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Comment by unishark | Hacker News Reader

> Recently, his shop was fined for not registering used laptops that his customers had abandoned for repair. Sure, NYC is attempting to prevent stolen laptops from being resold, but the level of bureaucratic idiocy turns Rossman’s channel into a Shakespearen comedy.

I saw this complaint and didn't follow what NYC did wrong. If one isn't allowed to sell "unregistered" laptops or whatever, why would abandoned customer laptops get a pass? Did the law state they should? I gather he is still allowed to repair them for people, even potentially thieves, just never "launder" them.

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He actually tried calling the city to ask what he should do with abandoned laptops. He was transferred multiple times, told to call multiple numbers, and tried leaving voicemail messages to find an answer. He got nowhere, and the closest he got was "That's a good question".

The law explicitly states purchased laptops, which he did not. Now we can say "But that's not the purpose of the law, just the letter!" But the purpose of the law is to make selling stolen laptops non-profitable to thieves - and abandoning them does not turn a profit. Meaning Louis runs afoul of neither letter nor spirit of the law.

And so I'm legitimately asking, if you think he's in the wrong: what is he to do, when he can't properly fill out LEADS online without a purchase price? He tried calling the city, he tried calling would-be customers to collect their things. The former couldn't tell him, and the latter told him it wasn't worth their time.

He should recycle them. These machines are usually pawned off on seniors in very shady "deal of the century" sales schticks. My 72 year old father in law bought a complete pos laptop for $200 that was an abandoned machine from a repair shop. It didn't have any drivers installed, it was running Vista and it could not connect to the internet.

Rossman may not be selling under such shady circumstances, but this is how most of these machines are moved. I don't think any good comes out of selling these machines.

But can't every thief claim the laptop they picked up was "abandoned" too? I mean it was there on the table and no one was around at the moment..

If the customer owes him money and he is selling the laptop to get that money because the customer is choosing that outcome, then in a sense he is selling the laptop on behalf of the customer. For this option to be available to the customer, it seems they should still need to prove it was properly purchased. It still seems like this creates a loophole otherwise. What happens if a theft victim spots their laptop being used by someone who purchased it legitimately from a shop like this?

So what should he do to computers he spent time and money to fix and clients abandoned? Throw them into the bin?

I think you make clients pay a deposit, and if they don't pick up the laptops, send them to the state's lost property department. If that isn't possible, I guess you buy the laptop from the customer for some token small amount of money, and then sell it back to them when they come to pick it up. If they don't show up, it's legally your laptop.

> If they don't show up, it's legally your laptop.

That's the whole problem. He tries for a couple of months to contact them (calls, emails, etc) and if they don't even respond, after around 9 months they get put into the resale bin.

His policy is "no fix, no fee" so I would presume there's no deposit. If there is no transfer of money it seems difficult to make even a weak legal argument that the laptops were "purchased". That is why Rossmann found the whole situation ridiculous.

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