What do you do when someone steals your stuff and the police won’t do anything about the situation ? You take your problem to the one place where millions of people will try and solve it because they have nothing better to do, of course.

Jesse McPherson was properly ticked off when he discovered his telly, his laptop and his Xbox had all been nicked. He managed to get his hands on some CCTV footage of the thief trying to hock his lappy in a local pawnshop. He forwards the footage to the police but doesn’t hear anything back from them.

Fast forward a couple of days and his ever so nice co-workers have bought him a new Xbox to make up for the one that was lifted. He hooks it up and recovers his Xbox Live account only to receive a voice message to the effect of, “I have your xbox. I stole it. You’re more than welcome to buy it back” [language used was more colourful but we’re not the kind to use such language –Ed].

So Jesse hits up the Philadelphia Police Department with this piece of news only to be told to call back during business hours. While on the phone to the fuzz, he receives two more messages from the thief. Upon hearing that the man who robbed him was now harassing McPherson, the Philadelphia Police Dept hung up. Lovely.

So McPherson decided to post the story on his blog. Sure enough not long after doing so, the power of the internets took hold. The post appeared on Digg and if the count is anything to go by, over 7000 people began the search for the little loser that stole the laptop.

This is where it gets a little bit hazy. Diggers managed to source the name, address, phone number, girlfriend etc of the guy that left the Xbox message. They then proceeded to harass him for a couple of days in the manner you’d expect if a thief’s details were posted on the internet.

A couple of days later the person from the pawnshop footage showed up to McPherson’s house and returned the powerbook. However this wasn’t the guy from the pictures Diggers managed to find of the guy who left the message. The guy who returned the powerbook insisted that he had bought it "off some crackhead". So it looks like there was two (very dumb) people involved.

So here’s the skinny (we think, we’re very confused). The guy from the pawnshop (who claims he didn’t steal the laptop but bought it from someone else) sees his picture all over the internet in the surveillance snaps, gets freaked out and returns the laptop to it’s rightful owner.

Around the same time the first bloke is trying to hock the powerbook, a kid by the name of Joseph Grone buys a stolen Xbox 360 and then proceeds to try and hold it for ransom from the original owner. He leaves the Xbox Live message not realising the details in his own Xbox Live profile make him fairly easily traced. His details are discovered and after a substantial amount of harassment, he hands back the Xbox 360.

The details on who actually broke into McPherson’s house are limited but we’ll keep you posted on the progress of the case. However, we’re willing to bet that Jesse is pretty happy to get 2/3 items back safely and anything else that happens would just be a bonus.

Visit McPherson’s blog here.