It happened.
I had my gear stolen.
After years and years of playing gigs in some less than questionable places in New England and surviving each and every one of them, this past Thursday it finally happened.
Someone broke into my car and stole a good chunk of my gear including:
- Markbass CMD 102P 2×10 bass combo amp
- BOSS ODB-3 Bass Overdrive (not pictured)
- Morely Series 2 Bass Wah
- Digitech DigiDelay
- Gator G-MULTIFX-1510 – 15″ x 10″ Effects Pedal Bag
- Alesis MultiMix 4
- Sony HandyCam camcorder and tripod with 16G SD card included (not pictured)
- Joyo Power Supply
- edit: Garmin – nüvi 2597LMT – 5″ GPS
No windows were smashed.
Someone picked a lock to get in. Moreover, the total elapsed time from putting the gear in the car and then going back into the venue to discuss payment and then going back to the car: about 20 minutes.
This was not a typical ‘irresponsible’ situation where you wrap your set up, put your gear in your car and then spend the next 2 hours with your gear unattended.
This was 20 minutes. A VERY short period of time, but evidently as I learned, it’s long enough for someone to make a clean break into your car and get away with some very expensive gear – and a lot of it!
Oh – and insurance didn’t cover any of the stolen goods.
So it goes without saying: this was (and still is) a sh!@#y situation.
With All Bad Things, There is a Learning Opportunity
So. This was a bad situation and left me more dubious of downtown Providence and left me feeling like my trust was violated.
But when things are bleak, there is a learning opportunity. 8 of them in fact.
I got my gear stolen so you don’t have to. Here are 8 things I learned from getting my gear stolen.
1. Get Your Gear’s Serial Numbers
When I first cast out a Facebook post throughout all the bass guitar communities and New England musician communities, the very first question was this: did you get the serial numbers?
Serial numbers are the unique code assigned for identification of a single unit.
Basically, the unique combination of numbers and letters that rests on each and every piece of gear, apple in the grocery store, car in the Audi lot, chair from Ikea and beyond.
Serial numbers are the ideal way to keep track of your gear. One serial number per piece of gear and it’s uniquely yours. None else can (easily*) get a hold of it and duplicate it.
Serial numbers are also phenomenally useful for tracking the stolen gear. Rather than simply explaining to a police officer what the gear looked like or what kind of model and make it was (although that’s still very useful information), a serial number is a much simpler way to track down stolen gear – or at the very least keep it on record.
Why?
Let’s say that that piece of stolen gear was trying to get sold at a pawn shop somewhere in Wisconsin. The pawn shop would have to take down all the information about an incoming product including (but not limited to):
- the model
- the make
- and unique identifiers (scratches, scuffs, unique markings)
and a product serial number. Now, if you were to just give the cosmetic information about that stolen gear, that’s subject to interpretation – especially if there aren’t any photos to compare the stolen good to what is showing up in front of the pawn shop clerk.
Whose to say that that stolen gear winds up making it behind the counter because it doesn’t quite fit the match of a stolen item?
With a serial number in hand, the ambiguity is gone.
If your gear had serial number 3456DG1 comes through a pawn shop or Guitar Center and there happens to be a police report out on a stolen piece of gear with a matching serial number, guess whose getting a call from the cops?
You can’t go wrong with having your gear’s serial numbers on hand. Here’s what I SHOULD have done and what you SHOULD do:
- Find your gear and locate the serial number. Usually it’s in a place that doesn’t see the day light – the bottom, the back or somewhere (slightly) hidden
- Write those numbers down on a piece of paper and make a copy of that paper. Store both in a safe location.
- Take your smartphone or a camera and take photos of those serial numbers. Store those photos with the papers.
- Take photos of your gear. Make ’em clear and you can never have too many. Store all those photos in a safe place.
This is your own little insurance policy. Like backing up your computer every few months, doing this will make it so should something go missing, you have all the important information to give the right people so they can identify your gear as soon as it comes back to the public – second marketed or otherwise.
2. The Bass Playing Community is Awesome and the New England Community is, Too
I mean, wow.
Wow.
I was blown away by the response when I posted this to Facebook
The response was huge. HUGE.
Likes, comments, shares, favorites from all walks of life, age – it really was remarkable to see the responsiveness of the bass playing community to problems like this.
I had friends and colleges share of their own good will (click the images below and check out their businesses and bands):
It was also a big deal on reddit /r/bass
Should your gear ever get stolen I can say this from personal experience now: trust in the bass playing community.
There is a zero tolerance among musicians for stolen gear. Everyone shares some level of sympathy and reflects that. Like a family who lost a love one and the neighborhood coming out to pay respects, that truly is the most apt comparison to when someone looses gear and the response of the bass playing community.
3. Learn How Pawn Shops and Guitar Center Handle Stolen Goods
As soon as I found that my gear was stolen, two thoughts went through my head:
1. Who the F$%^ did this?! and
2. Where could it go?
More often than not, stolen gear has one of the following happen to it:
- Winds up on ebay
- Winds up on craigslist
- Winds up in a pawn shop
- Never appears again – either at all or not for many years (as I learned form the comments replying to my stolen gear story on Facebook)
Some site (like ebay) have their stolen goods policy out in the open (ebay’s stolen goods policy)
Other places, I found out you need to do a bit of digging.
For example, while inquiring about used gear with a Guitar Center in California, I asked what their policy was on stolen goods. The accessories woman put me on hold and patched me through to the manager. The manager was very friendly over the phone and neatly explained what the overarching Guitar Center stolen goods policy is. In a nutshell:
- All used gear that enters Guitar Centers across America go through a ‘background check’
- If that background check unveils a police report or some document suggesting the gear in question is stolen, the person who brought it in is questioned by police
- Gear is on hold for a period of time before it goes live for sale. In that time, that’s when the background checks and all that go through
According to this manager, the hold times can vary from store to store but there is a hold period in place and it’s worked as a good catch historically.
Pawn shops, however, are more dubious and have a wider range of variance. For example:
- Pawn shops act pretty independent of one another
- That means different hold times (as low as 14 as long as 30)
- How pawn shops document incoming gear (to the level of detail) can vary
- HOWEVER, all incoming merchandise must be added to a federally observed database that keeps a ‘master record’ of incoming items and transactions, again, to catch potentially stolen items.
- Police reports, however, can range from someone having to come in and hand a pawn shop a police report and say ‘here’s some stolen stuff- keep an eye out for it’ to a pawn shop being automatically updated of all police reports incoming so the shop automatically is in the know of stolen gear.
- Pawn shops have to take notes on all things that come through: serial numbers, unique traits, model, year, make, etc. on all things coming to sale.
Craigslist is the wild west of the second hand market.
It’s left to the browsing person to catch what may or may not be stolen. As a result, if you’ve ever had something stolen, your friends and family probably told you to check Craigslist daily.
I know I got that advice.
But wait – what do you do if you DO find your stuff on Craigslist?
Well, an ABC report on what you should do when yours things wind up on Craigslist says:
1. Once your items have been stolen, check Craigslist early and often. Stay on the case. Some items appear with hours, others may take days, months, even years .
2. DO NOT try to buy back your stuff. Involve law enforcement if you think you have found your stolen items on Craigslist.
3. You can ask the seller to send you more photos of the item you suspect is stolen. This can be helpful to law enforcement, but again, DO NOT try to buy back your stuff.
While I had peace of mind knowing that there was a system in place to catch stolen gear, recovered stolen property has a wide range of success. According to the FBI’s statistics on stolen property, cars have the best recovery rate at 56%.
Currency has the worst at 3.2% and it doesn’t get much higher than that for, well, just about everything else.
The average percentage of recovered goods is about 5%.
5%. That’s it.
As if your spirit wasn’t crushed yet here’s more: pawn shop handling can change from pawn shop to pawn shop, county to county, state to state and so on.
There is very little consistency and every business can be slightly to radically different in how they handle gear.
It never hurts to make calls and ask – point blank – how do YOU handle stolen property? and gauge the response for yourself.
4. File a Police Report ASAP
“But Mike! The chances of my gear are basically nill! WHY should I file a police report?”
Well, good question.
Because without filing on, there is NO chance of your gear getting found.
At least with a police report, it’s on an official record that X, Y and Z items were stolen at this particular location at this time. Your information can then be used as part of a data set, maybe to put better security in an area to prevent future theft from occurring.
Why fill one out ASAP? Because waiting can cost you.
Also with a police report there’s a CHANCE your gear can come up found (unfortunately it’s around a 5% chance – but that’s better than nothing).
Now, I had to remember on the spot what was stolen. The big items I could remember, but I’m certain there were little things I missed in the report and now will forever be off the record. This all ties back to the first point: keep good record of your gear so when this thing happens, you’re ready.
5. Find People Who Can Help You Out
Musicians are a tight knit community.
Sure, we might have our egos come showtime, but as players who often play the same venues, run in the same circles and encounter each other in different places more often than not, we all understand the life of a musician and the sentimental value of our gear and take pride in our craft.
So when gear goes missing it’s likely that there is a network of people you can turn to when things go south.
In my case I had a small mental list of people I knew who I would reach out to personally with this message of distress and figuring that they would be able to help out in their own unique way.
These were people who had large followings and were largely connected in the Connecticut and Rhode Island and sent them a message and the link to the story detailing what had happened.
100% of the time who I thought would help me actually did. And because these people have large followings, the word spread that much faster to people who may not have seen it or been involved with other Facebook groups or connected to me.
It might seem obvious – but too often people over look this. USE your network of people!
Other Things You May be Wondering Answered
Now I’m sure that amidst this post you probably have some questions. Here is my attempt to preemptively answer those questions.
1. Was There a Camera that Caught This on Tape?
Unlikely.
Believe me – my first thought after this incident was to go back into the club and demand to see the security camera footage of the alleyways that belonged to the club.
As it turns out, this event happened to happen in the blind spot of the camera’s eyes. So no, this wasn’t caught on film – no people, no getaway car, no nothing.
2. What About Putting Things in the Trunk?
This saved my bass and my laptop and it probably would have saved my pedals if I had room in my trunk at the time. If these were in the backseat, they would have been stolen too. Guaranteed.
Putting gear in the trunk for save keeping is a smart alternative to putting it in the backseat simply because it’s out of plain sight. It takes away the issue of someone wandering through parking lots peeking into car windows looking for targets.
With your gear in the trunk of the car, it’s out of sight. Unseen gear means your car is less likely to be a target (ideally).
Moreover, breaking into a trunk is messier and often louder than simply smashing a window and unlocking the door.
Conclusion
This whole situation was a terrible one and I don’t wish it on anyone. As a bass player and musician who probably has their own gear that they value and would never wish to see gone, protect yourself.
Learn from my mistakes and prepare yourself. What’s beautiful about preparing for this kind of thing is that it’s free to do. It doesn’t cost you money to take pictures and keep some handwritten documents in a folder. Replacing gear costs money. And in my case, a couple hundreds.
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