A Christchurch musician claims his local Cash Converters knowingly held onto his stolen guitar for a month after it was reported missing.
Daniel Grinwis told Wendyl Nissen on RadioLIVE that a case containing his guitar, tuner, lead and a personal songbook was stolen from him on March 8.
He says he made every effort to track down his belongings over the next few days.
"I went to every place known to man in the city with flyers, I reported it with police and registered the police reference number with every pawn shop website."
During his search he visited Cash Converters Linwood, where staff denied having seen any of the items. He gave the store the guitar's reference number for them to put into the company's database of stolen property.
"Funnily enough, they were the only store in the whole of Christchurch that actually refused to take my flyer," he says.
He also posted about his missing equipment in several local musicians' Facebook groups, but gave up hope of ever seeing his "very unique guitar" again.
On April 5, almost a month after the theft, a stranger contacted Mr Grinwis through Facebook telling him that his missing guitar was on a shelf in Cash Converters Linwood.
"He took a photo of it hanging on the rack, took a photo of the serial number, and I was like 'yup that's mine'. I went straight round there, took it off the rack and went to the counter and said 'this is mine'.
"I was met with a very prickly and defensive attitude about it as if I was somehow in the wrong, which I brushed off at the time."
Staff told Mr Grinwis that company protocol meant he couldn't just take his guitar, he would have to contact police first. As it was almost 5pm police were unable to make it in time before the store closed, so he left.
"The next day I had a funny feeling about it, something wasn't sitting right with me," he says.
"I went back in with a friend and saw my tuner was in the glass display cabinet. I said I bet if you take that out and turn it upside down you'll see my initials, D.G., scratched on there, and sure enough [they were]."
He confronted staff about the store displaying items that had been listed as stolen goods, which he assumed was simply "negligence".
"I said to them 'listen, this shouldn't even be on the shelf. This is lodged in your database as stolen property, so whoever actually brought this didn't follow proper procedure and type in the serial number'."
He says he received "quite a harsh" response from the woman working at the shop, who told him that police regularly come by and check their items for stolen property once a month.
Mr Grinwis says police told him that the person who stole his property had sold the guitar to the Linwood store for $75 the morning after the theft.
"Which means that it was already in their store when I went there the following day!" he wrote.
"Funny how they were the ONLY ones that wouldn't take my flyer, and how they waited for a month before putting it on the shelf."
Police returned Mr Grinwis' guitar to him on April 7.
He told Newshub that when he asked staff how they could have missed the fact that they were holding stolen property, they told him there had been a "system error".
He says he has received no apology from Cash Converters, and that since sharing his story on social media he has heard of similar incidents happening with stolen property at the Linwood store.
"I've had close to a dozen people saying my tools, same thing, bike, same thing, my wedding ring. It's unbelievable."
In response, Cash Converters said they have systems in place to identify stolen items and help police catch the culprits, "resulting in few stolen goods being presented at our stores".
"We are aware of the incident Mr Grinwis is concerned about, it was handled by our Linwood Store Team who apologised at the time to Mr Grinwis," the company said.
"We acknowledge that on this occasion our processes have not worked as well as we would want. On this occasion the goods had already been purchased before Mr Grinwis reported them as stolen.
"We have already reviewed our processes and are actioning changes to prevent a reoccurrence."
Newshub.
