[KukicAdnan]

"If a renter does not return equipment, and it has not been stolen or lost, it's called voluntary parting."

I just don't understand this line of thinking at all. You rent something out for a specific and agreed upon period of time. The person decides to keep the thing you rented out. And it's not theft? Also how is it not lost?

[braythwayt]

Well, let’s consider a not-ridiculously-fraudulent situation:

I rent a camera from you for $70 a day, ostensibly for one day. My shoot doesn’t work out, so I keep it for three days. Did I commit theft?

Obviously, when I return it three days later, it is not theft. We can argue whether I owe you $70, $210, or much more, but to the police, that is very much a civil argument.

Now consider the situation between when I agreed to return it and when I actually returned it, like the day after it was due back.

Have I stolen the camera? No, we just disagree on the terms of a transaction where you voluntarily rented me a camera.

This “Mark” individual seemed to use fraud (photoshopping id?) to rent the camera, and that ought to be a crime in itself. But if he rented it in his own name, and the police showed up at his door, and he returned the camera, he could argue that he was renting it for a year, and how much he owes is a civil matter.

I don’t like this line of reasoning myself, but I can see why the police and insurance companies take the line that if you voluntarily give something to someone, it is not theft if they don’t return it, it is a dispute over the terms and conditions of your giving them the chattel.

[newman8r]

Agreed, it's a good thing that police generally don't get involved in contract disputes. There's still avenues for bringing criminal charges I assume.

[evandev]

Well they do when you are renting from a large company, such as a car rental company.[0]

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20277134

[newman8r]

I think property with a title is handled differently, which makes sense. Also, in this case, the car was simply reported as stolen and got pulled over in a public space - it's not like they hunted down an allegedly delinquent renter. Fortunately the rental company had to pay damages for their incompetence.

I'm actually curious as to what happens in the cases of delinquent renters - but I assume it involves things like court orders, or perhaps they just try to find the car and tow it away under existing repo laws, then send the account to collections.

[robocat]

Although in this situation he found his gear being sold on eBay - definitely theft.

[rhino369]

I think it's an insurance term that separates out two different risk profiles. Random theft (breaking into a car, pick pocketing, etc.) is a fairly low and known risk. It's therefore easy to ensure.

But if you rent your camera out every day, eventually some fraudster will steal it by not returning it. And the risk of that happening likely depends on how well the renter is screening prospective renters. That makes it tough to insure. KikSplit says its a 1/1000 occurrence, but you can't just charge a .1% premium because if KikSplit does a shitty job of keeping out fraudsters, then it might be 2/100. Things that are tough to insure are expensive to insure.

[cpach]

Right or wrong, that sends out a pretty strong message from the authorities that if you rent things out you better be prepared to lose them. If one can’t get that stuff insured at a reasonable price I would be wary of renting out expensive stuff since there is apparently no good recourse when ”voluntary parting” occurs.

[benatkin]

I think the idea was that the author of the post voluntarily handed it to the scumbag. They use the term parting because it doesn't carry the connotations that lended or gave do. However, nothing appeared to be amiss until he didn't return it, so until he didn't return it, it was voluntary. Since that was long past the in-person interaction, the parting during the in-person interaction could be considered voluntary.

It would be interesting if someone stole for the first time like this. They could decide first to take the chance to steal it, and once they have the potentially stolen goods, decide whether or not to return it. Then the moment where they became a thief would be a fuzzy period of time between the time it was agreed to return it to the time he sold the equipment to a third party.

[KukicAdnan]

But I don't see how it was "voluntary." There must have been some agreed upon contract through KitSplit right that makes this not a voluntary but a business-type transaction where the rules are clearly stated: You paid $X, and you get Y for an agreed amount of time. If you don't pay, you don't get it, if you don't return within the timeframe agreed you're in breach of said contract.

[benatkin]

The parting is part of a sub-transaction within the overall transaction. In the in-person meeting where the parting happened, the parting it was voluntary. Within the context of the whole transaction, it wasn't voluntary. That context is eliminated when deciding whether it's robbery or voluntary parting, because that's just about the one in-person interaction.