# Does looted stuff often appear on eBay or other online sites? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 1, 2020, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-looted-stuff-often-appear-on-ebay-or-other-online-sites/854843 "2020-06-01T09:50:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-looted-stuff-often-appear-on-ebay-or-other-online-sites/854843/21 "2020-06-04T02:33:26Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Because if I, madam Police detective, spot your selling iphones on ebay a week after the riots, and come round your house and find a stash of boxed iphones for which you don’t have proof of purchase, and the Apple store five blocks from your house got looted, you got some 'splaining to do. If you want to loot an Apple store, you need to break into the secure storage. All of the display models (phones and computers) function in a special demo mode. You cannot reset them to get out of demo mode. They are effectively bricked from the start and allegedly tracked when stolen. If you manage to loot the secure storage area of the Apple store and steal the real stuff, you will never be able to use them as they will be bricked and rendered unusable in short order. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-looted-stuff-often-appear-on-ebay-or-other-online-sites/854843/22 "2020-06-04T02:45:06Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Because if I, madam Police detective, spot your selling iphones on ebay a week after the riots, and come round your house and find a stash of boxed iphones for which you don’t have proof of purchase, and the Apple store five blocks from your house got looted, you got some 'splaining to do. > [@running\_coach](#): > > Especially since the store would have the serial numbers of all the phones in stock at the time of the theft. > [@Duckster](#): > > If you want to loot an Apple store, you need to break into the secure storage. All of the display models (phones and computers) function in a special demo mode. You cannot reset them to get out of demo mode. They are effectively bricked from the start and allegedly tracked when stolen. If you manage to loot the secure storage area of the Apple store and steal the real stuff, you will never be able to use them as they will be bricked and rendered unusable in short order. This is what some radio station was mentioning. Commentators were laughing about the futility of looting Apple stores. Not is the demo stuff a brick, not only can they brick stuff, but certainly a phone is useless unless you can activate it - where the serial number is exposed; and even an iPad is useless if Apple won’t let you download stuff from the App Store based on your serial number. All it means is the second-hand market is useless unless the seller can demonstrate the item is functional. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-looted-stuff-often-appear-on-ebay-or-other-online-sites/854843/23 "2020-06-04T02:51:29Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Online sites are notoriously lax about screening ads. > > Since eBay and (to a lesser extent) Amazon facilitate obvious scams and sales of ineffective/dangerous products, why would they bother to take a hard look at any suspicious sellers? There are a LOT of things that can’t be sold on Amazon without some kind of proof of purchase. For example, both of the third party accounts I manage (my own, and the local library’s) are not able to sell DVDs, not only because of the possibility of selling stolen merchandise, but also because of all the counterfeits floating around out there. The Tuesday Morning chain is also shuttering soon. That doesn’t surprise me, because the store in my old town closed because they found out that some of the employees were skimming the merchandise and selling it on eBay, to the point where the store became insolvent. You just know that’s not the only place where that was going on. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-looted-stuff-often-appear-on-ebay-or-other-online-sites/854843.md?page=1)