there are tons and tons of “salvage” auctions just about every weekend. You can go to these things and buy a pallet full of cosmetics/health and beauty aides for $10 to $15 each! If someone sells them for $1 an item then they still make darn good money.

Unless I knew for a fact they were stolen, I would buy them and not blink an eye. I for one think that the majority of these people are hard working honest people and just like the rest of us….simply trying to make a living.

Since I can’t seem to figure out how to edit my previous comment, I will just continue here. The article your referenced is talking about ONLINE auctions…not your neighborhood flea market. There is a big difference there. At the flea market, I can see someone has tons of the stuff which convinces me that they are legitimate versus online auctions in which they are only offering up one item.

So what about the people that buy goods for low to no price and resell? Couponing is a HUGE craze out there for many people, mainly women but some men get into it. And I have seen first hand how you can combine a coupon and a sale and get say pert plus shampoo for free. People that do this consistently end up with HUGE stockpiles of the stuff and will turn around and sell the excess. There is NOTHING illegal or immoral about this and for you to make an assumption that someone must have stolen a product because they are selling it is very small minded.
You cant live your life worrying about what someone else has done. IF you know for SURE that a product is stolen then do not buy it! But if you have no proof then what is the harm? You are only making an assumption something was stolen and that is wrong.

I have to add that I looked at the list of ‘commonly stolen products’ and a lot of those items are ones I have seen people purchase for little to no cost with coupons and a sale. Walgreens is one place that people can do this because of some of the good sales they have. Check out http://www.allrecipes.com and you will see what I am talking about. This website is where people post purchases they have made.
A lot of the razors that were listed on the ‘commonly stolen products’ list are ones that often times will have $4 off coupons. Combine that with a sale and/or a store coupon and register reward and you can get them for very very cheap and sometimes free.
Just something to think about!

That link was supposed to be http://www.afullcup.com

I agree with the other comments. I see no reason to assume that because it’s being sold at a discount it’s stolen. We have shops that make a business of buying up overstock items from large businesses for pennies on the dollar.

I have too agree, people who don’t work retail don’t realize that what they are buying is possibly stolen merchandise. Not to say don’t buy it but ask who the wholesaler is at the least.

I work at a shoe store and since the recession we’ve lost, and prevented, a lot of un-purchased product walking through the door. It ranges from cheep socks to $100+ boots depending on who we watch. They come in groups and grab what they can and leave.

And they do resale them, I’ve seen an add on craigslist posted the day after the item was taken. Too bad there isn’t a thing we can do about it.

One person asked why risk jail for cheep items? Simple they don’t. Unless you are 110% sure that person has the item and saw them concealing it; there is nothing you can do about it. They can walk out the door and show it to you and you still can’t do a darn thing. Why? Because you are innocent till proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Retail theft is almost impossible to prevent sad but true, fear is a retailers only ally.

Give me a break–
reselling $100+ boots that they’ve stolen from a store is WAY different than a person who wisely uses coupons to buy health and beauty products from a drugstore and resells their excess product at a flea market. I think the author of this article needs to learn some more about frugal living if she doesn’t understand how much product you can BUY carefully using coupons in combination with sale prices and store promotions.

I am HIGHLY suggesting that you edit or remove your post about stolen health and beauty items being sold at a flea market. You might have experience in retail and might be highly knowledgeable in that regard, but to write an article like this shows your EXTREME ignorance to the world of couponing and stockpiling.

Perhaps you should do some research and that might convince you to delete or GREATLY edit this blog posting. You are making us stockpile re-sellers look like THIEVES (and I actually work in law enforcement and do this on the side!) Thanks to ignorant folk like you, I’m going to get customers turning me into the police for no reason. IT IS RIDICULOUS.

Please do your research. Look at AfullCup.com as mentioned above… for example, those fusion razors that are “so frequently stolen”… Walgreens had a sale where they were $8, you use a $4 coupon, and the Walgreens coupon machine spits out a another coupon for $4 off your next walgreens coupon. Rinse and repeat and you can get a HUGE stash of fusion razors for free.

That’s how we do it. we do NOT steal.

With all the frugal persons, elderly or unlucky people who end up losing their homes who are wise about the use of money and have a little stockpile, estate sales in the more modest neighborhoods can really be a find. (The rich people usually think their ‘designer label’ castoffs worn 1 year are worth the price of gold). If you can clean something up a little sometimes, it has a lot of life left in it. Just wait until the last day near closing time and sometimes you can just make an offer. A lot of the more money responsible people will have a good stash of some of their most frequently used products too that just didn’t get used up. There’s no telling unless you browse the house a little. What doesn’t get sold by the ‘estate sale professionals’ gets dumped on a ‘trash collector’ who may make a profit at some kind of sale.

Really stay clear of the perpetual garage sale people with a garage so full that has a ‘garage sale’ sign in front of the house at all times, it’s usually just another kind of ‘trash collector’. Most municipalities and ‘planned communities’ frown on this type of situation.

Another point of view, if you are satisfied with some basic products, some of the dollar stores can really be a good buy on a few things. If you don’t like the product, pass it along to the unfortunate (you define this).

The blogger/author may have a point on some items where their are one or two for sale, but I think it is RARELY. I visit many different flea markets around the country I see these couponing people at a lot of them. Usually they come with a lot of stuff, NOT just one or two shampoo and broken bicycles.

I also have read these couponing sites and see how they do it. Since I don’t have the time to do this myself, I consider these coupon hobbyists more like Personal Shoppers who find me great deals, so I don’t waste my own time…Seems like the author has some kind of prejudice and is judging a book by its cover!

Its ignorance to believe items at flea markets are stolen. If someone is going to steal to re-sell…why would they pick a $4 item to sell for $1??
Too me, sounds like you just wanted to have some dumd idea to write about. Search the web and do your homework on smart shoppers.

Or better yet, write a blog about why Americans are so afriad of free stuff?

For the last year I have been stockpiling the products I get (not stolen) from couponing at Walgreens & CVS. Both stores have wonderful programs and if you use your coupons wisely, you can get so many items for little out of pocket expense. This year I started having yard sales reselling the items I get at a good price for people, helps me out, helps them out. But my items are not stolen, and believe me I keep a pile of receipts just in case it is questioned.

I know many couponers who stockpile the items they buy from drugstores and then resell them. It takes time but it is worth it because many of them are SAHMs and this is a way to earn a little income.
Any second hand item could be stolen. I see no reason to be suspicious of drugstore items being sold.

There is a better way to steal products from stores, steal their money at the same time! There are ways to get paid money just to purchase the items. It is so simple that it confuses most people, and then other people think that nothing should be free. Please do your research or any research before misleading people. This site is about frugal living, well what is more frugal than making money on both sides without any $ spent? This month Glade has paid my car payment just from buying it, and after selling it I paid my mortage.

Just to clarify: I did not say that ALL health and beauty items sold at flea markets were stolen goods. I do recognize that there are people who sell items that they’ve gotten free after rebate or coupons (I get plenty of items this way myself). I’m simply saying that there are enough people selling stolen health/beauty items at flea markets to turn me off to purchasing these items there. AND I don’t think you can assume that the people selling one or two items are the ones who may have stolen them. There are plenty of theft rings that steal in volume for the express purpose of reselling at flea markets. One person may only be able to grab a few things, but a groups of theives can certainly grab enough to stock a flea market booth. Just something to think about.

Are you kidding me?? You know ‘for certain’ that there are people selling stolen HBA products–thats Health, Beauty, and Accessories since you must not use Google much. At a flea market I shop and sometimes sell at, every single HBA seller out there is couponing. How do I know? Because I stop, and ask them, and we share sales and tips. Keep in mind this is one of the biggest flea markets in Texas. I’d like to see some evidence, or you should take down your post and stop giving couponers a bad name–on a site called FRUGAL LIVING at that! And maybe people do steal socks and boots at Foot Locker and resell them, but those aren’t HBA products now are they???

Maybe you should avoid flea markets altogether since you can’t seem to appreciate hard-working people trying to get some extra money on their weekends.

Here are some articles to give you an idea of how big of a problem this really is:

http://www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/2006/just/1123n10.htm

http://www.enterprisenews.com/news/cops_and_courts/x711196373/Stolen-goods-ring-broken-by-Raynham-authorities

http://www.walmartcommunity.com/2009/06/organized-retail-crime-a-burden-for-all/

http://www.stopretailcrime.com/white-paper.php

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/31/BA3EUPVGF.DTL

Here’s a story about $500,000 in stolen goods being seized at one flea market in a single day:

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/15358838/detail.html

Hello.

YOU up there.

“frugalliving”, did you even READ what was posted.

What does any of that have to do with you putting all people selling this items at flea market into one basket?

You are obviously both ignorant and arrogant…so much so, that you won’t even reply to the specific statements once corrected.

Good luck on getting paid a few cents to write this column….this is the most traffic you’ll likely get all year.

I am afraid the author is providing FALSE evidence to scare people that actually has nothing to do with her topic.
Provided links
1st = Canada, yes Canada…Should we also not open any email at all because of the Nigerian email scams? = UNRELATED SCARE TACTIC
5TH = Not one HBA item listed = UNRELATED SCARE TACTIC
6th = No mention of HBA items article. Video showed 3, yes only three HBA items, the rest they showed were a large box of tools = HHHMMMMMmmm 1/2 million in HBA, I think not.

By reviewing couponing sites, I see there are A LOT MORE people who resell things honestly WHILE OBEYING THE LAW, than crime rings at every flea market.

What the stories showed were a lot more items being stolen & sold than than compared to HBA items. Also in the same articles provided by the author, those same authorites said “THERE ARE A LOT OF GOOD PEOPLE SELLING AT THESE FLEA MARKETS”….again this just shows the authors prejudice and scare tactics….

As written in arcticles most flea markets and ALL products in those flea markets are HONEST LEGALLY SOLD PRODUCTS….Minimal to none is the amount of fake or stolen products at flea markets….

Also, ALDI’s profit margin is just like other store, meaning that cheaper price is because of a cheaper lower grade product, NOT A LOWER PRICE FOR THE SAME ITEMS.

Wow, good blog. You sure got some readers juices up. Better than no reaction at all.
I would have to say that I want to believe that all traders are honest, so I buy. In reality I know they are not and shame on them for hurting the honest venders. I managed shoe retail for years and in one area of town I consistantly had work boots stolen. It is hard to prosecute and I sure was not going to run after the thieves to catch them. Exactly how these boots were sold I do not know. I was told they were sold individually on the street, for the most part. They also were returned for cash refunds, to me or other stores. And as hard as I stood my ground that there was no receipt Corporation would not back me (customer service)I would doll out hundreds of dollars a week (sometimes a day) on boots I knew were stolen.

“One person may only be able to grab a few things, but a groups of theives can certainly grab enough to stock a flea market booth.”

So can couponers. We can and we do. Please don’t discourage people from saving money by buying from us.

Why are you guys flaming this person? Stating a point is fine but you’d have to be rather dumb to think she is condemning everyone for selling or buying ‘cheap’ products at flea markets.
“And since there’s no way to tell the stolen goods from the non-stolen goods, I simply choose not to buy any of it.” ~how does this translate to you?
I think it is a valid point on an important issue.
NOT ONCE does she say ‘Don’t buy such and such products from Flea Markets or Online Auctions as they are probably stolen.’ And yet she is treated as if she had.

Hope you all get your egos unstuck and stop being plain rude. Its a big world outside your boundaries try to remember people have different perspectives and a right to an opinion.

To Curiosity,
Quoting you 1st time: ” try to remember people have different perspectives and a right to an opinion”

Quoting you 2nd time: ” Why are you guys flaming this person? Stating a point is fine”

It seems you give advice right after you make it look like you need the same advice…

We are also entitled to our opinion. This is a publicised blog, which also has a comment section for same AND/OR diffences of opinions. The author is obviously trying to spread her opinion via this blog. She is also not providing any unbiased advice, just “Don’t buy it”

She might just as well say something more prejudice or ignorant like “I can’t tell which vendors sell illegal stuff, so I just do not buy any stuff”. Singling out any certain type of business & making it seem like it is mostly criminals will draw the ire of any particular business.

“I won’t buy shampoo, razor blades or any other health and beauty product from a flea market – even if they are practically giving the stuff away. Why? Because I spent enough years working retail to know that a good number of those items are stolen goods”

Absolutely ridiculous, and thoroughly ignorant. Not only that, this blanket statement does nothing but harm those people who work daily to find these items at excellent prices in order to ‘practically give the stuff away’ at a flea market and still make profit.

This economy requires many families with zero traditional income to come up with creative ways to pay for the groceries – one of these ways is creative shopping with flea marketing. These sales at the swap meets and markets may be the only income a family gets in a given week.

Your comment is ignorant and irresponsible, quite frankly. I, too, have spent many years in retail and am well aware that items walk out of the stores – certain items more than others (I seem to remember a certain OTC pain reliever finally going behind the counter because it couldn’t be kept in stock – same with some of the cold medicines that are now legally regulated due to their involvement in drug manufacturing). However, I know better than to think someone was walking away with 2-5 bottles of pain killer at a time to fund their flea market schemes.

I can legitimately pick up a case – a CASE – of drugstore items for the cost of tax and resell them at rock bottom prices at a flea market. Doing that is far easier than saving the money on tax and trying to shuffle out the door with a handful of items hidden in bags and clothing.

Do I encourage you to buy at flea markets? Of course not, I don’t mind where you buy – but I do mind that you’re applying a blanket statement towards resellers and using your platform here to denigrate resellers as potential thieves. As a supposed authority on “frugal living,” I would think you’d know well that there are ways to legitimately pick up huge amounts of drug store items for pennies on the dollar, so I find your comments very irresponsible.

“I managed shoe retail for years and in one area of town I consistantly had work boots stolen. It is hard to prosecute and I sure was not going to run after the thieves to catch them. Exactly how these boots were sold I do not know. I was told they were sold individually on the street, for the most part…”

Since WHEN have shoes and boots become health and beauty products? This woman did not originally talk about shoes and boots, in her idiotic diatribe about flea markets, she talked about health and beauty products. Seems to be a lot of purposeful not-understanding going on by a couple of those who stuck up for the author and of course, the author herself. (Right. My mom and I stick hundreds of thousands of dollars of items from my local CVS to have a table at a flea market. OOOH! You caught ‘on’ to us. Give me a break. Lame blog.]

I really hate flea markets & don’t shop at them so I’m already biased here.

That aside, my uncle works as a PI in FL & his main work for numerous years was to bust large theft rings from common stores such as TJMaxx, Marshalls, etc. The stories he told me about these busts were insane. The majority of the theft ring busts were done at flea markets. They would follow suspected thieves to flea markets in the area & eventually bust them with their vehicles full of stolen goods waiting to be sold. This is/was definitely a huge deal down in FL & I assume, all across the country.

While it’s true that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I can honestly relate to both sides here. From my uncle, I know it is a huge problem, one that paid his salary for many years & lanuched him to the top of his game in the PI field. Whether or not it’s HBA or shoes or clothes even, the problem exists & is a big one. If someone wants to boycott flea markets because of this known issue, so be it. I feel we all make decisions like these based on our own personal ties & there is nothing wrong with that. Purchasing power is one of our greatest assests.

Kuddos to the couponers. I’m sure the author has nothing bad to say against you, as I’m sure nobody would. It’s a shame horrible people have to ruin things for the good ones but that’s life.

In the end, we all make our own choices. One blog should not change that. Make up your own mind.

honestly YOU are ignorant if you think garage sale items like shampoo and razors are stolen.
i’m shocked they let you write on about.com

my son (an attorney in solo private practice) represents several individuals and small groups which purchase convenience stores and gas stations in an urban area. one store, in particular, the owner discovered that his employees had a well organized plan to steal much of his inventory on a regular basis. it was going out the backdoor all most as fast as incoming stock was shelved. the managers blamed it on the ‘low class’ neighborhood and shoplifting. THEN when the crime was reported to white collar crime in the jurisdiction, the cops were completely uninterested because it didn’t meet some $ threshold to bother their time with! this stuff all wound up at flea markets. mostly H&B and typical convenience store drygoods. i’ve seen this stuff at a huge flea market myself.

stockpilers and couponers are doing nothing wrong and shouldn’t be painted with the same brush of negativity as these thieves. but, the fact is, many of the more ‘portable’ items found at thrift stores could easily have come from a store or truck illegally.

that said, i won’t buy a lot of it because it’s too near its expiration date. i’ve been burned with spoiled or worthless items, including H&B, dry cereal, etc that was not useable. no savings there! i assumed those were odd lot buyers that didn’t think people would check expiration dates – and i didn’t the first time. but, i’ve found the same problem at some dollar-type stores. so, check the expiration dates if it’s something that could spoil or go stale.

i dont’ have much time for flea markets anymore, but there are great values to be had there.