I'll keep an eye out. This is hard for me to believe. I personally know the owner and operator of United and have been to the main facility many times, even purchased a number of machines from them in the past. I wonder which of their locations this happened at because most all of these titles aren't/weren't in the main facility the last time I was there. They do have many storage places though, including somewhere in downtown Wichita I was told. I imagine that's where this occurred.

$500 reward?

Big spenders.

Why would this make any difference at all? *scratch head*

Sucks that games got stolen, but if they've been sitting on games for 20 years, they obviously weren't motivated to sell them out before? If anything maybe the fact that they lost inventory they haven't been selling should be a motivator to reduce down, consolidate locations, and make the ones they do have more secure, I'd think...

I patrol CL for KS/OK/TX/MO/AR/LA, I'll keep an eye out but man...bleh.

*edit* I am not in any way condoning or supporting what happened to them.

Yeah. Trying to buy anything from them takes a hostage negotiator-style type of training. They won't sell anything unless it's working and even then, the prices are retail, even for stuff that's 30 years old. I have been able to purchase a few machines in the past, but no popular titles because those are the ones they try and gouge you on.

Hope they catch them. It would take a while and a BIG truck to haul away that many machines.

I was going to post " I hate hoarders" but it would probably come out wrong so never mind.

I would think maybe its $500 per machine. Why even get involved for $500.

Terrible news

Can they determine how long the games have been missing ?

I bought my NIB from them Jess Littlejohn was my guy very nice and great service

Hope they surface - awesome they knew the serial numbers

I think a lot of people, myself included, would keep an eye out without needing to be compensated for it.

It's a small community - let's not be strangers.

Uh - those serial numbers aren't serial numbers. I'm not even sure what those numbers would be.

Those are stock numbers. Every item in their inventory has a stock number written on it somewhere in white grease pencil. That's how they keep track of everything. They have a LOT of stuff.

Sorry to hear this. I HATE theives.

Here are some pictures I took of the last time I was there. This is not where the machines that were stolen were being kept, but it gives you an idea of how much stuff they have, and this is just one location...(you can see the grease pencil stock numbers on some of the cabinets)...

Damn. Stand by.

They are a retail shop so why wouldn't their prices be at retail? I have been in to talk to them a few times and look at the inventory for sale list. They don't have what I want so I have not bought anything from them. The place is a mess and looks like a salvage yard for pinball and arcade games, but I don't think they are rubes; I think they know the market for what they have and price accordingly.

True, but they want $1500 for a water damaged, faded, scratched up Ms. Pac/Galaga/etc simply because they are popular titles. I should have specified that I was talking more about arcade cabs than pins. But if you went in and said "I want that broken down Addams," they won't sell it to you, even if you make them a decent off because their policy is they won't sell anything unless it's working.

"It's a small community - let's not be strangers"

I would agree. So why would the owner of the pins not make this thread then?

Wow $500 bucks huh!! For like $40,000+ worth of machines. So generous.

What happens if you buy a pin that is later found to be stolen? Do you just lose your money and the pin at that point? Makes me want to be more alert on "to good to be true" deals.

That's a possibility, yes.

Something's amiss. I've heard two versions of this story. Why are the police not involved? Why is united not on pinside with a feature add asking for help?
I understand reaching out to the moderator's for help.
But why not be more proactive?
I also believe insurance company should and would be involved by now.
20 machines, no alarms, video..???
I have moved that many on same day with crew, even in middle of night. This takes time.
Inside job, question facility workers. Lie detector staff.

My thoughts exactly something is being left out.

Up the reward to a choice of one of the pins?

Man, you guys are some greedy bastages. SMH... I know we all pretty much don't like retailers because their business is to extract as much money as possible from our wallets, but can we stop pretending this was just someone playing a prank or something? This is grand theft. It's a felony. /boggle You're not entitled to be paid to just be a decent person and report something suspicious if you see it.

I'm sure they'd have detectives working in shifts, csi, FBI etc.. The police seriously wouldn't give a shit. This would be a "call us back if you figure anything out" type of situation.

I am the actual original writer of this post. As I started spreading the post first to the key contact that I am fortunate enough to know & call friend they wanted to help spread the work and I thank them. Now, with that said let me address this question that everyone keeps pondering (understandably). Both the comp. owner & gen. manager have been running the biz for many many yrs. They are both getting up there age wise and are not social media savvy at all. Their extent of being in touch with today's pinball community is no better. Knowing that I run the facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/pinballwichita/ they contacted me and asked for my help.

The police are involved, A police report was filed at the time the crime was discovered. As far as being proactive, I think they did pretty good. They contacted me yesterday morning, I went in and talked to them that afternoon and picked up the list of stolen pins when id'ing numbers. I spent 30 mins writing the original post this morning before leaving for work. And, at this point with the help of some of the very "movers & shakers" friends/colleagues here in the in the mid-west region we've already found and confirmed most of the titles by connecting the dots. While the the dissectors spent the day dissecting, debating and sniffing at the story. So, I say sniffers keep sniffin', baters keep bating and chatter keep chatting. But as for me and the other flippers out there, it's Saturday night! Time for the flippers to get flippin'!

Seems they'll only not press charges if the "entire lot" is returned "uncompromised". What if one of them has a suicided battery? Will the thieves then be forced to poenas dare?

20 machines, no video surveillance, nothing else was touched.
This is a inside job for sure.
Strange number for the reward info, 500 bucks.

The $500 is to motivate the d-bag meth-heads to rat each other out. Normal decent people will help out no matter what

Sounds like they don't know much about the machines besides a non official serial number. If they had pictures and more information about them actually working that would help a bit. We might just see $40k in parts show up instead of machines.

Let me get this straight, if somebody steals something valuable of yours and I find it, then you are happy for me to charge you hundreds or even thousands to give back what is rightfully yours? How about if you happen to come across one of these you do the right thing by reporting it to the police and gracefully reject the reward or have them donate it to charity?

Not sure which is worse: stealing or expecting to profit from someone else's misfortune. Very disappointed with many of these comments.

The price of the reward lets the rats turn on each other, that's the bait.

To those who are in the Wichita area and/or know the folks at United, is Jess still over there? I haven't spoken to him in quite some time, but he is a good guy.

Brad

Yikes! All this bashing of the victim sure makes the community look bad...

Good news!

Are there a lot of tweakers that like to casually browse internet pinball forums?

If you haven't seen the story about the STTNG that was picked up in Louisiana backwoods....you really need to find it on here and read it.

Yes, there are some real, legitimate, scary crackheads in pinball.

No, that's called extortion. What I think some people are saying is that for such a pricey loss, such a small reward begs the question: if you don't care about your items, why should we?

While the point is been made that good people should seek to prevent evil when they see it, simply out of the goodness of their hearts, there is something to be said about fostering good will within a community -- especially when your company has a reputation for being niggardly.

Okay but something tells me I'm in for some weird reading!

Here you go. Definately a hoot.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/into-the-maw-of-dispair-true-account-of-my-latest-craigslist-nightmare#post-1760616

Grab a stiff drink for this, you will want it.

TRUTH!

And the creepy part is that I talked to this guy BEFORE these events happened. I was literally heading back from vacation in New Orleans, wife and I were going to stop and get this, but the guy didn't reply to me until after we were passed, wanted me to come back the following week...we declined!

So what ever came of this? We're any of the machine's ever found??