A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

I know this is useful (for something), but I'm stuck on the plot holes in the motivating story...

Why didn't they replace the battery when the app complained?

How long would a thief really keep the AirTag anyway?

If the thief did keep the AirTag and you tracked them down, then what? A confrontation has a fairly high chance to have a worse result than losing some equipment. You could try to get the police to do it, but that's going to take more time, during which the thief is even more likely to ditch the AirTag.

Anyway, you're really swimming upstream trying to think of aigtags as an antitheft device. They're really for something lost, not stolen. Generally, they are specifically designed to not work well in adversarial situations.

I've retrieved stolen bikes, one because of an airtag. Showed up with a couple friends standing by but not trying to be intimidating. It's mostly about staying calm and telling the person this is mine, I'm taking it. They always say "no it's my friend's, you're gonna piss him off" or "I just bought this" or something. Maybe you offer some fraction of a "reward" to smooth it along and cut your losses. Don't try to start a fight and it generally goes OK. Also, try not to accuse them of stealing, they'll just get defensive. "It's someone else who is screwing us both, but this is mine sorry."

If it’s left anywhere in the open at anytime, you can repossess it legally as well. This happens with auto repossessions all the time. You don’t owe anyone an explanation as it’s yours - just take it if you can do so safely.

Just be careful! In SOME jurisdictions, you can get in trouble for 'stealing' if you take back something that was stolen. Possession vs Ownership are 2 different things. For instance, the thief may have stolen something, sold it to someone who bought it in good-faith, and you take it back from that person, it's technically theft!

File a police report, go through the right channels. If you know its yours, call the police department non-emergency and explain the situation

I’d be curious what jurisdiction that is true.

In my jurisdiction in the US it doesn’t matter if someone purchased the stolen goods or not, the goods still belong to the owner. This is sometimes called the "nemo dat" rule:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemo_dat_quod_non_habet

The person buying the stolen goods would need to file a claim against the thief to recover their money, but the goods still belong to the original owner. And this is how it should be, since it’s added reason not to buy goods you suspect are stolen.

And yes, you should always try and work with the police first and foremost.

That is probably mostly a common law thing, and as the article notes

> however, in many cases, more than one innocent party is involved, making judgment difficult for courts and leading to numerous exceptions to the general rule that aim to give a degree of protection to bona fide purchasers and original owners

> The person buying the stolen goods would need to file a claim against the thief to recover their money

Generally as long as the purchase is made in good faith, you are wrong. It is the original owner that needs to file a claim against the thief.

Obviously, what constitutes a sale in "good faith" is a rather imprecise science, although one steady element is the sales price: it needs to have been appropriate for the item. So for example a mint bicycle or antique coin should sell near sticker price.