MSC Napoli loot: Plain thieving, or fair game?

[Backdrifter]

There are now reports that some of the stuff grabbed from the beached containers is being auctioned on eBay, sometimes openly stating "from MSC Napoli".

What do you reckon? Do you think this is okay, what's the problem - or sickened by the sight of what are essentially looters openly flogging their swag?

I think it's a sad spectacle to see people treating a potentially devastating environmental spillage as an opportunity to help themselves to some free stuff (and then profiting from it)... But while I hesitate to second-guess other ABers' reactions, I have this creeping feeling I'm in a minority so I hope I'm proved wrong.

[noxlumos]

I think that if you are poor then you are negligent in your duties to yourself if you do not take very opportunity available to you to advance yourself. Salvage requires no O levels and I think you are actually witnessing quite a marvellous example of feral intelligence and had I been in the vicinity I'd have had a team of people there grabbing new BMW motorbikes as well as would nearly anyone else I can think of.
I DO regret the environmental impact as I'm sure do most of these people, but not collecting the stuff will not make the oil spillage go away etc. People are just looking after themselves, there's no evil in that.

[Grunty]

Legal procedures are now being put in action to trace the thieves and make them return the property they have stolen. I imagine that Ebay will be useful in tracing many of them. Fortunately however, we live in a country where it is rare to shoot looters.

[thedelbwa]

By the way, anyone want to buy a barrel of wine...???


Sorry, joke........

[Backdrifter]

noxlumos, where do you draw the line? If you see someone's front door open is it okay to sneak in, grab their TV and walk off with it? Some of the stuff being taken from the beach is people's personal possessions being shipped across the world, including family heirlooms and other items of emotional value.

[dogfish]

In my eyes taking something that doesn't belong to you is theft.
A very unbecoming spectacle.

[vehelpfulguy]

We have seen that society can very easily break down under certain circumstances.

When there was that large explosion in London a year or so back, and nearby houses were evacuated, people started going in there looting.

And of course New Orleans had terrible looting after the floods last year, with the police threatening to shoot people.

I think any car that breaks down at the side of the road would find itself stripped of everything in a few hours if it was not guarded.

Of course people near the coast have a history of helping themselves to "salvage" even to the extent in the past of putting up fake lights at night to make ships hit local rocks.

They would then murder the crew and steal the belongings.

I am not saying any of this is right, but most people would "help themselves" if for example they found something of value lying at the side of the road that may have fallen off a lorry.

It fell off the back of a lorry officer.

[jedimistress]

I think it's fine, what else will happen to the cargo? I don't see the problem apart from people jumping on media bandwagons & points of view. I can't see what harm it causes. Backdrifter you were specifically asking about the boat so I see no need to ask where Noxlumos would draw the line, else that could lead to an neverending argument.

Common sense must prevail here. I suspect it's the green eyed people wishing they could have a load of booty on their doorstep who complain most.

I like a good scavenge myself. After a car boot sale it's amazing how much is left over for the bin men. Clothes, books, houseware, furniture. The world seems so wasteful so I don't see how scavenging hurts.

[Backdrifter]

But jedimistress it's other people's stuff. That's the point I was making. And they're making a huge mess an even bigger mess. The stuff left over from the car boot sale has been offered for sale by its previous owner, if it's left over at the end and the seller isn't interested in taking it back, then fair do's. But it seems to me that people are seeing this stuff washed up, with no visible owner, and that makes it okay to just help yourself. And that because some of it will simply be claimed on insurance by large companies, who cares. But some of it is stuff people have ordered, and some of it is personal possessions being shipped. And taking that is harmless is it? It's very convenient to ringfence this as a crime-free situation and claim it's not the same as other forms of theft, but it is.

I detest the shoulder-shrugging attitude being shown by you and other people, and it's crude & crass to suggest that anyone who says anything against it is doing so out of envy. Do you really not think people's stomachs can be genuinely turned by this?

[Mr Tall]

SCRAMBLE

I'd definitely go on a thieve up finders keepers.

[noxlumos]

It's perfectly legal. You seem to miss this important point. As long as they declare their salvage they have done nothing wrong.
Might I suggest you trace your family tree. Most people have tinkers, convicts, slave owners, prostitues, thieves etc in theirs, I doubt you'd be any exception, and it might bring you down to earth a bit.

[Ctrak]

Not too sure where I stand on this.

I always have a theory that if money/product is left in a vending machine, it's technically owned by the next person to use the machine, because the previous person has been too stupid/irresponsible/lazy to get it. But I'm not sure how it applies to this.

[andy-hughes]

As I understand it, the law allows individuals to salvage items, but they are still legally the property of their original owners who must then pay an agreed salvage fee in order to recalim their property from the salvager.

At least, that's the legal position. I do think that skipping of with a 4 x 4 is basically theft, and i did feel sorry for a lady on the radio today who has seen her entire posessions washed up on the shore and removed by individuals who obviously have no intention of allowing her to reclaim them.

Some people seem to think that because some items belong to large companies -BMW for example, that makes it OK to steal cratefuls of car parts. Salvaging and following the proceedure laid down by law is, as noxlumos has advised, perfectly legal - but how many people are actually doing that?

[Backdrifter]

noxlumos, funnily enough I am indeed making plans to trace my family tree and may in fact as you say uncover evidence of slave owners, prostitutes and thieves. So what? You think that will make me suddenly relent and say yes, it's okay, I was wrong? How would it "bring me down to earth" exactly? My distaste at these actions won't suddenly disappear if I find a great-great-great grandfather was a tinker.

[idalovett]

Incredibly they say it will take a year to remove all of the 2000 containers. Does this time limit include the tea breaks, union meetings, early going home on a Friday and no weekend working of the british workers employed to do the job? As if the weather is going to stay kind for 52 weeks and the containers will stay onboard a ship that will stay intact and be waiting for the containers removal at the leisure of the appointed workmen . Its time the army got involved because if this ship and contents are such an environmental hazard as we have been told then 52 weeks to unload it is total lunacy.