Buying scrap - Beware!

Just wanted to pass on some info I read in the paper yesterday... and I'm sure most are careful about this sort of thing. Here in South Carolina we have to get a scrap seller/transport permit at the police department to sell scrap at the yard. This was enacted last year to try to prevent all the scrap theft going on. It seemed to cut back on the thefts for awhile as there were less thefts in the paper. Now with the economy getting worse it is picking right back up. Almost every day there are reports of AC thefts, wire thefts, etc;... Some try to get around it by selling their stolen scrap to private buyers. The people that got busted yesterday were selling their scrap to someone else as well as using the females scrap permit. They got busted because they were selling wire of some sort that ONLY the electric company uses ( guess it was printed or something ). All kinds of charges are being filed including receiving stolen goods. This has happened several times before in the past year.

My point is to be careful if you are buying scrap from an individual especially not knowing where it came from. Kind of like buying a brand new TV from a crackhead for $20...you pretty much know its stolen and if you get caught you may be charged with receiving stolen goods. For example someone coming to you to offload a giant spool of wire wanting to get a few bucks. I know most of us are smart enough to be careful about this sort of thing but sometimes greed kicks in and it is too good to pass up. Be careful. Not worth going to jail for!

Amen brother. Good post.

Get a signature and thumb print and you dont have to worry so much. DL number to. tag help.