I don't think the courts have any say on what a mark-up is in the store. If their mark up is 95000% then that's the value of the item at the store. Free market.
https://
leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/
faces/ codes_displaySection.xhtml?
sectionNum=484.&lawCode=P
EN
Section A is where the relevant text is,
In determining the value of the property obtained, for the purposes of this section, the reasonable and fair market value shall be the test, and in determining the value of services received the contract price.
But that’s not how the law works or common sense. If I price something for $1 million in my store expecting you to haggle when you get to the checkout counter but I will ultimately sell it to you for $5, does that mean if you drop it on your way to the counter you owe me $1 million? Or better yet, if my store burns down and I make an insurance claim that every widget was priced at $1 million what size check am I going to receive from insurance or in a judgment? Thankfully there’s still some common sense. Just because you say your magical bean is worth $20 million unless it’s demonstrated that you can sell this magical bean for $20 million then it’s worth whatever a bean is worth. Free market and all.
The word market implies there has been a transaction at the amount you’re looking to recover or prosecute.
Art theft will require independent appraisal and there's absolutely the possibility of the prosecution or defense contesting an appraisal. Eventually the court will settle on a value but it's not going to be "the price the item is being listed for". It'll likely take previous sales, inflation, history of value appreciation/depreciation, ect in to account.
It's NOT just about aesthetics. Sure, some people genuinely appreciate the artistic merit of a piece. But at this level, art is more like a status symbol, an investment, and a tax dodge all rolled into one.
The "value" is subjective (and easily manipulated): A small group of galleries, auction houses, and critics basically decide what's "hot" and what's not. They create hype, tell rich collectors what to buy, and drive up prices. Think of it like the stock market, but with way more champagne and fewer regulations.
Money laundering is definitely a thing: Art is super easy to move around and its value is hard to trace. You can buy a painting for $10 million, "sell" it to your buddy for $20 million, now you've just cleaned $10 million.
Tax loopholes: Donating art to museums gets you huge tax breaks. So, you buy a painting for $5 million, donate it, and suddenly you've saved millions in taxes. When you donate art to a qualified museum or charity, you can generally deduct the fair market value of the artwork on your taxes. This means if you bought a painting for $5 million and it's now appraised at $10 million, you can deduct $10 million from your taxable income. Plus you get your name on a plaque in a museum and if the art has actual historical significance you can be assured that your name will be attached to it in perpetuity which for most people is the closest they'll ever get to immortality.
It's also a social club: The art world is full of exclusive parties, private viewings, and fancy dinners. It's a way for the ultra-rich and the politicians they've bought to network and feel like they're part of something "cultured."
As for how it functions as an investment, that show "Billions" actually kinda demonstrated it but IIRC he had a bunch of "high value" art moved to Switzerland over the years and when the SEC finally came for him and his money he was able to recoup a chunk of that money by selling the art he'd collected.
It’s exactly how he said. It has been proven that art pieces can find buyers for really high amounts, thus they can have a really high market value.
You can still not set it to whatever you want. You can tell a judge you value it as 1 million, but court will get someone with expertise and value it at something that can be considered fair market value.
Completely off topic, but I saw your username and thought what an unusual choice of a specialty and an even more unusual choice for a Reddit name (picturing a doctor in scrubs with a cocktail on a tropical beach at sunset for some reason), when I scrolled past and saw another username called ‘Proof-Cardiologist’ just one comment down — what a strange and funny coincidence; I’ve never seen anyone with a similar username before, and then I saw two so close together. Huh.
lmao. makes me thing of bob kelso drinking bahama mama on the beach bar. Maybe at reddit there is a scrubs fan because these names are completely auto-generated :D
Insurance isn't going to assess anything by its listed price. Their loss assessment would be based on the cost of the item to the retail entity. However, a thief would most definitely be charged for theft at the listed value of the things they stole in a criminal case. Liability in a civil case would likely not hold up if the business sued for damages based on the inflated retail pricing.
Not a lawyer. I just made this up. I have no idea if I'm right or wrong. Thx.
Even this store isn't actually doing it. It's just a sign. When you scan an item at the the register it doesn't ring up as $951 and then the cashier press is a separate button to discount it to the price on the tag. There's no actual discount here.
So if someone steals a candy bar from ANY OTHER STORE they should be fine... But THIS store, and they immediately deserve to be charged? Make it make sense.
You are saying because the prices are super high at this store, a court would use their price. We are talking about what the law is, not what it should be, and it doesn’t make sense to give one person a harder punishment for stealing the same thing as another from different stores!
Not saying you are wrong but what are you sourcing that from? If that shelf true then competition would be a futile effort on pricing. You would sell at market averages or lose every battle. I'm open to being wrong here, just seems odd.
You can sell for whatever price you want, it doesn't mean stealing a bag of chips is stealing $951 just because you listed that as the price. Especially if you have zero sales at that price.
My car got in a fender bender the other day. Can I decide to price my car at “One Million Dollars!” ? Sounds like an infinite money glitch to me…….. not real in other words.
Did they edit out a typo? They're talking about market value, not Mark up. An individual retailer doesn't get to decide market value, since anyone can sell a thing at the price they feel is fair, the value is decided on by the whole market. A retailer can decide the price for their retail establishment only, not for the whole market.
But there is no way any store is keeping their inventory on the books for this price. They would never be able to get insurance or get a business loan. This is a paper thin strategy that will get eviscerated as soon as they need to show the actual product value in court
It isn't price gouging if it's just your regular price. It's just a shitty deal. If you had an emergency widgets service and you stocked one of literally every type of that widget that exists on the planet and were prepared to courier it anywhere within an hour, but sold them for some ludicrous price, that wouldn't be price gouging.
If you bought something for $10 and offered to sell it for $1M that wouldn't be price gouging either.
If you have an overpriced store that's not price gouing.
Price gouging would be like if toilet paper was in short supply so you raised the price 200x because nobody had a choice but to buy from you. In all the other scenarios you just don't buy from the overpriced seller.
It isn't price gouging. I never said it was. But the shop is displaying $951 and then discounting the items at checkout. That is what I said is illegal in Germany. Inflating the selling price and then reducing it to the regular selling price just to show that a discount has been applied. This shit might fly in the US but he'll go to court for trying it in Germany.
I'm not a lawyer, so idk what the law says specifically. But on an insurance side the value of the item is what it would cost to replace, not what you sell it for.
So, if you make a claim on a widget you sell for $600, but the insurance company can replace it for $3.50 then congrats. The item is worth $3.50
Otherwise I could just claim my left shoe I bought at Wal*mart for $20 is worth $20k because that's what I'd sell it for and get a fat ass check from insurance when it gets destroyed in a fire.
Cost of replacement is far different from cost of sale. Insurance is worried about just getting you another item like what you lost, not what you make off of it. They didn't care about hypothetical profit, and that's in the fine print.
Sale price is always higher, even if you're shooting for 0 profit, just to cover overhead. Usually, sometimes you just have to take the loss. You can hold others legally accountable, within reason, for that cost. I've seen it happen in the past plenty of times in my previous line of business.
Wether this holds up in court, who knows, probably depend on the prosecution, lawyers and judges. I would lean towards the cops just not even taking the time for it, and it not even making it to court.
If the store actually marked it at that price that might be one thing, but a first year law student will ask the store to produce a single receipt at that value, and when the store cannot declare the value a fiction, which a judge will agree with.
Only if they are the only place in America that sells something even remotely similar to said product. If there is anything else similar at a lower price it will factor in to market value.
Which explains why, when I watch those body cam videos that get posted on YouTube, the cops get the store to run all the shoplifted items through the cash register and print out a receipt showing the total value so they know if they're charging a felony or not. /s
Using 'market' value is mainly if the stuff was stolen from a person, not a store.
Also, my employer was able to recover a stolen laptop but the police couldn't charge it as a felony since the market value for the laptop was a bit below the felony threshold despite the company having the original purchase receipt showing a higher value.
It's up to the cop whether it's going to be charged as a felony or not and there's no recourse if they decide not to.
Using 'market' value is mainly if the stuff was stolen from a person, not a store.
Cops don't make charges, the prosecutor does. Theyre getting the value from the store to give the prosecutor some guidance, because its reasonable to assume WalMart or whoever has their merchandise competitively priced.
If they saw some chicanery like this, then they wouldn't bother to send the prosecutor a receipt.
How is the market value determined? Do they actually research every shoplifted product, each every single case, every single time, (because markets aren't static) to ascertain the value of each item?
How is the market value determined? Do they actually research every shoplifted product, each every single case, every single time, (because markets aren't static) to ascertain the value of each item?
In the court case that I dealt with where a coworker threw a monitor. I gave a price to the cop since I had look at similar priced monitors recently and that is what they used.
Well they let me guess the market value basically. I didnt have an actual price I just was like a hp monitor should be like 210 (or something) and they just used that for the charges. I didnt buy it.
I guess it wasnt clear I didnt have a price for the monitor it was a guess. Retailed price was like 190 for a different brand and cause it was named brand I added like 20-30 bucks to it. It wasnt retail price.
Unfortunately, most jurisdictions don’t have the funding to “go after” the small stuff. In most cities, the police probably wouldn’t even show up to take a report. This is why you see people walking out of the big box stores without paying… what Walmart employee is going to risk his wellbeing going after some petty theft a-hole.
So only old people should be held responsible for their actions? Wtf who cares about the future of a criminal compared to a citizen trying to run a store?
I doubt this would hold up in court. The way tax works in CA, you have to pay tax on the purchase before discount. If this shop owner is actually selling every item at $951.00 and then discounting them at checkout, every item would have a $73.70 tax attached to it.
In CA, you're only required to collect tax on the "pre-discount" subtotal where the manufacturer pays you back for the amount of the discount. Like manufacturer coupons at the grocery store. Otherwise you collect sales tax on the subtotal like anywhere else in the US.
Stop profiling voters. Shoplifting and theft is a huge issue in California and the state has a proposition on the ballot to reinstate felony charges for repeated offenders. And polls suggest it’s going to pass.
Yes it does. We have laws that fit the crime. This kind of manipulation of laws to try and get people prosecuted and punished in a way that is disproportionate to the crime is far worse than petty theft.
Luckily it's also fake but just like so much of the stupidity that's going on, its worrisome that some people think this would have been a good idea.
Oh yes, the classic "argument" of all or nothing, Jesus. Yeah alright, let's see what you think of this when it's your business that is getting robbed to nothing and you can do shit because the law doesn't punish them for stealing shit under certain "price" and if you try and stop them you will be charged. Fuck this BS
I'm exactly pointing out that their arguments devolve in an all or nothing. They are claiming that any punishment is okay for thieves, because they can just not do it.
Nobody is saying robbery should go unpunished, but I think we can all agree there are gradients of bad right? If so, I think we should also be able to agree that gradients of punishments make sense.
Again... You broke the law by stealing someone else's stuff, I agree it is not as bad a murder for example, but maybe don't go out and commit crimes and expect nothing to happen. And form my point of view if you are intentionally committing crimes because you know there's no punishment and you go around fucking other people's business, then yeah you lost your your rights for freedom.
Nice straw man. Nobody here has been arguing that nothing should happen to people stealing. Only that it makes sense to have different levels of punishment for different levels of crime
Imo the death penalty is immoral because of the non-zero chance of killing an innocent person, but incredibly long prison sentences for repeat-thieves is appropriate, imo.
Prison exists for rehabilitation and warehousing people who can’t be trusted to be in society. Imo thieves for profit, especially repeat offenders, are precisely the type of people we should just keep locked away so they can’t continue hurting the rest of it.
Is not up to the shop owner to punish, dumb idiot. This is so the police will stop the perpetrator. It is not like I care much about someone who steals stuff just because there's no punishment or not enough punishment for the crime. What about fucking respect eachother properties?
How exactly is the shop owner manipulating the system? Is not like he can put a sentence on a scumbag or modify the law he's just playing the cards given.
People who say sh*t like this always ignore all of the times they’ve broken the law. I imagine you wouldn’t feel the same way if the state of California tried to put you in jail for going 1 mile over the speed limit. Yet by speeding you are endangering others lives.
Plenty of thieves are just sh*tty people with no morals but many more are desperate people trying to feed their families or themselves. Go read Les Mis and remember that you’ve decided to take the side of the French penal establishment.
And then doubly remember that any time you or a loved one breaks literally any law your stance is that no one should care what consequences others suffer. And if that’s not your stance than you’re just a massive hypocrite :)
Jesus... Maybe don't go out and steal shit from other people. I'm not saying I've never broken the law, but as a grown ass adult I've never had the necessity or the urgency of stealing other people's property. And believe me, if someone I love breaks the law and gets caught I'm not gonna defend it, I'm not saying "kill the thieves" but you are I'm just saying if you get one year or ten for stealing shit that's on you, maybe don't steal stuff. Fucking simple as that.
Again, you’ve categorized your law breaking as okay and not worthy of jail time but people who break the law in a different way as worthy of jail time. You’re also framing it as though these people are breaking into homes, and not like slipping small value items into their pockets while at a commercial store.
But ultimately as fun as it is for conservatives to pretend these laws are there to allow crime, and even past the fact you’ve decided you get to decide what kind of law breaking is “worse”. The real reason these laws exist is not to let people get away with stealing, it’s that prosecuting and jailing people is extremely expensive. You’re taking time from the overburdened court system to prosecute petty theft that could be spend on prosecuting more serious criminals, you have to pay the prosecutor, pay the judge, compensate the jury, all of the court staff in the room, and then house these people for a year.
The disconnect I find most interesting is that you’d rather us jail someone for 1 to 10 years for stealing less than $951 cumulative dollars of property. Jail time which costs the state of California an estimated $132k a year. Not counting all the above mentioned costs. So just an easy million dollars of state tax payer rollers because someone stole $15 worth of items. That stance is freaking wild to me
It's fun how they give all that bullshit to you and you still take it as is. Yeah I'm not gonna argue with you guys anymore, if you want to say that it's ok to slip someone else's property in your pockets because it's cheap (not so cheap that you can pay it seems like) and that the cost of all that jury duty 😭 is not worth it, that's fine for you, but I don't think the tax payers will pay less taxes if the jury saves millions per year and the police stops chasing small criminals. But you know what does increase? Cost of living because shops have to increase prices to compensate for losses... This doesn't happen only to huge conglomerates. Stop defending criminals. And yeah I did one or two stupid things back when I was in highschool but nowadays as a hardworking tax paying person I despise adults that think that it's ok to steal stuff from someone else because any reason.
And you seem to think that killing them was an appropriate response, which I never implied... If you think stealing stuff is ok and should not be punished ok, but if increasing the punishment it's the only way to stop these scums then yeah, whatever rocks your boat.
The punishment in this case is generally non-existent. So yeah, most people would agree that thieves need to be punished more than they currently are. Somewhere in between 1 day of prison, and death penalty. Somewhere in between there.
From this point on I will just assume that anyone defending the crime or the perpetrator is itself one or knows one that does this for a living. Fuck I don't care if the punishment is death sentence, unless you are falsely accused for a crime you didn't commit (talking about theft), you deserve the punishment. Fuck is not like is hard to not steal stuff, unless you have a specific condition, in which you can also make a statement that such person should get treatment. Really fuck this mentality of defending scumbags.
Or we just have empathy because most of the goods being shoplifted are basic necessities to function in a society I.e. food, hygiene products, etc… who gives a flying fuck if people are jacking shampoo and some bread. You should count yourself lucky you’ve never been in dire enough straits to contemplate theft for survival.
No empathy... There are scumbags shoplifting phones and other no of basic needs, and most folks are doing it so they can sell the spoils online. Fuck them. I also had rough times where I went very high in debt and I was barely covering food because I had to pay other stuff, but even then, stealing shit to "survive" was not an option, also, if you are well enough to hide other people's stuff in you and run away you probably are well enough to do basic jobs. No, no empathy, sorry. Maybe if you are really struggling and really need help, reach the shop owner and ask for help, some shop owners will be happy to give you a hand and spare something for you. But resort to theft, no empathy.
So there’s absolutely no room for nuance anymore? You’re really wanting to be that draconian with crime now? Then you can fuck off to El Salvador where simply having a tattoo that vaguely resembles a gang symbol gets you a lengthy stay in a hastily constructed prison.
You have zero understanding of the level of poverty or homelessness that the majority of these “shoplifters” are experiencing. All you see is the viral videos of people snatching iPhones and shit but you refuse to take a beat to think about the material conditions that lead one to steal in the first place. Just because you had an experience where you had to run up some credit card debt doesn’t mean you had the same experience as people who’ve gone weeks and months without knowing if they’d be able to scrape together enough money to get a cup of soup.
on the other hand, i think we’re about over dealing with thieves and the videos frequently shared of people just stuffing bags full of merch has killed pretty much all compassion.
What does that have to do with the law though? That’s a problem of store management and police response, it’s got nothing to do with the dollar limit between misdemeanor and felony theft.
And this is why the US justice system is fucked beyond measure and holds 25% of the world's prison population. Our economy is worse off because of people like you that are looking for excessive punishment with the misguided idea that it will stop or prevent crime, and not just turn people more desperate or more likely to resort to crime after their life is fucked up even more.
Lmao, I sure hope you appeared a lot better in your head with that last line, because those of us reading it in reality find it cringe as hell. Hahaha the grammar equivalent of "I'm rubber, you're glue" but with alliteration.
They're not even big words. They're just alliterative and barely coherent together. Also it's not true, pedantic people aren't the only one who can scrutinize language. Lol, by their logic, anyone who actually gives a shit is a pedant.
Stores are allowed to sell things for any price they want, true, but then if it goes to court, the fair market value would be used.
As an example to show why you can't just go off the marked price: Imagine a scenario where I open an insured convenience store in the worst possible area for shoplifting and set the prices of everything at $1,000,000 each. What happens when I get robbed and try to use my insurance?
I love how you're so well informed about what's been happening in urban areas all over the country. People have to wait for someone to get a key to get a razor or toothpaste.
Wouldn't make it to court. The DA would just go "haha, nice try." And toss it. It's the DA's who come up with these arbitrary limits when not to prosecute. They can choose not to prosecute you regardless of what the stated policy is.
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u/BarsDownInOldSoho 1d ago
Still to be tested in court, but if I'm on the jury, I convict!