Jewelry is one of the most popular items to steal.
How often do you find yourself looking for your favorite ring, only to realize that it has disappeared?
The unfortunate thing about jewelry theft is that 96% of victims never see their stolen property again because either they did not know how to go about getting it back, or they did not even realize that it was missing in a timely manner.
There are some ways that you might be able to recover lost or stolen jewelry if you know what to do, both before and after an incident occurs.
In this article, we will share important tips for recovering stolen jewelry and what steps need to be taken in order to get your belongings back!
Table of Contents
What You Need To Know About Stolen Jewelry
It must be pointed out that the longer your items are in the wrong hands, the sooner they will be “disposed” of.
Items will likely change hands several times and the gold can even be melted down to destroy the identity of the piece.
One of the reasons that jewelry is not recovered is because too often there is no documentation that can identify the pieces.
Prove The Jewelry Is Yours
If you cannot produce documentation, which will clearly identify the piece, and that also identifies YOU as being the rightful owner, then technically a crime did not take place as far as any legal issues are concerned.
You will need to be able to show a purchase receipt, insurance policy, or an appraisal. A picture is also helpful if you have one. If the piece was a gift, then get a written statement from the giver that identifies the piece and states that it was gifted to you.
Insurance May Not Pay Out
You should also be aware that in order for you to recover a cash replacement value from an insured item, or a court settlement amount for a piece of jewelry that is stolen when the thief is caught, then you will need to have:
- a written and dated appraisal done by a professional Appraiser,
- a picture of the item
- purchase date
- a receipt that identifies your name as being the purchaser
- and exactly what you paid for it
Insurance companies have a tendency to depreciate property when it actually comes time to fork out the money to pay out a claim.
The burden of proof for value depends on you, not them.
Just because you bought a policy to insure property for a specific amount, does not mean that this is the amount that you will receive after a loss.
This holds true with nearly anything insured…houses, cars, jewelry or any fine art or personal property.
Items that were purchased years earlier are items that have a “depreciation of use” clause in many homeowner insurance policies.
This means, you will get far less on your claim and will have to sue the insurance company to try to get an amount that is closer to what you paid for it.
Is Jewelry Traceable If Stolen?
Sometimes jewelry can be traceable.
You will have to act with lightning speed and produce detailed pictures and information of your item to assist the police in making a report, and to give copies to stores in the area who may have the opportunity to buy your jewelry from the thief.
Time is of the essence here.
If the item was stolen simply because the opportunity suddenly presented itself, rather than if the heist was planned out in advance, then chances may be greater that you could recover your piece.
Personal Information
In order to trace jewelry, the rightful owner of it must give the police and any store that might have purchased the stolen item very detailed information starting with:
- Date that the item was discovered to be missing.
- Pictures of the piece.
- Distinctive markings or a serial number.
- Where the item was last located when stolen.
- Persons who were known to be in the location and who had access to the item.
- Persons who have intimate knowledge of your daily routines..
- Appraisal and other detailed identifying information of the item.
Police Reports
If you file a police report immediately after you have exhausted all means of searching where your item was last located, then tracing may begin.
Failing to file a police report will thwart any chances that you have to find your item or to make and receive a claim from your insurance company.
No one will want to cooperate who is not legally forced to.
The stores that purchase stolen jewelry are aware that they will be out the money they paid if stolen items are identified and found in their possession.
However, some may be happy to help catch a thief and having the law behind you may encourage their cooperation.
Unfortunately, much of the footwork to trace your item will still need to be done by you rather than relying on the police, simply due to a Department’s workload.
Tracing, in order to be effective, must be done immediately.
Pawn Shops/Jewelry Stores
At your earliest convenience, contact all jewelry stores and pawnshops within a 50 mile radius of where the theft occurred with your information.
The thief is typically not a person who simply wanted your item for themselves (how could they risk wearing it?), but rather, is already aware of an opportunity to make some cash by selling or fencing your item.
You must get the jump by quickly taking all of your identifying information to pawn shops and jewelry stores that buy from people who come in to sell.
These stores are mandated by the Department of Justice to hold those items for 30 days before reselling or smelting them.
They are also mandated to take fingerprints as well as driver license information, address and a signature from the people who sell items to them.
A novice thief will usually be a lazy thief and will take your stolen item somewhere local such as a pawn shop or jewelry store to sell where you might have the greatest chance to recover it.
Online Marketplaces
A more experienced thief will take items out of the area where there is little to no chance that any information will be shared about identifying stolen items, will simply fence the items for others to sell, or will list items for sale on Ebay, Craigslist, or Etsy.
Serial Number Engravings
Most people do not insure items that are not of high value, therefore it stands to reason that the vast majority of insured items usually contain diamonds of ample size.
One of the possible ways to trace your diamond is to have it laser engraved with a serial number.
This is done by sending it to a company who offers this service.
An identification number is engraved on the girdle (outer edge) of the diamond and this can be seen with 10X magnification.
Identification numbers on diamonds will trace back to the original person who purchased this service.
The only drawback is that too often, jewelers and pawn shops are not even looking for this information when they buy diamonds from off the street…but neither is the thief who sold it to them.
A diamond can also be recut to remove the engraving! However, if your diamond is found intact with the serial number still on it, at least the engraving will provide further proof that it does indeed belong to you.
How Often Is Stolen Jewelry Recovered?
You have about a 4% chance of recovering your items, simply because jewelry is so small, portable, valuable, mass produced, and cannot be identified without proper detailed documentation and pictures.
Jewelry that is valuable enough to be stolen is usually made from gold which can be easily and quickly melted down before being sold as raw material.
Any distinct or identifying etching or engraving on it can also be easily removed.
Precious gemstones such as ruby, sapphire or emeralds, will instantly lose the ability to be identified once they are removed from their original mountings…such stones can easily be sold for wholesale prices to jewelry stores or online.
A thief is not going to be too picky about the price they receive for your items because they paid nothing but the time and risk to snatch them…and really, what incentive does a jewelry store or a pawn shop have for losing out on potential profit by turning over an item to a distraught owner who comes into their store without the power of the law behind them?
Tips For Recovering Stolen Jewelry
Though the chances of getting your jewelry back are slim…and nowadays, chances of prosecuting a thief appear to be even slimmer, there are some things that you should do to at least give it a try…nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Call The Police Where The Theft Occurred
Failing to call police in the correct jurisdiction will result in wasting valuable time and will net zero.
Hopefully, they will inform you of that fact.
It may be inconvenient if you were traveling out of state when your jewelry went missing, but if you want to have hope of recovering your item, let alone being able to receive an insurance claim, you must first check all the appropriate boxes…starting with reporting to the police department located at where the crime took place.
Contact Your Insurance Company To Report Your Stolen Jewelry
It stands to reason that if you have insurance on an item, that in order to be compensated, you must notify them of the loss.
They will have plenty to say about what they expect for you to do.
If you do not jump through all their hoops, they may find reason to deny your claim.
They may even suspect YOU if you fail to file a police report or cannot give them enough information as to how the loss occurred.
Check Local Pawn Shops/Jewelry Stores
This should be your second stop right after the first stop of filing the police report. Pawn shops do not have to give you any information unless you first show them a police report.
They also keep pawned items in the back and not out on display for the public (or you) to see or buy.
You are going to have to humbly ask them to look for your items in their inventory, elsewise, they can resist you long enough to throw a monkey wrench into your search.
Ditto for jewelry stores…even the ones that do not advertise the fact that they do buy jewelry.
Most jewelry stores do buy jewelry, gemstones, watches, and other precious metals such as coins, because that is their golden opportunity to acquire inventory at below wholesale costs.
This is the reason why you must act quickly.
A jewelry store only is obligated to hang on to items that they buy from the public for 30 days and then the item becomes history.
The few stores who simply do not buy from the public are located in high crime areas and have suffered too many out of pocket losses from buying stolen property.
Search Craigslist and eBay
Let’s say you were browsing the internet to see if your distinct and unusual item was listed for sale on one of these platforms.
What do you do if you are fairly certain that you found it?
Well, your only recourse is to contact the seller and make inquiries on where/how they obtained your item riiiight?
Wrong.
Or perhaps, if it has great sentiment, you can simply win the auction and buy it back?
Wrong again.
Write down the item number of the item, the description on the heading of the item, and then the Seller’s user ID. Give this, and the crucial identifying information, to the police who are supposedly handling your case.
If the item does turn out to be yours, then eBay will reimburse the seller for what they lost if your item is confiscated and then returned to you.
Police will not go on eBay to search for stolen items because that would be full time work requiring a separate department, nor will eBay respond to people who contact them to claim that their property has been stolen and is now listed for sale!
The only way you can hope to recover your item is that you will need your police report so that eBay will communicate with the police assigned to your case before your item is shipped out to a new owner.
Search Social Media
eBay and Craigslist aren’t the only online platforms for selling stolen goods.
Social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook have also become marketplaces because of their convenience.
Check the marketplace often, as well as local trading/selling groups for your items. If you see your stolen item, take a screenshot of the post and report it to the police.
Another method is to reach out to the seller and pretend that you’re interested in purchasing the item. Once you get their contact information, give it to the police and they can handle it from there.
Final Thoughts
Never flaunt or brag about the jewelry that you own to your friends or even to family members.
Even your closest friends have friends of friends or relatives unknown to you who can take advantage of this information, and you can be easily set up for suffering loss.
Never let your housekeeper or caretakers know about the jewelry you own for the same reason.
Never advertise on social media that you will be gone during a specific time. If you are getting up in years, never hide your jewelry…over time, you are certain to forget where it is or that you ever even owned it.
Additionally, ask yourself if the jewelry that you own is worth the cost of insuring it for years on end, not forgetting to take into consideration that you will never get back the sentimental parts of it long after it is stolen and replaced.