A Steal Of A Deal
Hartford Courant, August 29, 2008
J. P. Bellomo sells stolen stuff
on the Internet and has police departments across the country on his trail. But
Bellomo is no cyber-fraudster; he's the CEO of
PropertyRoom.com, a unique and legitimate online auction site that markets
stolen and seized goods for law enforcement agencies.
Like eBay, the site
offers shoppers a changing mix of everything from cars, boats and jewelry to
electronics, designer fashions and power tools. Unlike eBay, most of this
merchandise has been shoplifted, pick-pocketed, boosted from someone's home,
seized in a drug bust or recovered in a raid. Police departments contract with
PropertyRoom.com to pick up, store and sell confiscated goods that can't be
returned to rightful owners.
The company's first auction, featuring merchandise from just a few police
departments, went live in January 2001 and caught the attention of other law
enforcement agencies struggling with overflowing evidence rooms. Over the
years, more and more police stations have signed on.
Currently, PropertyRoom.com has contracts with Houston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New
York City and about 1,500 other police departments.
In Connecticut, Ansonia, Bethel, East Hartford, Derby, Hartford, Manchester, Meriden, New Haven,
New
London, Simsbury, Torrington, Vernon,
West Hartford and
Willimantic use PropertyRoom.com to liquidate stolen goods.
Shoppers register with the site, create "wish
lists" for such luxury items as 9-carat diamonds, Corvette convertibles,
Armani sunglasses and Apple laptops, place bids and pay with credit cards. Most
items open at $1, with no reserve. PropertyRoom.com estimates that the typical
winning bid is 20 percent to 60 percent below retail value.
"Gives a whole new meaning to the term, 'hot deals,'" says Bellomo. "Someone stole this stuff to begin with, but
at our site, the public can legally 'steal' it back."
According to Bureau of Justice statistics, property
thefts account for nearly 75 percent of all crime committed in the U.S.
(13 million such crimes took place in 2005 alone). While much of that
merchandise is returned, some is never identified or claimed. Local police
departments end up with property rooms packed with everything from bikes and
lawn ornaments to computers and silver.
"Police departments across the country face the same problem; what to do
with merchandise when they can't find the rightful owners," says Bellomo. "They don't have enough storage space, but
they can't just sell it. Many municipalities mandate that confiscated goods be
held for a prescribed amount of time and then sold at auction."
In the past, those mandates translated to annual, no-frills events in police
department parking lots or school gyms, staffed by officers working overtime —
until 2000, when Tom Lane,
a former police detective from Long Beach,
N.Y., had a flash of inspiration.
"Those old-fashioned auctions took a lot of effort and didn't result in
much revenue," says Bellomo. "Tom looked at
what was happening with eBay and looked at all the stuff packed in law
enforcement agencies' property rooms and came up with the idea of a specialized
online auction site."
The company collects, catalogs, photographs and tests each item, takes a
commission for their services and returns about 80 percent of sales proceeds to
municipalities.
"The convenience factor is huge," says Pat Noonan, police records
supervisor and property manager for the West Hartford Police Department.
"For us to do our own auctions, we have to store everything for a year,
advertise, organize, pick a day and time and hope people will come. This way,
we just call when we have a critical amount of stuff and Property Room comes
and picks it up. After our items sell, the company cuts a check and sends it to
the town."
Sgt. Louis Melendez of the Manchester Police Department agrees. "They have
much more success than we did in selling this stuff," says Melendez, who
supervises the department's property room. "We were surprised at the
number of people bidding on things we typically have, like bikes, jewelry and
watches."
The site gets 25,000 hits each day. Bellomo says
PropertyRoom.com shoppers are the same people who go to flea markets, yard
sales and even Marshalls — drawn by the thrill of the hunt and the possibility
of an unusual item at, well, a steal of a price.
"Every once in a while, a site comes along that's really different and it
attracts online shoppers," says Ina Steiner, editor of AuctionBytes.com, a
newsletter for online sellers. "Sites like PropertyRoom.com and
Bid4Assets, which works with the U.S. Marshals Service to sell forfeited assets
like cars, boats, planes and property online, have the intrigue of allowing
people to legally purchase stolen goods."
While PropertyRoom.com doesn't know the details of crimes behind the finds,
it's easy to speculate on the origin of such things as bolt cutters, grow
lights, Gucci bags, Apple iPhones, bicycles (the site has sold more than 30,000) and
construction equipment and tools.
Figuring out where more unusual merchandise, such as coffins, a 6-foot gumball
machine, electric elephant ride and a colonoscope (an
instrument used to perform colonoscopies) came from takes more imagination.
"People will steal anything and people will buy anything," says Bellomo. "But with the colonoscope,
we had to post a notice that due to lack of volunteers, this item, unlike our
other merchandise, had not been tested."
What happens if a shopper logs on and sees Grandma's wedding ring or other
object they're sure is theirs? Bellomo says if
someone recognizes an item for sale and can prove ownership, Property Room will
return it at no cost. The company maintains a Steal-It-Back Registry, which
includes the serial numbers of goods listed on the site.
Crime victims can go online to list information on items that have been stolen
and homeowners can list ID numbers of items they own in case the goods are ever
lost or taken. Contact Korky Vann at kvann@courant.com.
http://www.courant.com/features/style/hc-propertyroom.artaug29,0,648966.story