The Victoria Police Department and UsedVictoria.com are forming a new community partnership in order to return recovered stolen property.
The program combines two successful programs already in place that advertise lost or stolen property: VicPD’s "Is This Yours?" Pinterest board and the Found section of UsedVictoria.com will now both feature property that police are looking to return to its rightful owners.
“VicPD’s Is This Yours? Pinterest board has proven itself as a very useful tool for our officers over the last year and a half,” said Mark MacIntyre, director of VicPD’s public affairs and crime prevention services. “This new community partnership will greatly strengthen our ability to return stolen property and serve members of our communities.”
Since the launch of VicPD’s Pinterest board in 2012, police have returned stolen bicycles, electric scooters, wedding photographs, iPads and iPhones to their rightful owners. Combining that success with UsedVictoria.com's 500,000-plus unique visitors a month is likely to create more happy reunions, said Elizabeth Dutton, president of UsedEverywhere.com.
"Usedvictoria.com is one of Victoria's most popular websites, second only to Facebook, and when we learned about the VicPD's 'Is This Yours?' Pinterest board, we knew we could help reach more Victorians faster," Dutton said. "In addition to increasing VicPD's online presence, our technology will also save them time.”
Police will be able to upload recovered items to UsedVictoria.com and simply hit the 'Share' button to instantly populate their existing Pinterest board and all other linked social media sites.