Thieves and fences who sell stolen items on eBay are not going to check
the list; they know where the items came from. And if you buy an item
and find out it is on the list, what are you going to do about it?
Returning it to the legal owner would be the right thing to do, but
good luck getting your money back.

The other thing is that the list is going to fill up rather quickly
with items listed by unhappy ex-spouses and significant others, people
who have had their stuff re-possessed, and others whose claim to the
items in question may not be legitimate.

The Norwegian photo site Foto.no has a free service where you can
register your photo equippment with serial number. You can report your
equipment stolen, and people that have bought or going to buy used
gear can search on serion numbers.

"Someone" (yes...) should offer this as an international database,
with partners such as eBay, insurcace companies etc -- but it must be
free, because it's very important that a lot of people use it, or else
the service will be of less use.

-espen

it would be easy enough to report that the no.s don't match.  Could be part
of the reseller ratings process.