Finding your nicked tools on Marketplace.

Stolen tools in Australia get resold fast. Marketplace, Gumtree, eBay, a couple of Telegram channels per state — the gear is usually listed within hours of being nicked, sometimes minutes. The first 24 hours is where most recoveries happen, if they happen at all.

This guide is the practical version of that. Where to search. What to type. What a stolen listing looks like. And — most important — what to do, and what NOT to do, if you find your gear.

Where stolen tools end up

• Facebook Marketplace — the dominant resale channel. Most stolen kit appears here first because the volume of buyers is enormous.
• Gumtree — second-most-common. Often the same gear cross-posted from Marketplace.
• eBay — less common for opportunistic theft because account verification is stronger, but high-value items still appear.
• Telegram channels — invitation or search-only, used for higher-value and organised resale. Specific channels exist per state and per trade.
• Cash-converter shops and pawn shops — declining as a channel because they require ID, but still worth checking locally for distinctive items.
• Scrap-metal yards — for copper, brass, aluminium offcuts and damaged tools sold for parts. Some states require ID for non-trade scrap.

How to search effectively

A scattered search misses things. The structured version:

1. Start broad — search by brand and item type ("Milwaukee combo kit", "Fluke 87V meter", "Stihl chainsaw"). Filter by your suburb and a 50km radius.
2. Sort by newest. Stolen listings are usually new, often posted within hours.
3. Look at the photos. Compare battery wear marks, scratches, stickers, dust patterns. Distinctive details from your photo inventory are what matters.
4. Check the seller profile. New profiles, low-rating profiles, profiles with mismatched location vs listing locations are red flags.
5. Read the listing copy. Phrases that recur in stolen listings: 'quick sale', 'cash only', 'pickup tonight', 'no offers', 'no time-wasters', 'priced to move'. None of these prove a listing is stolen — but they are statistically over-represented.
6. Save searches if the platform supports it. Re-check daily for the first week.

What a stolen listing tends to look like

• New seller profile or profile created in the last 1–6 months.
• Price noticeably below market — 30 to 60 per cent off retail is common for high-value kit.
• Photos taken in a non-trade environment — a carpet, a bed, a bare driveway, a rental property — when the kit is industrial.
• No accessories that should be there — missing battery, missing charger, missing case, missing manuals.
• Cash-only, pickup-only, no shipping.
• A vague location ("Sydney") rather than a suburb — and an unwillingness to specify before payment.
• Listing copy that emphasises urgency: 'must go tonight', 'going overseas', 'moving house'.

None of these on its own proves anything. Plenty of legitimate sellers sell quickly for cash. The pattern, repeated, is the signal.

If you think you have found your gear

The part where most tradies make the wrong move. The right sequence:

1. Screenshot the listing immediately. The full page — URL, photos, price, seller name, posted time. Multiple screenshots if you have to.
2. Save the screenshots somewhere you cannot lose them — same cloud folder as the inventory photos works.
3. Compare the listing photos against your own inventory photos. Look for distinctive matches — a scratch you remember, a specific wear pattern, a sticker, a serial number visible in either photo.
4. Ring the police event number through to the relevant state line. Tell them what you have found. They will tell you whether to add it as evidence to the existing report or open a follow-up.
5. Send the police the screenshots and any other evidence linking the listing to your gear (your serial number, your photos, your purchase receipt).
6. Let police decide whether to do a controlled approach. Some forces will, some will not — it depends on the value, the evidence and the workload. Either way, you handing them clean evidence is better than a botched DIY confrontation.

What NOT to do

• Do not message the seller. Even pretending to be a buyer can tip them off and compromise any police action.
• Do not turn up at a sale to confront them. People have been seriously hurt doing this. Multiple Australian tradies in the last few years.
• Do not arrange to "buy it back". In some states the buyer of known-stolen goods can be prosecuted; even where the legal risk is low, you are funding the next theft and meeting an unknown person with a wad of cash.
• Do not post the listing on social media calling out the seller by name. Defamation risk is real and police investigations are harder when the target has been spooked.
• Do not assume Marketplace will take the listing down promptly. They might. They might not. Either way, do not rely on it as your only action.

Before any of this — make the gear identifiable

Searching only works if you can recognise your gear in someone else's photos. That means doing the prep work before the theft.

• Photograph every high-value item from multiple angles, with the serial number visible.
• Engrave or mark each tool with postcode plus business identifier (see the marking guide).
• Keep the photos in a dated cloud folder. Date matters — it proves you owned the item at a specific time.
• When you buy something new, photograph and file it the same week.