We will confirm with the current owner, that the machine is legitimate and being sold
And we will communicate this back to you, as well as telling you any repair history we have on that machine
We will also confirm to you the specifications (version, upgrades, color) though we will not tell you what the original purchase price was (as we consider that to be private).
If the seller is not willing to give you the serial number, we strongly discourage you from sending them money.
If the owner of the machine says it's not being sold, we'll let you know that this sale looks illegitimate.
Deal fairly with people who have bought a used machine
Once we become aware that a machine has been stolen, we:
Update our list of serial numbers of stolen machines
If that espresso machine is ever connected to the Internet, it will be remotely disabled, and the owner will be asked to “contact Decent Tech Support”.
The owner of the machine will not be able to make espresso with the stolen machine
If the new owner of the stolen machine contacts us, we will:
contact the real owner of the machine, and ask what they want to do
if a police report was filled out, we will contact the responsible police officer, and give them the contact details of the new owner, and the contact details of who they bought it from.
We will ask the new owner to cooperate with the police investigation
If the real owner does not want the espresso machine back (perhaps insurance has already paid for the replacement), the new owner will be asked to pay a one time fee of USD$600 to bring the machine back to functionality
After paying this one time fee, the machine will be restored to working order and no longer considered stolen. It will not be under warranty, but the new owner can choose to bring it back under warranty.
Appendix: how are espresso machines stolen?
A car or house break-in
The courier “delivered the package at front door” but the recipient did not get it. This could be:
A “porch pirate” stole the machine
The package recipient might be lying
The delivery man is lying
The courier “lost the machine in transit”
The machine is actually in a courier's warehouse, but they can't (currently) find it
The machine is eventually sold as part of a large “lost packages” auction
The machine is eventually sold via eBay, Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace etc, by a company that specializes in buying from these auctions
Or the machine is simply stolen by the delivery man at the last step, never claiming to be delivered. This usually appears as a “lost in final delivery” tracking message.
Commentary:
All our machines are shipped “signature required”. During COVID, the couriers ignored this, but post-COVID, virtually all our machines are delivered face-to-face.
Delivery employee theft is fairly common in certain locations. During COVID there was a widespread scam affecting both FEDEX and UPS in the state of Florida, delivering machines to vacant lots that were not the designated address, where they would then vanish. Many espresso machine manufacturers refused shipping to that state.
Couriers “losing machine in transit” is also fairly common and we consider this to be theft, because the courier makes money by selling our machine at auction. They pay Decent almost nothing for our loss. Couriers have cleverly priced shipping insurance such that the shipping rate increases 3-fold if you try to fully insure your package, making insuring every package totally unaffordable.
AI generated scams have recently appeared on market places, with phrases like “My husband recently died and I want to sell his espresso machine because it breaks my heart to see it in the kitchen”.