[shawnphoffman]

Maybe I'm just of a different mindset but if they offered to return my laptop I would have gladly accepted.

For it to be such an issue in the beginning and then not-so-much in the end is suspicious.

[niggler]

The storyline is:

Laptop stolen, police report filed, laptop shows up in Iran, owner shames the people in possession of laptop, owner realizes he attacked the wrong person when readers and commenters pointed it out, owner realized the people in possession of the laptop are nice and now fells guilty, owner decides to give laptop to them as a nice gesture for the Internet to see.

The part that's not mentioned: how much compensation he received from the company that runs the tracking service. If its more than the laptop cost, the owner is still net ahead.

[tehwebguy]

> compensation

Does the service have a replacement guarantee or are you implying that this was a brand deal and he's being paid for the posts?

[niggler]

The latter (and if I were the CEO of that company, I probably would give the guy a new laptop, especially if the posts resulted in an influx of customers)

[ChuckMcM]

I think of myself as tending toward the cynical but this goes even farther than I would. Is there any reasoning behind that belief or just general cynicism? (for example is Dom somehow involved in marketing or advertising?)