I would have contacted the local police as soon as you got off the phone with the owner. He is in possession of stolen goods and knows it. Pieces of shit IMHO. Both the owner and thief. Hope karma comes for them. Good luck to you.
UPDATE for getting scammed by Rusty Cannon from North Carolina
- Thread starter thubosky
- Start date
My $0.02
Steve from Court Square Billiards was under no obligation to tell you he had the cue. If he hadn't told you he had it you wouldn't have any idea about the location.
So why go after this guy after he came clean? He obviously didn't know it was stolen when he bought it and he didn't steal it from you. It would be nice if you worked something out but going to the police would be totally not cool.
It seems to me that the Rusty guy is who we should be focused on.
Steve from Court Square Billiards was under no obligation to tell you he had the cue. If he hadn't told you he had it you wouldn't have any idea about the location.
So why go after this guy after he came clean? He obviously didn't know it was stolen when he bought it and he didn't steal it from you. It would be nice if you worked something out but going to the police would be totally not cool.
It seems to me that the Rusty guy is who we should be focused on.
If by theft or trickery, a person has personal property stolen, the law generally is that the possessor of the property has no better title than his/her predecessor.
Rusty Cannon aquired the cue by theft, therefore he has no "title" or ownership interest in the cue. Therefore, Steve at Corner Square Billiards, even as an innocent purchaser, as successor to Rusty, has no "title" or ownership interest in the cue.
The lack of rightful ownership will continue to follow the cue until it is retrieved by the lawful owner either by criminal or civil process.
Pretty basic legal concepts.
I can't argue with that. The thing is though, it looks like Steve was actually trying to help by telling the thread creator he had bought the cue. Had he said nothing we wouldn't be having this conversation. So he took a chance and was upfront about buying the cue from the person who stole it.
Why should he be out of the money? What if you had bought a SW and later found out it was stolen? Should you forfiet the $2k you just spent? Honestly I don't know either way. At the end of the day we shouldn't be talking about calling the police on this guy though.
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Well, Steve's recourse is against Rusty, for what good that is. Steve can attempt to recover the payment made for the cue. The farther downstream, the "un-fairer" it becomes. But it is basically every man buys crap at his peril.
Sometimes the law provides a harsh remedy that isn't always fair.
The guy bought goods, found out it was stolen, called the victim and said "I bought it. Sucks for you." Call the cops. He is a POS. That is one place I will be sure to never visit. And if I ever hear of someone going there, I will try to talk them out of it.
Stop with the high and mighty crap. He isn't a POS. He didn't contact the original owner just to rub it in. Take a minute to think about it. This isn't rocket science.
Actually in a way he did; He provided no way to locate the person he bought it from nor offer to return it.
Stolen property is still stolen property; and if I'm not mistaken don't certain rules apply across state lines?
Yea at this point I don't really care if that Steve will be out the money. For what reason was there to call me and tell me about it if he wasn't going to return it to its rightful owner? Or even try to offer some type of deal for me to just buy it back cheaper even though I shouldn't have to since its stolen. And I msged him on AZ about me buying the cue off of him and I have since heard from him.
Another huge point I failed to mention is that in my phone conversations with Rusty he said about how good of a shooter he was and that he would shoot in different pool rooms. And he said couple times about how his BUDDY has this cool pool room that the walls have diamond plate from the floor up the wall about 5-6 feet. So I ended up seeing Court Square billiards on Facebook and there was the diamond plate up the walls. So this BUDDY of Rustys I am going to assume was Steve.
I also said how I had an old pool table I was restoring and once again Rusty said his buddy who owns the poolhall gets big rolls of the cloth and that he could probably get me a good deal on it. Good thing we didn't throw. Tht in on the deal.
And I actually said this to Steve on the phone and he said, "No I only know Rusty from coming in and shooting in the tournaments there."
So who knows who was telling the truth. But they could be in cahoots with one another. You never know. And since he hasn't gotten back to me it only forces me to think that way.
In a perfect world Steve would send me the stick if he hasn't sold it yet. And then take Rusty to small claims court and get his money back that way from him. Since them two are actually in the same state as one another it would probably be a simple process. Unlike my situation of living in PA and them living in NC. Can't afford too many trips to NC for court hearings and what not.
Another huge point I failed to mention is that in my phone conversations with Rusty he said about how good of a shooter he was and that he would shoot in different pool rooms. And he said couple times about how his BUDDY has this cool pool room that the walls have diamond plate from the floor up the wall about 5-6 feet. So I ended up seeing Court Square billiards on Facebook and there was the diamond plate up the walls. So this BUDDY of Rustys I am going to assume was Steve.
I also said how I had an old pool table I was restoring and once again Rusty said his buddy who owns the poolhall gets big rolls of the cloth and that he could probably get me a good deal on it. Good thing we didn't throw. Tht in on the deal.
And I actually said this to Steve on the phone and he said, "No I only know Rusty from coming in and shooting in the tournaments there."
So who knows who was telling the truth. But they could be in cahoots with one another. You never know. And since he hasn't gotten back to me it only forces me to think that way.
In a perfect world Steve would send me the stick if he hasn't sold it yet. And then take Rusty to small claims court and get his money back that way from him. Since them two are actually in the same state as one another it would probably be a simple process. Unlike my situation of living in PA and them living in NC. Can't afford too many trips to NC for court hearings and what not.
And it's been months since all of this happened and i forgot some details but Steve from Court Square Billiards wasn't exactly the Good Samaritan just calling me out of the blue. I remembered the diamond plate comment from rusty about his buddy's poolhall and I mentioned his to a fellow pool shooter/friend that knew of rusty and actually shot against him in tournaments at gate city billiards. I'm not mentioning names because he might be able to still get rusty for me. But my friend said that he also hear rusty say how much better his friends poolhall is then gate city. And he said rusty said it was in mocksville, NC.
So I did some investigation work, looking up poolhalls in mocksville since there probably weren't many with diamond plate up the walls. And that's when I found Court Square billiards.
And coincidently I have seen the screen name " pmracer" around that time posting about tournaments at court sq. billiards in mocksville, NC. So I pmed them on here asking if they knew Rusty cannon. I think I pmed 2-3 times about it and finally they started responding. And they asked why and I told them about the Schon cue. And he asked for my number and then he called me. So I think I had him sweating after he found out about the Schon. He probably thought I knew more than I was leading on, maybe thought I was waiting for him to confess so he finally called me about it.
So that's the facts and I think I still have pms of me asking him about rusty cannon. So he really didn't just come and find me. I found him and made him nervous.
So I did some investigation work, looking up poolhalls in mocksville since there probably weren't many with diamond plate up the walls. And that's when I found Court Square billiards.
And coincidently I have seen the screen name " pmracer" around that time posting about tournaments at court sq. billiards in mocksville, NC. So I pmed them on here asking if they knew Rusty cannon. I think I pmed 2-3 times about it and finally they started responding. And they asked why and I told them about the Schon cue. And he asked for my number and then he called me. So I think I had him sweating after he found out about the Schon. He probably thought I knew more than I was leading on, maybe thought I was waiting for him to confess so he finally called me about it.
So that's the facts and I think I still have pms of me asking him about rusty cannon. So he really didn't just come and find me. I found him and made him nervous.
I very much doubt they are in cahoots. He wouldn't have ever mentioned anything about the cue if that were the case. This whole thread prompted me to do some research on this subject. As others have pointed out, since Rusty never actually owned the cue he cannot sell it to somebody else. Which makes it your property. From a personal standpoint I don't know if I agree with the letter of the law. Why should Steve take the whole loss on this (assuming he cannot recover the money from Rusty)? At the same time the original owner shouldn't have to pay money to recover property. In my mind, we have two victims here.
What you have in your mind is simply not how the law works. It's been explained already. Nobody is being high and mighty about this. If you can't undertsand this from a personal standpoint, you have ethical issues.
Steve has a responsibility to do some due diligence when buying. We all do. Whether or not we do it is entirely another discussion. If you buy a TV off the back of a truck in a dark alley, would you be a victim when somebody comes knocking on your door?
I always thought that craigslist was to be used for local trading where 2 parties end up meeting in person. They have no buyer or seller protections and are just like newspaper ads online. I don't read newspaper ads from 1500 miles away looking for stuff to buy and IMO only people trying to steal from someone would.
I'm sure the rusty guy has done this multiple times and figures that nobody will bother taking the time and spending the money to travel to collect or prosecute for items worth less that the traveling costs and until someone does he'll keep going about his scamming.
I'm sure it would also have went over my head in the heat of the moment too, but in hindsight it really does stink to high heaven that a guy contacts you from a great distance and after chatting a while and finding out that you want to sell the cue to buy a bow that he magically has a bow and equipment that he just happens to not want and is willing to trade.
I really hope you get your cue back, guys like this need to go down, but they probably won't until someone takes the time to go after them. If the police report was actually taken near the time of the incident i would get a copy and make my summer vacation plans around going to NC and walking into the local police station showing them the report and hopefully getting them to do something about it and if not then filling a local court claim against everyone you can identify as having touched the cue. I'm sure the room owner would roll on rusty cannon as soon as you walked into his room with a police escort.
Good luck sir, i really hope you end up compensated.
I'm sure the rusty guy has done this multiple times and figures that nobody will bother taking the time and spending the money to travel to collect or prosecute for items worth less that the traveling costs and until someone does he'll keep going about his scamming.
I'm sure it would also have went over my head in the heat of the moment too, but in hindsight it really does stink to high heaven that a guy contacts you from a great distance and after chatting a while and finding out that you want to sell the cue to buy a bow that he magically has a bow and equipment that he just happens to not want and is willing to trade.
I really hope you get your cue back, guys like this need to go down, but they probably won't until someone takes the time to go after them. If the police report was actually taken near the time of the incident i would get a copy and make my summer vacation plans around going to NC and walking into the local police station showing them the report and hopefully getting them to do something about it and if not then filling a local court claim against everyone you can identify as having touched the cue. I'm sure the room owner would roll on rusty cannon as soon as you walked into his room with a police escort.
Good luck sir, i really hope you end up compensated.
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I do not have ethical issues. This isn't so black and white like you make it sound. Most likely at the end of the day somebody is going to get screwed in this deal. Just because I have the ability to be empathetic with both parties does not reflect on my ethics.
It absolutely is black and white when someone buys stolen property, knowingly or not. There is no gray area in any state I'm aware of.
About 12 years ago some dude stole a fancy custom cue out of one vendor's booth at the SBE. He took it down to another vendor's booth and sold it quickly for about half the value (~$2k). A few hours later, a few police, a report.....and well, the vendor that bought the stolen cue ended up being out his money.
I understand the law is black and white. Sometimes I have a hard time putting my words into text, and this is not an exception.
The half off $2k cue is a good example of somebody probably getting lucky to not be charged with posession of stolen goods. You cannot buy something priced like that with the expecation that it isn't stolen.
But lets say they bought it full price.... and nothing indicates it was previously stolen. Now the second vendor paid $4k and later the police come and take the cue. The orignal owner gets the cue back and is no longer out of the money/cue. However, the second vendor is out $4k. That seems like a pretty cappy situation considering he never stole a thing!
I don't know, maybe a solution would be splitting the loss with the other party. In a perfect world things like this would never happens. Sucks that it does.
