Theft is nothing new. In this current economy, it’s something that is on the rise, especially for the photographers. You have groups taking the lenses right off of people necks. To combat this Lenstag.com has been launched in partnership with sites like Borowlenses.com and Lensrentals.com. Lenstag.com also want to work with Law enforcement and pawnshops to help combat the sale of stolen gear. The concept is you register your camera gear to help prevent its resale if stolen. The site is also free.
Once you sign up for the sight you add your cameras lenses, etc., to your account. You then verify that you are in possession of this gear by uploading an image of each items serial number or warranty card. If your gear is stolen you flag it on the site and they create a public page to help your get it back. If you happen to sell your gear you can transfer ownership using the site. The buyer does not have to re verify the item.
Trevor Sehrer of Lenstag.com took some time, with our Editor and Chief Chris Gampat, to answer some questions about the site.
Phoblographer: Hi Trevor, Tell us about what Lenstag is.
Trevor: It’s a free online photographic equipment registry with the goal of preventing the resale of stolen gear & making the world safer for photographers.
Phoblographer: What made you want to create it?
Trevor: Right now cameras & lenses are like jewelry. Thieves can just steal a camera or lens, put it on Craigslist, take it to a pawn shop, etc., and sell it without recourse. Before today, there wasn’t a way to add quickly ascertain whether or not a particular camera or lens registered somewhere was stolen.
A lot of the inspiration that got me to finish this project was this NYT article
Phoblographer: How does the system work to track down stolen gear?
Trevor: Currently, it’s up to photographers to determine if an item is stolen or not by doing a search on the web for the serial number and maybe the keyword ‘lenstag’ before they decide to buy something secondhand. Additionally, each item that’s been flagged as stolen has a webpage with a contact form in case anyone comes across it with information that could lead to its recovery (which we’ll pass along to you).
Here’s an example page for an actual stolen item
Phoblographer: What are some of the best practices that you can give someone about prevention?
Trevor: There’s a great blog post written by Roger from LensRentals.com that does an awesome job of detailing how best to secure your gear .
Phoblographer: How important to do you think insurance is to have on your gear? For example, mine is covered under State Farm.
Trevor: Roger recommends it, so I’d recommend it, too, based on your personal appetite for risk, cost of your gear, etc
Phoblographer: Right now, I’m my own individual. But I know that when I worked for other companies (B&H Photo being one of them) we sometimes had gear stolen while on the road at a trade show. How can PR teams and marketing teams use your service to make tracking of products stolen easier?
Trevor: Registering the gear on Lenstag before it’s stolen is really critical since the gear can be resold within hours after a theft & you want to make sure you’re ready to immediately flag it if it goes missing.
Phoblographer: What are some thoughts that people should have in their head before they go ahead and purchase used gear? What are the right questions to ask?
Trevor: Ask if the person’s a photographer, see what they’ve used the equipment for, check their knowledge level, etc.
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