IT"S BACK !!

D Squared

Member
Three years ago my dump trailer was stolen out of my front yard. I was working on it and went to TSC to get some bolts (3 miles) When I got back it was gone. Just before thanksgiving my son who drives a semi in the Cincinnati area spotted a yellow dump that was red on the inside. He went over and looked at it and called me. I told him what to look for and he said it was mine I had moved the battery to the tongue. He called the cops and they confiscated it on the spot. It's been in their impound lot until last week because they had to prove it was mine. (no serial number) I got it back about a week ago. It has no marker lights, no brake lights, no brakes, the battery was gone, the spare is gone, the tail lights are severly bent, and it's still full of trash. The story is that the guy just bought it and painted it. He bought it from a lady whose husband got it the same time that it was stolen. He died and she was selling his stuff. He subcontracted water line work for the county. It was stolen at the finish of a 6 month county project on my property. As soon as the weather gets a little better I am taking it to the dealer and have them fix it at the insurance companies expense.
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I met a fella in Alabama who, right after delivering his 30ft. long 2 axel trailer, custom made, to a job site in New Orleans, just after the hurricane. Well, the trailer and entire contents of toos for the work force were STOLEN.

Amazing how cheap those pheumatic nailers are at those Southern Flea Markets. He thinks the trailer wound up in Mexico, somewheres.

So, with purchase order in hand, he bought another trailer where I had my brand new 10 ft cargo trailer parked. He charged his, I paid cash for mine.

John,PA
 
>>I am taking it to the dealer and have them fix it at the insurance companies expense.


Didn't they pay when it was stolen?
 
(quoted from post at 17:41:29 01/18/11) >>I am taking it to the dealer and have them fix it at the insurance companies expense.


Didn't they pay when it was stolen?

That's what I was wondering. Seems like it belongs to the insurance company now.
 
The story is that the guy just bought it and painted it. He bought it from a lady whose husband got it the same time that it was stolen. He died and she was selling his stuff.
That sounds mighty convenient on his part! :roll:
Regardless, good for you for getting it back.
 
Trailers are insured for liability on the tow vehicle insurance. Because it was stolen out of my yard my home owners covered it at a max of $1000, about 1/2 what it was worth. If it gets recovered and you buy it back for their payout they will deduct damages done to the vehicle. They have already deducted for the battery and the spare because that was all we saw in the impound lot. They already agreed to pay the dump fee and asked me to get an estimate for the other repairs. I will probably be pretty close to the $1000 when it is all over.
 

I remember the original post,,, you are lucky you got it back from the Cincinnati PD,,, they have been know to sell hot vehicles... I have had a dealing with them over this kind of sale and don't look before someone finds out...
 
Glad to hear you got your trailer back. My neighbor across the road had his dump trailer stolen while he was building his house. He knew who took it but could not prove it.

I have both of my trailers (a 30 ft TrailKing for the backhoe and a 16 ft. tandem axle for the 8N)insured with $0 deductible for less than $100 per year. I highly recommend buying seperate insurance policies for trailers. GA Jim
 
I worked for a company that had a Semi Trailer stolen. It has Satellite tracking on it. They traced it to Mexico. Called the company were it was sitting. They were told to come down and "TRY" to get it if they wanted to. The Mexican government won't do anything to help them get it back.
 
(quoted from post at 20:28:12 01/18/11) I worked for a company that had a Semi Trailer stolen. It has Satellite tracking on it. They traced it to Mexico. Called the company were it was sitting. They were told to come down and "TRY" to get it if they wanted to. The Mexican government won't do anything to help them get it back.

It'll probably make its way back up here filled with illegals.
 
A friend of mine had his 18' trailer stolen off his property last year.
it was found on the side of the high way with a old truck on it and VA state police had it towed 3 months go by and he get a bill for storage on it that was $4700. for a $1800. dollar trailer
had to go to court to get it back the only reason he was not liable for the storage fee was because the State Police did not notify him in 3 days that his trailer was towed.
trailer had his tags on it the entire time. the tow company had his info the entire time also and they scrapped the truck that was on it.
 
DD.........heard an interesting and "cheap" way to permanently identify eazily thief'd stuff. (s/n's have a way of being ground off) MICRO-CHIP it with one of those doggy id chips they implant in dogs at the Vets. They don't require battery. Just kinda superglue it and RTV it in obscure location. Chips are cheap but the VET charges to insert in the doggy. You'll be doing the inserting and you work cheap, eh? ......Dell, the chippie
 
Trooper runs plate # to identify registered owner; calls tow truck... """"duh-duh-duh""""

TOOOOOO much work to jot owner's name on a post card to inform the owner where to find the trailer.... (would have been nice of him)

Wonder if Trooper even ran plate#?????? maybe just called his BUDDIES with the tow truck and impound lot.

"Policy" may "vary" in different areas..


Most Troopers and Officers are good, thoughtful people,,, but there are a few that are "otherwise" and, some are lazy or just don't give a crap...
 
(quoted from post at 12:02:39 01/19/11) Dell,
Are the chips available at the vets or are they at a local farm supply? I'm very interested being that I have trailers and other "stuff" without SNs.

While being able to identify something, the chips have no part in locating anything and can only be read with a chip reader designed for them.

If a trailer is stolen from you, you would still have to locate it. Seems to me that you could take a vibro etcher and put your own id number on anything in a very inconspicuous place. As soon as you report the item stolen you would have proof that that particular mark identified the item as yours since no other items similar to it would have that mark.
 
One of the tricks is actually to engrave the registration number onto it. Drivers license number are not actually a good idea, modern identity theft issues there.

Most metal frame areas can be acidized to lift up serial numbers (or other id info) that may be ground off by nefarious types.

Even if a farm only piece of equipment, always worth getting something on there. The doggie chip is excellent thought too. Always helps with positive id no one else may know about, especially if repainted and subsequentially registered since theft. Not an unusual practice in the southern states with ag and trailer registration laws.

Back was a state officer in the late 80's early 90's, used to get kick out of stolen bicycles getting recovered because bike shops would stick a copy of work order in tube for seat. Amazing to me how many of those bikes made it through local police auctions as lost/stolen property without anybody bothering to check simple places like that.
 
Basically every Dandy Dump is the same and is very difficult to identify on the road. I told the police I had went to a local welding shop and had the battery moved to the tongue making it unique and easy to ID on the road. The guy that welded it was very proud of the fact that he lined it up with the frame. Unfortunately it was an angled part of the frame. I let him slide and told him to weld a 1/4" spacer in the bottom of the box to bring it level. I also had a broken tail light mount welded back on and the drivers side chain "S" was bent larger than the pass side. These things made it unlike any Dandy Dump in the world. The police were pretty convinced it was mine but still would not release it. They called the factory looking for some kind of number on the trailer that would help to ID it. They pulled it into their garage and removed the axle tags. The guy who had it, had it licensed as a 2001 trailer. The axle tags said 5200# and "96", the year of the axles. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. It's gonna snow 4-6 in tomorrrow so I probably wont get to the dealer till next week. I will probably sell it because when it was stolen I replaced it with a new 6-1/2 X 12 14000 lb PJ.
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When I was do'n "break down rotation" (haul'n in drunks vehicles),,, you were spose to report a unclaimed vehicle in 7 days,,, you got so many that went unclaimed you just skipped the procedure,,, skip'n it meant that legally if it were ever claimed you could only collect 7 days in which you were not required to report it un-claimed,,, after that if you did not follow the law you forfeited storage after the first 7 days if it was pushed by a smart owner. I spec most towers sign a contact with the city but theirs always loop holes in it to make more money :wink:

If owners would ask to see the contract I bet most/some not all of the storage/tow charge would be forfeited. In my final year doing this the city wanted those vehicles towed to the city impound lot,,, it took the kill out of it so I got out of it.
 

I guess you didn't have a copy of the police report with all those identifying things listed on it when it was stolen with you when you went to claim it.

I just don't see how they could ignore all those special things in identifying the vehicle as belonging to you.
 
Dunno how the factory does it but if I build a trailer the ser. # has to be stamped on the tongue and the axle and pass a a visual DMV inspection before it can be titled... I never had a DMV inspector get on the ground and check that I stamped it though... I spec they found the ser.# number on the axle and that's what nailed it....
 
caryc, two things. The police have more important things to do instead of looking for a used trailer so they don't. The report was a formality for the insurance company. Also the recovery wasn't much more than me saying it's mine. Maybe next time I'll walk up to a BMW and say "thats mine". Not much proof if you know what I mean.
 
(quoted from post at 17:22:34 01/19/11) caryc, two things. The police have more important things to do instead of looking for a used trailer so they don't. The report was a formality for the insurance company. Also the recovery wasn't much more than me saying it's mine. Maybe next time I'll walk up to a BMW and say "thats mine". Not much proof if you know what I mean.

I know the police are not going to go looking for a stolen trailer. My thinking was that you would have filed a police report of a stolen trailer at least to satisfy the insurance company.

While filing the initial stolen trailer report surely you would list any identifying aspects of the trailer.

I was thinking that if you at least had a copy of that report to show the police who recovered the stolen trailer with all those identifying details on it, it would go a long way towards identifying it as belonging to you.

Seeing that in an actual police report would surely mean more than what you verbally told them as far as identifying it.

You said they would not release it to you until they removed a wheel and looked at the axle tags.

Looking at the axle tags didn't exactly prove it belonged to you either.
 
The only thing the police wanted at the time of theft was the registration for the plate # and the certificate of ownership (no title on trailers) . And it only shows the year, the serial #, and the previous owners. Not much help to ID it. They only asked for the oddities after my son found it. They pulled the axle tags only to prove it wasn't the year that it was registered as.
 
(quoted from post at 16:41:38 01/20/11) The only thing the police wanted at the time of theft was the registration for the plate # and the certificate of ownership (no title on trailers) . And it only shows the year, the serial #, and the previous owners. Not much help to ID it. They only asked for the oddities after my son found it. They pulled the axle tags only to prove it wasn't the year that it was registered as.

I guess I'm a little confused here. Did the trailer have a serial number on it?

Anyway, I'm glad you got it back. I had a 55 Harley pan head chopper stolen from me back in 1963 when I was vacationing in a place called Viet Nam. I always dream of getting a phone call some day and having someone say "We've recovered a motorcycle with your stolen engine number on it. As I said.......only a dream. :wink:
 

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