Missing models, stolen (UK) - Update: GW Has Sent me replacement models!

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**Mr. Burning**

Formosa wrote:
Thankfully I'm legally trained, so it will cost me almost nothing, a few strongly worded letters to the independent police complaints commission and I should be ok, this is such a clear cut case of mishandling of an investigation they will likely want it over and out the way ASAP.

Sad thing is the more I realize I lost, the higher the tag is going, entire dwarf army is gone, chaos warrior one too etc. It's just adding up and up.

How do you price hard to find or OOP items? If a sum is offered in compensation will you be be able to use something like completed eBay listings as benchmark?

**timetowaste85**

I would imagine he should be able to. That's the current going price, and there is no real way to prove what was paid for it, only the price to replace it.

Formosa, that sucks man. Good luck, and hopefully the suit gets you full new armies. If you find your armies on eBay, make the cops buy them back for you; send them links and ensure they pay whatever the cost.

**Dropbear Victim**

That's terrible.

Someone probably half arsed it thinking it wasnt worth their time due to being "toys". I hope someone gets in deep gak when their superiors get the bill and realise our hobby is quite expensive.

**Kilkrazy**

Very sad news that you almost certainly won't get your armies back. Are they in the Poundstretcher? Can't you even buy them back for cheap? Not fair, I know, but better than nothing maybe.

**bound for glory**

timetowaste85 wrote:
I would imagine he should be able to. That's the current going price, and there is no real way to prove what was paid for it, only the price to replace it.

Formosa, that sucks man. Good luck, and hopefully the suit gets you full new armies. If you find your armies on eBay, make the cops buy them back for you; send them links and ensure they pay whatever the cost.

"Make the cops buy them back for you." Are you high? The police would LOL in your face.

[Comments like this that I have redacted aren't helpful at all.]

**Formosa**

bound for glory wrote:
timetowaste85 wrote:
I would imagine he should be able to. That's the current going price, and there is no real way to prove what was paid for it, only the price to replace it.

Formosa, that sucks man. Good luck, and hopefully the suit gets you full new armies. If you find your armies on eBay, make the cops buy them back for you; send them links and ensure they pay whatever the cost.

"Make the cops buy them back for you." Are you high? The police would LOL in your face.

[Comments like this that I have redacted aren't helpful at all.]

As someone who is very well trained in the legal field, yes, yes I can, this is a very clear cut case of not following procedure and breach of trust, both are grounds to sue for the lost property, as all I need to do is prove there is a "chance" I could have had my property returned to me, which is also clear cut, as phone recordings, cctv, witness are available for evidence.

If they "lol in my face" I then have grounds to further pursue the case with the ipcc.

If they had followed through on there promise to investigate when they claimed they would, I'd have said "fair enough" they tried, they didn't, they lied, they dragged there feet, and now they are liable.

**bound for glory**

Hey man, no offense was ment.

**Formosa**

bound for glory wrote:
Hey man, no offense was ment.

Sorry, as you can imagine I'm a bit touchy at the moment :/

**YouKnowsIt**

I sympathise deeply but there is a difference between incompetence and your crime just being a low priority one. I'm sure you would rather see the police dealing with violent and sexual related crimes rather than pushing shed break ins to the top of the queue. The simple fact is that in the modern world public services have to perform triage. Pursuing legal action just takes resources away that could be spent on tomorrow's victim.

Besides your insurance will cover the financial value to buy them back anyway.

**Formosa**

YouKnowsIt wrote:
I sympathise deeply but there is a difference between incompetence and your crime just being a low priority one. I'm sure you would rather see the police dealing with violent and sexual related crimes rather than pushing shed break ins to the top of the queue. The simple fact is that in the modern world public services have to perform triage. Pursuing legal action just takes resources away that could be spent on tomorrow's victim.

Besides your insurance will cover the financial value to buy them back anyway.

Yeah I wholeheartedly agree, however I'm not flailing looking for someone to blame, they have genuinely mishandled the case, and as they have already admitted fault, I have no recourse but to hold them responsible for the error, the way I see it is, if they get away with this, who else's case will be dealt with in an inept manner next time.

**Mr. Burning**

YouKnowsIt wrote:
I sympathise deeply but there is a difference between incompetence and your crime just being a low priority one. I'm sure you would rather see the police dealing with violent and sexual related crimes rather than pushing shed break ins to the top of the queue. The simple fact is that in the modern world public services have to perform triage. Pursuing legal action just takes resources away that could be spent on tomorrow's victim.

Besides your insurance will cover the financial value to buy them back anyway.

Better the police are held accountable for their errors with a 'trivial' case so that victims can have confidence in the force going forwards than having bad habits set in.

**General Hobbs**

You did tell them the painted models were made of solid gold, and one of the cases held your picasso right????

**Formosa**

General Hobbs wrote:

You did tell them the painted models were made of solid gold, and one of the cases held your picasso right????

Totes, and I defo told them it was ream #yolo

**AncientSkarbrand**

My condolences for your loss, not only of the models themselves but all your work and nostalgia. It hurts me just thinking about it.

I hope you are compensated and some form of justice is given to you. Good luck with the suit.

**Lockark**

Dendarien wrote:
eosgreen wrote:
i have so many other questions

- police actually investigate such things? over in america they say they will look into it but really they don't give a gak

- people broke in and stole a niche sensitive item like models? I would almost certainly start pointing fingers at people i knew

sorry to hear about this though I once put a case under my car to go back inside real quick and came back to find it gone. It was dark so someone just saw me place something down and leave and so stole it because they could. could be a similar sittuation : /

I have a feeling people often steal models without knowing what they are. Locked up black cases just screams valuable.

Hope you get your stuff back Formosa.

This is super true, I had a realy sketchy guy follow me once because of my warhammer case.

Latter I found out apparently he thought I was selling watches. Alot more carefully about were I walk with my cases now.

**Coldhatred**

All the time spent assembling and painting. . .if someone stole my, admittedly, small collection of AoS Nurgle models the loss would be incalculable to me.

**Frankenberry**

Y'know, this blows.

But when calculating the 'cost' of something like this, I don't think, is even really possible. I mean yeah, check retail values, ebay, etc for the price of the actual models...but the time and effort into collecting, building, and painting all of these is, as Coldhatred said, incalculable.

I say, sue for the monetary loss and then find out the personal information of the guy who stole them and arrange for him to fall down some very interesting, shoe shaped, stairs.

**Alpharius**

I've had some unfortunate somewhat related experience in this area too, and I found that police departments rapidly lost interest once they found out they were dealing with 'toy solider' theft, for whatever reason.

You could almost hear them smile and then mentally check out, even though 'value of goods' and 'theft' is all they should really need to hear and focus on.

Still, it sounds as if you've got a sound basis to move forward with them on, so good luck!

**Chapter Master Angelos**

Frankenberry wrote:
Y'know, this blows.

But when calculating the 'cost' of something like this, I don't think, is even really possible. I mean yeah, check retail values, ebay, etc for the price of the actual models...but the time and effort into collecting, building, and painting all of these is, as Coldhatred said, incalculable.

I say, sue for the monetary loss and then find out the personal information of the guy who stole them and arrange for him to fall down some very interesting, shoe shaped, stairs.

I would note, that thanks to the number of miniature painting studios that exist now, it is very easy to get price quotes from several of them, for the models that you lost and turn that in a proof of value for reimbursement of "time and materials invested" as well.

**MeanGreenStompa**

Formosa wrote:
UPDATE: so ladies and gents, after chasing up the police several times I finally got a reply, they have caught the suspect, almost 2 weeks after the tip off was given, they actually did something about it, the person has declined to comment and will likely get away with the crime due to the inept behavior of the officer in charge of the case, I've also been told it's very unlikely I will get any of my property back at this point.

Chain of events:

I received a tip.off that my stolen property was brought into cash converters.
I informed the police, they said they would send an officer immediately to look into it.
A week later I call to ask as to the progress as I have not received the update I was promised.
The officer on the phone informs me that A: nothing was done the week prior and B: the report was filed incorrectly, so can I tell them again.
I was then informed that I would be updated that night, they did indeed call me and told me they had been to cash converters and had a suspect, they would call me later in the week with more info.
2 weeks later, I am informed they basically won't get my property back, even though they have the subject in question, and that he will likely get away with it.

I am now waiting for the case to close, and then suing for mishandling of the case, right from the start it wasn't taken seriously and I have had several officers admit fault via telephone and email, had they acted upon the tip off when they claimed they were going to, the suspect would have been caught with the items on his person, giving the person 3+ weeks is not acceptable.

And there dakka, is the update.

That entirely sucks. And there, ladies and gents, is why I have always made sure to have a few handy friends with the capacity to deal effectively with this sort of situation, because the rozzers don't care. I was badly beaten up as a young teen, the men who did it were known to the police, there were witnesses and yet, because they were in a local sports team, belonged to the right circles and wore the right ties, nothing was done. 'Lack of evidence' said the policeman who visited my hospital bed and spoke to my dad. My dad got them sorted though, properly. I learned the lesson.

I hope you sue them into the earth.

**Da Boss**

It's a shame when the police let people down like this.

Really sorry to hear about this.

**Monkey Tamer**

Probably a drug addict. They will steal anything not nailed down. I'm glad to see there is some recourse in your country when police drop the ball. I've had to explain to victims why I don't have a case to prosecute, and usually it's because a lazy cop didn't want to do his job properly. Thankfully that rarely happens due to a strict local police chief and sheriff who both do a good job.

**aka_mythos**

Alpharius wrote:
I've had some unfortunate somewhat related experience in this area too, and I found that police departments rapidly lost interest once they found out they were dealing with 'toy solider' theft, for whatever reason.

You could almost hear them smile and then mentally check out, even though 'value of goods' and 'theft' is all they should really need to hear and focus on.

Still, it sounds as if you've got a sound basis to move forward with them on, so good luck!

It's very important to make clear the value of what's been stolen very early on. Petty theft is a lot easier for the police to brush off but often times when a collection of anything has been stolen it breaches the threshold and turns it into felony theft, where the police then have much more rigid procedures they have to follow. In my area someone had several binders of magic the gathering cards stolen from their car while they were unloading carrying things to and from their vehicle. The police just dismissed it until he explained the value; just one binder was his trading stock of Magic the Gathering Alpha cards and were worth well over $15k... The police conducted a week long sting operation recovered the property, caught the thief, and put him away in jail for 5 years. The thief thought they were Pokemon cards and worth a few bucks, so he pretty much confessed thinking he'd get a slap on the wrist since he cooperated.

**Huron black heart**

Very sad to hear what has happened.
It's only now I start to wonder how much I have spent on models and their current worth.
And even my other half still thinks my models are toy soldiers so I could understand a copper thinking the same

**Formosa**

UPDATE: Yeah, this is still going on.

The case has been closed without conviction sadly, the police are unable to recover any of the stolen goods, which is gut wrenching to say the least, we are now at an estimated £7000 worth of items taken from my shed, as I have continued to discover more and more that is missing (I own a garage that I also store items at).

But good news of a sort, the complaint has been put forward to the police, and they are not investigating it.
And strangest of all, GW PLC are not talking to me and seeing if they can help, I am quite surprised by this most of all to be honest, but I thank them and am truelly shocked that they would even consider offering any kind of aid, hats of to them and there amazing customer service team.

**KaptinBadrukk**

Formosa wrote:
UPDATE: Yeah, this is still going on.

The case has been closed without conviction sadly, the police are unable to recover any of the stolen goods, which is gut wrenching to say the least, we are now at an estimated £7000 worth of items taken from my shed, as I have continued to discover more and more that is missing (I own a garage that I also store items at).

But good news of a sort, the complaint has been put forward to the police, and they are not investigating it.
And strangest of all, GW PLC are not talking to me and seeing if they can help, I am quite surprised by this most of all to be honest, but I thank them and am truelly shocked that they would even consider offering any kind of aid, hats of to them and there amazing customer service team.

Damn, I'm so sorry.

**Sinful Hero**

That is really strange. I don't believe I've heard of GW offering to help find stolen goods before.

**Formosa**

Sinful Hero wrote:
That is really strange. I don't believe I've heard of GW offering to help find stolen goods before.

not find, REPLACE, I am still totally shocked by the matter too, I'm not expecting anything really, but the offer to see what they can do is... quite frankly, amazing, the offer alone has improved my opinion of them by leaps and bounds.

**JamesY**

Formosa wrote:
Sinful Hero wrote:
That is really strange. I don't believe I've heard of GW offering to help find stolen goods before.

not find, REPLACE, I am still totally shocked by the matter too, I'm not expecting anything really, but the offer to see what they can do is... quite frankly, amazing, the offer alone has improved my opinion of them by leaps and bounds.

That's amazing. If you get a replacement for your loss, either through their offer, insurance, or out of your own pocket, I volunteer to paint one unit or character to help get you going again. I'll never win a golden daemon, but I can paint to a decent standard. It's a genuine and open offer (and no hard feelings if you'd rather not).

**Frankenberry**

JamesY wrote:
Formosa wrote:
Sinful Hero wrote:
That is really strange. I don't believe I've heard of GW offering to help find stolen goods before.

not find, REPLACE, I am still totally shocked by the matter too, I'm not expecting anything really, but the offer to see what they can do is... quite frankly, amazing, the offer alone has improved my opinion of them by leaps and bounds.

That's amazing. If you get a replacement for your loss, either through their offer, insurance, or out of your own pocket, I volunteer to paint one unit or character to help get you going again. I'll never win a golden daemon, but I can paint to a decent standard. It's a genuine and open offer (and no hard feelings if you'd rather not).

And my axe!

Er, I mean, brush!

Whatever, yeah, I'll help paint stuff.