Verified answer

There are some pawn shops that will take anything. No matter its origin. Just give the police a good description...and hope that "Santa" gives you a new one for the holidays.

PS, sorry if you don't celebrate XMas. I didn't mean to offend you.

Good Luck!

I just had my camera stolen about 2 hours ago, and filed a report with the local police. The police officer said that there is an agency that operates with the sole purpose of tracking stolen items via serial numbers. I don't know the name of the tracking company. She said that if I gave her the serial number of the camera, they would put it in the system and report it to this company. I am pretty sure the info would stay in their system for a long time, so the waiting a year idea might not be too good. If my camera were pawned anywhere that reported to this company, which I assume would be most pawn shops, I would get my camera back. This company reports daily to my local police station, so I am hoping for good results.

Giving false information to a Pawn shop is actually a felony. So long as the police report has the serial number they can find the camera for you if the thief has pawned it. But no you can't track the camera from them taking pictures and posting them online, I wouldn't see how that would be possible.

Most pawn shops report items to the police when they are pawned just something pawn shops have to do to make sure they are not getting stolen merchandise. If you gave the serial number to the police it is possible that if it gets pawned they bust the guy.

Pawning Stolen Items

A) It would be illegal to pawn such a camera.

B) It's probably still possible because pawn shops and even Internet auction sites tend not to have very good background checks on that sort of thing.

C) There are probably a few ways you could try to track your camera, talk to your local law enforcement about it. However I'd say the chances aren't all that great; it's one camera out of many, many cameras that are out there, and especially if the thief waits a year to pawn it, it's still possible that you could find it but your chances are slim. I'd recommend investing in a new camera.

I'm assuming that the person with the camera is NOT the same person with the police report!

If you pawn a camera that's been reported stolen, the person pawning the camera can face criminal charges.

With digital technology, a photograph posted on the internet can be traced.

It's amazing what's not visible to the naked eye!

You can pawn a stolen camera. Even though there is a police report on it, I doubt they will find it. I don't think you can track pictures back to a camera.

They could yes. Pawn shops generally dont care if the merchandise is stolen. However, the person pawning the item must show an ID, so there is the potential they could get busted if anyone looks into it. Thats is few and far between though.

only local but if you have a police report and the serial # of the camera the pawn shop is suppose to return the camera to you

One thing you can try is to visit your local pawn shops to see if anyone has pawned one, if you have the serial number & can prove its yours. But now people just sell them on Ebay & stuff, or craiglist which people dont check id's or anything.