Stolen mandolin recovered!

Hi all,

I just wanted to share a very happy story with you, and it's really only happy because of the help of this wonderful community here on Mandolin Cafe!

Earlier last year our shop was successfully bamboozled out of an expensive mandolin via mail order with the use of a stolen credit card. I won't provide the details here of how it was achieved so as not to "educate" any would be scammers, but this person was a smooth professional that blew right past any red flags and security protocols. We ship a lot of instruments and this was a first in 15 years for Fiddler's Green, though it's certainly been tried multiple times before unsuccessfully.

Upon learning that we had been scammed, we placed an ad in the "stolen" section of the Mandolin Cafe classifieds. Within 24 hours of placing that ad two cafe members, GTison and John Lee, notified me that they suspected that the mandolin was at a large music store on the other side of the country. Turns out they were right! Lucky for us, the management of the music store was very compliant and helpful once we had verified the serial number and worked with their local law enforcement to help retrieve it.

Fast forward to present day, and not only has the individual who committed the crime been arrested and prosecuted but also two others that were involved. We weren't provided with much information beyond that but I think it's pretty safe to say that these folks weren't first time offenders and, at least for now, won't be scamming anyone else. It really is scary just how good they were at this.

Also, the mandolin has been returned unharmed! I was cringing when I opened the case, expecting to see all kinds of damage but it was in really great shape and almost even in tune..haha! I'm going to let it spend some time getting acclimated and then give it a "spa day" before making it available again, but it's just like it was when we sent it out. WHEW!

So BIG THANKS to GTison, John Lee, and of course to Scott Tichenor who helped spread the word on social media and works so hard to provide the space for this amazing community. No doubt, without Mandolin Cafe we would have never seen this instrument again and these professional thieves would still be out there looking for their next victim.

So put a notch in the post for the good guys! Happy Monday everyone, and keep being awesome! :mandosmiley:

Ben Hodges
Fiddler's Green Music Shop

Very glad to hear that Ben!

Couldn't have happened to a nicer person.

Wow. The stars and planets aligned and the good guys won! Good to hear.

That is a refreshing story, Ben, especially in these crazy times. I think the entire Cafe is happy for you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fiddlersgreen

Hi all,

I just wanted to share a very happy story with you, and it's really only happy because of the help of this wonderful community here on Mandolin Cafe!

Earlier last year our shop was successfully bamboozled out of an expensive mandolin via mail order with the use of a stolen credit card. I won't provide the details here of how it was achieved so as not to "educate" any would be scammers, but this person was a smooth professional that blew right past any red flags and security protocols. We ship a lot of instruments and this was a first in 15 years for Fiddler's Green, though it's certainly been tried multiple times before unsuccessfully.

Upon learning that we had been scammed, we placed an ad in the "stolen" section of the Mandolin Cafe classifieds. Within 24 hours of placing that ad two cafe members, GTison and John Lee, notified me that they suspected that the mandolin was at a large music store on the other side of the country. Turns out they were right! Lucky for us, the management of the music store was very compliant and helpful once we had verified the serial number and worked with their local law enforcement to help retrieve it.

Fast forward to present day, and not only has the individual who committed the crime been arrested and prosecuted but also two others that were involved. We weren't provided with much information beyond that but I think it's pretty safe to say that these folks weren't first time offenders and, at least for now, won't be scamming anyone else. It really is scary just how good they were at this.

Also, the mandolin has been returned unharmed! I was cringing when I opened the case, expecting to see all kinds of damage but it was in really great shape and almost even in tune..haha! I'm going to let it spend some time getting acclimated and then give it a "spa day" before making it available again, but it's just like it was when we sent it out. WHEW!

So BIG THANKS to GTison, John Lee, and of course to Scott Tichenor who helped spread the word on social media and works so hard to provide the space for this amazing community. No doubt, without Mandolin Cafe we would have never seen this instrument again and these professional thieves would still be out there looking for their next victim.

So put a notch in the post for the good guys! Happy Monday everyone, and keep being awesome! :mandosmiley:

Ben Hodges
Fiddler's Green Music Shop

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Great news ! Doesn't always turn out this way !

Thanks for posting this - Cafe members came through - nice work, you guys! And having the perp face some justice is icing on the cake.

Great news!! Thanks for posting.

Great news.

Good news! I taught in a store with a similar experience that took many months to resolve and the resolution was not quite as good.

This is such good news! Thanks for sharing your story. From the depths of despair to joyous restoration, with justice being served and evil punished - this story has it all! :mandosmiley:

The story of my presence here is based in a similar event. My beloved F-12 of thirty years was stolen, right from under my nose. In the hopes of recovering her, I found and joined the Café in order to spread the word. I never found her, but what I've gained instead was entry into a world of mandolins, populated by nearly countless members with unbounding knowledge, experience, and advice about mandolins, music, and many more aspects of life. I learned that my late-1970s F-12 wasn't considered to be as fine an instrument as I'd have liked (not really comforting, but it confirmed something I'd suspected, so it did soften the blow), and learning more about mandolins led me to find a much better instrument than what I'd lost - a teens plain A. So between finding this community and achieving this upgrade, it was mostly a win-win. With a bit of a buy-in, so to speak. ;)

I'm thus very much gladdened to hear of your happy ending. :mandosmiley:

Wow, thanks for sharing that great story!

Glad they caught the rotten bast... offenders.

Simply beautiful. This site was the first forum/board that I joined soon after catching a bad case of MAS which knocked my guitar playing (since 10 yrs.old) into the ditch for about 8 yrs. which should explain the goofy user name. The Cafe was and still is my homepage since joining. Not very active anymore but stories like this and the eagerness of everybody to help other members is the reason I love this place.
Scott has what I consider the finest instrument information sharing forum on the net. Bar none.