Bought a Co2 cylinder off ebay, turns out as Pepsi's

As the title says, I received my 20 lb cylinder today from a seller in Florida, and it has return for deposit Pepsi Orlando stickers on it. Will take it to my gas dealer tomorrow, but this was not disclosed in the auction, and I am sure it will not be usable to me. Any ideas? contact ebay and the seller will be done tonight, should I mention to seller the stolen goods aspect of this sale?

 

You could always remove the stickers considering you can't easily return it.

 

My thoughts exactly. A little acetone will take those stickers right off.

 

yeah, I thought about that, but I'd need to grind the "PBC ORLANDO" out right above the date stamp, and don't want to take that to the gas dealer...

 

I don't think it will be a problem. Take it in a switch it out for a full one. A friend of mine was in the same situation and he had no problem at one of the biger co2/oxygen and other gas suppliers.

 

You can grind that off and patch it with some bondo or JB Weld then grind it smooth and repaint the whole thing with spray epoxy.

 

I say take the sticker off, don't worry about the raised lettering and just take it in for an exchange.

 

Yup...Strut in there like there was nothing doing, If anyone asks...just say that's how you got it. They'll never even say a word.

 

QFT. They won't care.

 

They probably won't even notice. Who's to say it was actually stolen?

 

I have a friend that works for their main competitor and they were telling me they sell of stuff all the time when it is out of their compliance range...

 

I wouldn't be grinding on a air cylinder. You'll possibly weaken it.

I'd email the seller to make sure you're not receiving stolen goods. If they say the deal is legit, I'd just trade it in or just get it filled.


B

 

true. Who is to say it ISN'T legit? I'd pull the stickers -and as someone mentioned, don't go grinding on a cylinder. Thats dangerous stuff.
Perhaps your area is different, but none of the places I've purchased CO2 at will fill the existing cylinder -they prefer to just exchange it for a full one. Problem solved. They won't even bat an eye about it -you purchased it, its yours as far as you know. Use it. I used to keep a small list (for curiosity sake) on some of the previous 'owners' names on the bottles I've used over the years.

 

I'd take it in, act like you come in there everyday, and just ask for an exchange. If they notice, play dumb, I mean you bought it in good faith right? Not like you noticed it was marked Pepsico right?

 

I get my coke tank filled all the time. Don't worry.

 

Mine clearly has Coca Cola embossed into it. My supplier has never mentioned anything to me.

 

I completely disagree with the vast majority of posts on this thread!

You bought stolen goods, which happens to be illegal ! (Theft by Purchase)
If people couldn't fence or sell stolen goods there'd be a whole lot less theft in the world

What if the gas distributer you take it to does care? And turns your A$$ in.

I'd contact the seller and ebay both. If you think Pepsi sells or gives these things away contact them and ask. I can pretty much guarantee they'll want it back.

Be sure & feedback to let others know this seller engages in the selling of stolen property

 

I disagree, abracadabra. Several of the corny's I've bought have had PepsiCo stickers on them and they were purchased from the bottling plant. I don't know where the OP is, but it sounds like it's an out of state eBay purchase. I seriously doubt his local pepsi distributor will care. Hell, around here, you can't even return a sanke keg to a beer distributor without a reciept, even if you wanted to!

 

I disagree. There's no way to tell if the cylinder is stolen property. Does it have a Pepsi sticker? Yep. Is it embossed with PBC? Yep.

The kegs I purchased directly from New Belgium have NB paint on them and are embossed "New Belgium Brewing". Yet, I own them, I have (or at least used to have) a receipt for the purchase, and am free to resell the kegs if I wanted to.

I agree that contacting the seller to ask is a good move, but if the seller says "Not Stolen", then I think OP can proceed in good faith.

 

Kegs and corny kegs are not the same as C02 gas cylinders, which with testing are good for 50 years or much longer. Corny kegs are obsolete and are being sold to the general public. To the best of my knowledge CO2 tanks are still being used by soft drink dist. Damaged Sanke key kegs are also sold.

Even a reputable scrap metal dealer will not take a gas cylinder with Pepsi or Coke stamped on it because it is illegal and or because they don't want trouble with the law.

If the OP wants to take the word of an Ebay seller and not contact Pepsi that's his business. People can use whatever method they desire to rationalize recieving stolen property.

But I felt like someone on this site needed to tell the OP the truth about what's going on here.

 

Well,
Everybody's a winner, winner,
Chicken Dinner!
My gas guy never batted an eye, and swapped out a new one!

Abracadabra, After reading your post, I felt bad enough to actually call Pepsi Orlando, and tell them the whole story, and they said, in effect, no problem, many times people close an account, and it is too much trouble to reopen the acct, and they sell the cylinder. I said" so I don't have to feel guilty?" and she replied, "not at all" I told her I'd buy some pepsi for a while!!
now on to another idea I had....
Anybody ever built a balance beam type scale to know when theyre running low on Co2??
I'll start another thread for that.....

 

I would like to fish with those.

 

That's cool I'm glad you checked it out I'll take you at your word. But I can also tell you that CCE ( Coca Cola Enterprises) does not have that attitude about CO2 tanks with their stamp on it as I called them myself.

 

Carl, I really don't quite follow you logic here.. I guess obsolete was a poor choice of words. I didn't say or mean to imply that cornies were no longer in use but for the vast majority of vendors they are not used any longer as most vendors use the boxes.. And cornies are being sold to the public legally.

I know for a fact CCE does not sell their CO2 bottles and that if you call them they will want the tank back, that's why I encouraged the OP to call Pespi

 

I suspect that sort of the way cornies went so are, to a lesser degree, CO2 cylinders. Many larger outlets are shifting away from old style CO2 cylinders to insulated dewars with CO2 delivered to a fill fitting on the outside of the building to fill the tank in place rather than swapping out tanks. For Example. It would not surprise me at all that some Pepsi distributors would be willing to sell off(or let escape without concern) excess (fully depreciated) hardware. Since most Pepsi/Coke distributors are not company owned but are franchises policies regarding excess equipment are likely to vary a lot from one locality to another.

 

Most Pepsi dist may be independant but CCE is the distributor for Coke in the USA if there are any independant dist. left in this USA for Coke they are few and far between. And Coke vendors such as MacDonalds vastly outnumber Pepsi

 

I found 6 (including CCE) without trying to hard. Wikipedia says 51. (Edit: 51 worldwide)

Coca-Cola Bottling Co. United is the #3 Coca-Cola bottler in the US.

atlanticbottling.com Coca-cola products for southwest, central, and sout central Iowa.

http://www.chattanoogacocacola.com/ - parts of TN

 

So did this guy ever get his tank filled?

 

If you consider that 5 independant distributors in the USA (and that's what I specifed the USA when I disputed your statement since the OP is in the USA and that's what the discussion was about) equates to most of them being independant franchises while the CCE Corp. that Coca Cola Corp. started dominates the business and is in 48 states and Canada.

That's fine I won't argue the point with you.

 

You know, this is a really annoying thing and Pepsi seems to be the worst offender. They sell surplus stuff but don't bother stripping off the "YOU CAN BE PROSECUTED FOR THEFT" stickers on it, so future owners don't know if they can believe the stuff was legitimately surplussed out or snaffled in the middle of the night.

I'd say, not a lawyer and all but just on an ethics basis, the stamp and sticker are red flags and require you to do some due diligence. Which you did by calling the Pepsi plant referenced on the sticker. They told you, in effect, "Don't worry about it, we just leave those on there when we surplus them out." Well, that's going to make it really hard next time they go to prosecute somebody for theft, but you're off the hook. I'd get that sticker right off there now. You don't want anybody thinking you're a thief.

My LHBS guy bought a bunch of surplus beat-up cornies from a local bottler and they were the same, big scary stickers on them putting me on notice that they were stolen property, which I know for a fact that they aren't. What a way to run a railroad!

 

WRONG.

You meant to say "In my locale, Coke vendors ....."

That is a terribly broad generalization. For example, here in Nebraska, Pepsi-contract vendors outnumber Coke-contract vendors 2 to 1. And the University has a exclusive Pepsi contract too, if you factor in their University direct sales, then it's closer to 3-to-1 or higher.

Just because it's that way in YOUR neighborhood doesn't mean it's universal, infallible truth.


Besides, the OP got his answer from PepsiCo, and also got his tank exchanged successfully and safely. He took your advice. And all ended well.

 

Yes he did, with no problems... you may sleep soundly tonight

 

Just My 2 cents, but I recently bought 4 cornys which all had similar stickers on them. I do consider buying property which is likely to have been stolen to be just as bad as stealing it yourself, but I got them from the LHBS, which is also a brewery. They've been in business for quite some time and are pretty reputable, So I consider that due diligence on my part and I've got a clean conscience. It is pretty crappy that RC cola didn't bother to remove those stickers before selling them.

If I was the OP, I'd contact the seller and ask, but what's that going to do? the seller's not going to admit that they're stolen even if they were. I guess if you want a clean concience at the end of the day you can't buy stuff that is commonly stolen on ebay (kegs, co2 tanks, etc)

 

I think this has been sufficiently answered.