Stolen La Spaziale Vivaldi II and La Cimbali Max Hybrid

[trentwebb]

This sucks for a 1st post, and I have this cross-posted at coffeegeek, but I wanted to inform this specific Vivaldi group as well...

Hello,

I recently purchased the above for my upgraded setup and after all my research here. I ordered the above along with a water softening system, Espro Tamper and other miscellaneous items from Chris Coffee on 12-29-08 with a scheduled delivery of 1-7-09. Here's where the story goes bad:

I did not get home from work until 7PM on 1-7-09 and I noticed that the four boxes were not on my porch, although UPS showed delivery of the items at 2:09PM. I had a message from a bar about two miles away that stated that I needed to haul my empty boxes out of their dumpster by the next day or they would notify the police. Fearing the worst, I called the bar and had the owner read me the return label, which was Chris Coffee. I immediately called the police and met them at the bar to get one of the employee's statement of what he saw. It seems a slim guy with gray hair in his fifties in a white Ford minivan with a home improvement logo was dumping the boxes around 1:30-2:00PM, but the employee thought he was a vendor and didn't get the plate or remember the logo name.

After emailing a few of the neighbors, the guy two doors down emailed me back this:

"As embarrassing as this is since I should be hyper-vigilant after what happened to us, I didn't notice the van. All I noticed was a blonde, curled hair, white female, normal height, normal build, 30ish, dark pants, with a dolly.

This is bugging me more than anything. It's killing me to think I had a chance to ID them and blew it."

Two nights earlier his garage was broken into and his wife's mountain bike was stolen along with other items. The intruder also attempted came into my backyard as well as the house next door's, but our garage doors were locked (detached garages).

I filed this information with the officer and the case has moved to a detective due to the amount of money. The next morning I called Chris Coffee at 7AM their time and explained the situation. I went through the channels to start a trace with UPS and Chris Coffee also called for follow-up. The amazing thing is that within the same day, Chris Coffee sent me out a duplicate order to arrive later this week without any additional financial burden from my end. They had full insurance on the items, but the reimbursement from UPS may take awhile. I am quite happy that I went with their reputation in deciding who to order from.

What I would really like to do is to catch these crooks. I know it isn't easy to offload specialty equipment such as this. I have been checking Craigslist, Ebay, and spoke to several pawn shops (who told me that they report their purchases to the police daily--I hope so). I figure since this community is quite plugged in to this level of equipment, that someone may see a suspicious sale of one or both items.

What sucks is that I get a lot of packages for my business at home and I've had to temporarily halt any packages being left until I install an alarm system and DVR motion cameras...

Thanks for keeping an eye out on this and kudos to Chris Coffee!

Best Regards,

Trent

[chas]

Trent:

That's a real bummer but it sounds like Chris is doing right by you. Since we have a lot of Vivaldi owners or those thinking of purchasing stopping by here, see if you can get CHris to give you the serial numbers for the VII and the grinder and we'll post them at the top of the Forum in a special "BOLO" notice.

[trentwebb]

Thanks Chas. I asked Chris Coffee about the serial numbers the morning after, but they have a master list of numbers when they receive shipments, but not down to the individual box that ships out...

I spoke to the detective at length today and he's putting out the necessary alerts in the computer system. I now have a better description of the vehicle and driver so I'm spending more time driving around looking for him as well.