from Hacker News

My girlfriend and I were having dinner in Monterey. We pull into the restaurant’s parking lot at around 720pm. We park have dinner and then around 8:20pm we walk back to our car and the driver side window is smashed in. Her bookbag and mine are both missing. Inside the bags are (at minimum) my dev laptop Lenovo Txxx and hers a MSI Gaming Series that I just got her. They were in such a rush, they missed my phone and wallet that was in the center console, which am I grateful for.

Police show up at 8:45pm. We file a report. As we’re filling out the paperwork, a guy (let’s call him Jim) walks across the street and says “ Hey did you get hit?, so did I..” The thief broke his window also and stole his bag with a laptop.

The police starts to explain that laptop being stolen is popular. As he’s explaining, the restaurant owner is able to get the license plate from the surveillance video, "registered in Oakland..."

3 hours after the incident, we get a call that they found my girlfriends bag, no laptop ofcourse. It kinda helped. Jim’s bag showed up, but his laptop was also gone. Jim had his passwords written on a couple of papers in his bag, they weren’t interested in that for some reason.

This, along with other things the cops were saying paint the thieves as people looking to sell items quickly. The chances of getting my laptops back are less than 5%. The cops seems to think that the top 3 ways to get rid of stolen items is 1. Pawn shops, 2. Craigslist or 3. Facebook.

Finally 2 question for HN. 1. What are other ways to sell stolen laptops? @Dang, my apologies if this is not an appropriate question. If so, please just skip to question #2.

2. What are some ways to track it down? I'm planning to visit some pawn shops, monitor craigslist and Facebook for the laptops, maybe even place a reward?

Your ideas are appreciated.

PS: Mainly, I’m furious with myself because I SHOULD know better.