Surveillance video of thief who stole my lexus. what do i do with it? (picture included)?

[Kevin]

Long story short. a thief stole my girlfriends lexus 2007 is250. she worked very hard for the car and had it stolen on new years eve. we have already reported it to the police and posted it on every social media including facebook twitter and craigslist.

he made a purchase at a local safeway not to far from her work place. luckily the safeway had video surveillance and our manager at our current store caught a glimpse of what the thief was wearing.

the gift card / visa company gave us the time the thief purchased something for 33.06 and the exact time at 1:37. so we were able to rule out the main suspect in the incident.

now i would like to report the surveillance footage to the police but i was wondering what good will it do? would they beable to track down the thief that way? i really want our lexus back. we both work at office max and make enough to get by. now with the stolen lexus we still have to pay it off even if it is not in our possesion. Please help any information would be great

[ugiidriver]

The video proves nothing about the car thief, only the person he let have the card. Th police will not care about a credit card fraud, much less a gift card.

[?]

it will do a lot of good in making a criminal case and punishing the dude.

continue with public shaming

you can also hire an attorney and PI and track the perp down yourself.

post on the local news websites. they usually have forums.

why do you have a lexus if you only make enough to get by? Money is not to be whitnessed, a lexus was no the right place to put your money if you have other needs. This is what happens when people are flashy, it attracts the wrong kind of attention.

[Gene G]

Hope you had comprehensive coverage, that should pay it off. I am not sure ever want a vehicle back that has been stolen, luckily I have never had one stolen, of course most of the vehicles I drive are TOO vanilla to be stolen. I simply do not get off on impressing people next to me at the stop light for thirty eight seconds. Best if it is never recovered, whoever is driving it right now does not give one hoot about it and will abuse it as much as drive it. The longer they have it the worst the situation gets.

[Gatsby216]

First off are you saying you do not have comprehensive coverage on a valuable car that has a loan on it. Not judging, just want to make sure, because that is uncommon. Check with your insurance company.
Find your loan contract, read every word. Sometimes it includes VSI, which will pay off the loan amount in the event of an uninsured total loss on the vehicle. Sometimes is not offered, sometimes is an option to purchase at the time the loan is taken out. Read contract, if you just call lender may say you don't have it when actually you do. Happens all the time, they did not record that when the loan was booked.

As for the police, your best bet is to give them any information you have. Put it in writing in short note to the detective assigned to the case. Try to meet with him and tell him situation, if you don't have insurance and are taking a big loss, maybe he can make a few extra calls or try to ID the person in the video.
There is no way for you to know much investigating they will do or what action they will take. Keep in mind they are focused on getting the perpetrators of crimes, not property recovery. They like to recover property and call people with good news.....hey we have your property, but that usually does not happen.
You could meet with a private detective, I am not sure what they could do, but again, even if the detective is able to help the police ID the thief, and that takes weeks, I don't think your car is going to be found.
Maybe if was joy riders it might be found, but often times those cars are badly damaged.
Best of luck, and hope it works out.
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