Maryrrf,

Here is a suggestion: put some posters around the neighbourhood that you are prepared to buy back your CD's, well you would write it as "reward offered for return of the CD's stolen from my car". The thieves are probably just looking for money anyway so they win and you win. You risk giving them the idea for a future scam, I suppose, but it only really works when the stolen items are unique.

Real life example:

Not long ago someone went into the local art gallery, which is owned by a friend of mine and which she had only just opened. This "someone" - we found out through the neighbourhood who it was fairly quickly, i.e. within hours - just walked straight in, chatted to the owner, looked at the catalogue of artworks, waited until she went out into the other room and stole an artwork off the wall. It was the one with the highest price tag (which in my humble opinion wasn't "art" but that's another story). He also stole a small Papier-Maché figure. Neither of these items would have been able to be flogged off among his mates or down the pub or at the pawn shop so he was totally stuck with his prizes.

Even though the obvious thing to do was to go and report it to the Police and let them handle it, my friend and her husband knocked on the perp's door and offered him $100 for the two artworks and he handed them over. She did promise not to tell the Police, but we convinced her afterwards to let them know who it was. He was already well-known to them and wanted for a few other offences.

Helen