Property Room is an online police auction site that sells “hot” or stolen goods. It turns out that replacing the classic police auction is good business. The Seattle Times has more:
PropertyRoom.com (is) a California-based Web site that receives items from the property rooms of 1,600 law-enforcement agencies in the U.S. — 124 in Washington state — and sells them online. Proceeds are split between the police departments and the Web site.
PropertyRoom.com is set up as a kind of eBay for police auctions. Items are sold in categories including jewelry, fine art, tools, bicycles, watches and “everything else.” The site was founded by former police officers, including Daryl Gates, former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, according to its Web site.
Since many of the items were stolen but never reclaimed, PropertyRoom.com will return them to their owners provided they can prove ownership of an item shown online.
When the site started in 2001, it had contracts with 100 departments and profits of $3 million. Now, the company has contracts with nearly 2,000 departments, 25,000 new bidders each month, and last year reported a profit of $35 million, according to company spokeswoman Cher Murphy.
Proceeds go to police pension funds.
The goods aren’t all from police departments. The website claims 1,500 participating police departments and a “trusted merchant program“:
PropertyRoom.com’s Trusted Merchant program features high quality merchants that auction goods in accordance with our strict guidelines and standards. Quality and security of transactions for buyers and sellers is guaranteed via managing the payment process, carefully screening sellers and aggressively combating fraud.
The items on the site are expensive compared to eBay. Many of them are stolen, without evidence that police tried to find the original owners. And what, exactly, makes their “trusted merchants” trustworthy?
Two comments on the Seattle Times article caught my eye:
1) kil4stn
Total scam!!!! Here’s the proof:
I just saw a Squier P-bass for bid on the site they claim will be a shipping weight of 58 lbs.
OK – a Squier P-bass is about 8 lbs, 10 oz. If you buy a middle of the road hard shell case to protect / ship the bass in (in this case, a Peavey), the specifications are as follows:
Dimensions: 49.5″ W x 5.625″ H x 16.75″ D
Weight: 12.5 lbs.
Rounding up both weights, you arrive at 22 lbs total. Now we all know this cheap, seized bass, in who knows what condition, isn’t coming with ANY case, but let’s continue under this delusion for a moment.
All express shipping companies check larger packages’ dimensions, and use a formula to come up with something called “dimensional weight”, which affects how much your shipping charges will be. The customer pays the corresponding rate for whichever is greater – the “dim wt” or the actual weight.
The dim wt for this 22 lb package is 24.040 lbs. So regardless of the weight of the case (or even the existence of one), dimension wise this is a good estimate at what the rate SHOULD be, worst case scenario.
However, on this site, you will be charged shipping for 58 POUNDS!!!! That’s significantly MORE THAN DOUBLE WHAT YOU SHOULD BE CHARGED!
Shame on you, SPD, King County Sheriff’s Office, and any other law enforcement agencies involved with this scam!
2) snowdawg
Propertyroom.com is a scam site. You can see that if you just watch it for a week. Though they might have some police departments participating, it seems the bulk of their business is selling counterfeits and items that they buy and resell. But the “police department advertising” gives it credibility, visibility and traffic that it should not have.
I’d like to know what police are doing to try to find the original owners of the stolen goods.
Propertyroom is not a scam. I have purchased many many “stolen” items and gotten many items for dirt cheap. Are you looking at the right site?
I’ve bought quite a few things from Property Room without any trouble whatsoever. I’ve even returned something without hassle.
Sure, not everything is from a police evidence bunker – but the things that aren’t generally aren’t advertised as being so. Besides, does it matter where it came from if you’re getting a great price on something?
Ok then why is the Envision 27″ Lcd Flat Screen A27W221 weighing 30 pounds is labeled as being 86 pounds without the stand so why is that. See for yourself and they ship FEDEX.
They sked for my redit card info. up front. Just to bid?guess I will look at another honest site!
how stupid can you be? of course they ask for your credit card info to bid. first of all, any auction you will ever go to, you can not bid unless you prove you have the funds to pay for the item. also, if you are the winning bidder, you have to buy, you can’t renig on a bid. some ppl are just dumb.
I’ve been shopping with that place for years. It’s the only site where ALL of their merchandise sells for more than ebay. How is this even possible when catering too such a small crowd? Ebay is the WORLDS LARGEST MARKETPLACE. It makes you wonder if your bids are being ran by someone who knows your proxy… Seriously watch a bunch of items for a few weeks and you too will be scratching your heads sayin WTF. People are actually allowed to consign their own merchandise which only furthers the bid runner theory. Another concern is that I religiously watch their merchandise for the orlando fl pickup to find deals and how is it that there is never any cool atv’s, dirtbikes and dope stuff of that nature on there? Once in a blue moon you’ll see a nice atv but seriously ask yourself, where is all the good stolen stuff going? I know people steal good stuff all over Fl all the time so where is the merchandise going? I religiously watch their site for years and seldom do you see the quality goods. Makes you wonder if you’re getting sloppy seconds… Although I shop at their site often I hate it. When the police stopped doing the auctions locally and started selling online it became a slap in the face because I know first hand what merchandise went thru there because I also religiously attended the local police auctions. You’d think I’m a reverend with all the religiousness goin on here. Furthermore, if you ask any of the police officers who used to do the local police auctions before they went online, those officers will tell you they too don’t like the online site. Those officers will straight up tell you they dislike the online site because for starters they don’t see squat for return on the sales and they themselves don’t get the bangin deals they used to because now it’s all shipped to the online biz. Somewhere in between someone’s makin out like a bandit. I would be inclined to think there is corruptness somewhere along those lines. I’m still amazed how the prices on most everything does better than ebay aka the biggest marketplace in the world? Granted there are some deals to be had but it’s hardly worth the time spent searching. I do it because I have to make a living and don’t want to leave any stone unturned but it’s the absolute last place I shop even when I’m desperate. It’s more of a waste of time than anything else, if you like to pay more than ebay prices then rock on doofus otherwise you might be disappointed with time and $ spent to get used merchandise. That is the real dirt folks.
Its really sad to me to see people who don’t know how things work on the internet. Yes if you are going to a site that you are bidding… you need to have payment info entered on your account.. that way if you get all crazy and win some auctions… you actually get to pay for them… Now for the cops who are all sad they aren’t getting good deals… BUMMER Who is to say they should get deals any way! I don’t get perks at my work! Bid like the rest of the world! I have bid on some items from this site and never had any problems… they have a great system that keeps things fair for all bidders… As far as I’m concerned I would think the police departments are getting more money for the items since they have a larger exposure other then having a local auction. I think its a great program!