Technologies Used
Description
Toolcheck.ie is the brainchild of a Wicklow carpenter who has been the victim of tool theft in the past. He had a very simple but powerful idea for how best to combat this. The site is aimed at tradespeople who own valuable tools that are at risk of being stolen.
The central concept behind ToolCheck is to build up a comprehensive database of tools that people in the second hand market can query before purchasing. For example, let’s say Joe Soap is a carpenter and has a toolbox full of valuable tools – he can register on the site, sign up to a monthly subscription plan and then create his online toolbox by uploading serial numbers and images of his tools. Let’s say Joe’s tools are stolen after this point.
Meanwhile John Doe is in the market for a second hand drill and comes across a bargain at a local market. He can query the ToolCheck database (for free) before he buys and if the tool is found on the database – this will raise a flag. In our example, if John finds a match on Joe’s tool – Joe will be alerted and if John chooses to – he can initiate an email conversation with him. Police can also use the database to identify suspicious tools.
