Unfortunately, theft is a problem that troubles most every community from time to time. And every gold buyer and pawn shop must occasionally contend with the problem firsthand when thieves attempt to sell stolen items. The sad truth? Many gold buyers and pawn shops earn their poor reputations by thriving on the purchase of stolen goods. Rather than turning away suspected thieves, they intentionally offer lower prices on items they suspect are stolen.
Not JewelRecycle.
Unlike many of our competitors, we never buy items that we have reason to believe may be stolen. On the contrary, we actively partner with local law enforcement and home invasion victims to identify and recover stolen items. In fact, over the years we’ve helped solve over a hundred home break-in cases — and returned dozens of stolen items to their rightful owners.
Not All Gold Buyers and Pawn Shops Curb Crime
The gold-buying industry is regulated to help prevent the purchase of stolen goods. In order to operate, JewelRecycle and other gold buyers must maintain a precious metals buying permit.
What does this mean?
It means we must fingerprint all of our staff and conduct background checks (and we can’t hire anyone with a felony offense on their record). In addition, we must report all of our purchases to law enforcement at the end of each day. If law enforcement discovers that any of the items we purchase are stolen, we immediately relinquish them to the authorities.
Unfortunately, despite these regulations, many gold buyers and pawn shops continue to knowingly buy stolen items at reduced rates. While the police discover and confiscate some percentage of those items, many more move through the system undetected (in the end, a large number of home property loss cases are never solved). Unscrupulous gold buyers and pawn shops make a calculated decision to purchase stolen goods knowing that they won’t get caught most of the time, meaning they earn good money on the vast majority of those deals.
JewelRecycle Takes Extra Security Measures to Prevent Theft
At JewelRecycle, we do things differently. We refuse to purchase items we suspect are stolen. In addition to following our industry’s regulations by the letter, we actively work to resolve theft cases and return stolen items to their rightful owners.
Each week, we receive multiple reports from local police departments and home theft victims. These reports feature detailed lists of stolen items, including gold and silver jewelry, diamonds, sterling silver, fine watches, and more.
Our staff is trained to be on the lookout for recently reported stolen items in case they come through our doors. If and when we encounter items that match the descriptions of stolen goods, we take extra care to make sure that what we are seeing is an exact match. Many common jewelry styles, such as plain gold wedding bands, pass through our doors each day. Unless they are very unique, they can be hard to distinguish. Just because a customer has a gold herringbone chain and a wedding band doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the same items reported missing by Joe and Sally Smith.
It helps if the list of missing items is long. In those cases, our suspicions go up quickly if a large number of the items brought in by a customer match what’s on the list. And, if we have photos of the missing items, we can check to see that the items in our store match the images precisely.
In the event that we do have good reason to believe that a customer is attempting to sell stolen items, we call the police and stall the transaction until they arrive.
As a result of these proactive protocols, we’ve helped ensure justice is served, reunited stolen items with their rightful owners, and prevented the further spread of crime. We do it because we care about the safety and well-being of our local communities and want them to thrive.
Want to learn more about our secure and transparent process? Bring your unwanted precious metal items to one of our four locations, and our highly trained staff will be glad to help you.
