This may have been addressed already, but I couldn't find a thread about it so my apologies if I just missed it.

I had been having a repetitive problem with stolen items showing up in my inventory even though my goody-two-shows PC hadn't stolen anything, so after some experimentation I finally duplicated the problem.

I would be looting an area taking the takeable stuff and leaving anything labeled "steal". When I would get over-encumbered, I'd find an empty container, dump a bunch of my crap in the container, and have my follower do a "Take All" from the container. Then when I got back home, I'd take it all from him/her and put it in containers in my house.

Then I started noticing lots of red in the containers at my house.

Turns out a few people have complained about this online, so I wrote to Bethesda Technical Support and asked why this bug wasn't being addressed with the next patch. The response from "Keith S." was that it was NOT a bug, but it was a "gameplay issue" and I needed to sign up for this forum and ask you guys what I'm doing wrong (because apparently this 45-year-old who has been writing software for 30 years and playing games longer than that isn't bright enough to play a video game correctly).

So I did some playing around, duplicated the problem, took some screenshots with my digital camera showing what was happening, and wrote Bethesda back to explain step by step how to duplicate the problem. Here's an excerpt from what I sent them (minus the images because I'm not allowed to post images or links to the forum)...

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Okay, so in the screenshots I’m in Folgunthur Crypt, just before entering the final room. On the table there was an Iron Warhammer (Frame 1) labeled “Take”. So I took it. To the right of the table was a Burial Urn (Frame 2). Since I was over-encumbered, I clicked on the Burial Urn, then went to select the Iron Warhammer from my inventory (Frame 3). Notice it’s NOT labeled as “Stolen”. I placed the Warhammer in the Burial Urn. I checked the Burial Urn, and there’s the Warhammer (Frame 4) and the text is in white and the action option is “Take”, not “Steal”.

I turned to Mjoll, who was my follower at the time, and told her I need her to do something (Frame 5). I asked her to “Take All” from the Burial Urn (Frame 6). She walked over and took everything from the Burial Urn. Then I asked her to “trade some things with me” (Frame 7). I went to the Iron Warhammer in her inventory and the option is still “Take” (Frame 8), so I took it from her. Then I immediately looked in my inventory and there’s the Iron Warhammer, NOW LABELED AS STOLEN (Frame 9).
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I got a response today from "Leon P." who told me the screenshots and description were sent to the "tech folks who handle this." Then he suggested I load a previous save or "start over from the beginning". (lol...sorry...that just made me laugh) Hopefully they'll be working on a fix soon and he wasn't just blowing me off.

It seems the problem happens not only with containers but sometimes when you simply drop a non-stolen item and ask your follower to pick it up, then trade with them later to get the item back. It only seems to happen in some areas though (doesn't seem to happen in my own house) and I haven't yet nailed down exactly which areas are involved, but hopefully the Bethesda folks will figure it out.

I will say that in testing different hypotheses my poor "goody-two-shoes" PC got the crap beat out of him when he dropped a mis-tagged "stolen" item in his own house and made the mistake of picking it back up (i.e. "stealing it" from the floor of his house) in front of Jenassa. Apparenlty she has no problem trading stolen stuff with him but he's not allowed to pick an item up that he dropped in his own house if it has a "stolen" tag on it.

Anyone else having this problem or figure out a solution, other than to join the Thieves guild and sell the stolen loot to a fence?

Thanks for your time!
- Dave

Interesting new glitch. I haven't heard of it & I would call it a glitch. In my hundreds of hours, I never had a follower carry anything for me so I don't know much about the mechanics & protocol of that. Perhaps the devs intended you swap items individually when ordering your follower to share your burden.

Okay, judging from the lack of reads and responses this may not interest many, but hopefully someone will see it while searching.

In playing my game today I found a way to fix the mislabeled "stolen" items. I don't know if this works for items that were actually stolen (because my PC hasn't had to do that yet) but it definitely works on my PS3 for items which were mislabeled as "stolen" as I described in my initial post.

Here's how to do it.

1. Go to a house that you own (make sure your follower is with you).
2. Put all the mislabeled "stolen" items in a container.
3. Instruct your follower to "Take All" from the container.
4. Tell your follower you need to "Trade some things" with them.
5. Take from them all the items that were previously labeled as "stolen".

The "stolen" tags on the items that were never really "stolen" should now be gone.

It's possible this works on items that were actually stolen. If some thief out there can try it and confirm or deny I'd love to hear whether it works.

Just to confirm that my items weren't "stolen" anymore, I took all of them to a regular merchant to confirm that they were now sellable without having to find a fence and sure enough they showed up on the list of items I could sell.

I still haven't figured out WHY it was happening, and I still don't know if it's happening for all of us, but when you have your follower "Take All" from containers outside your own home, for some reason it tags the items as "stolen" regardless of what was initially in the container. This was EXTREMELY annoying since I use my follower as a "mule" to get around the encumberment issue.

In response to the suggestion that "Perhaps the devs intended you swap items individually", my response is "well then they shouldn't have put a 'Take All' command in the follower dialog if they didn't want you to use it". What kind of programmer puts an option in a menu that he doesn't want you to use??

Hopefully this will save someone out there a headache or two when they're surprised by a chest full of red items in their house.
- Dave

Hey Dave thanks for a very detailed explanation and solution to something that was really irritating me, I currently have tons of red non-stolen items in my house that I wasn't sure what to do with. Will definetly do what you suggest to make them legitimate again.

Thanks a lot.

Dave, I did qualify my remarks by saying I never use this option so I don't know how it works. Nobody else had replied to you so I did. Thank you for following up with a workaround. I'm sure many will find it helpful.

I didn't mean anything personal by my reply. My apologies if it came across that way.
I do appreciate you at least suggesting a theory, which is more than Bethesda did the first time I emailed them.
- Dave

when i gain a follower by completed quest, housecarl etc i take em somewhere secluded & murder em... even those hired mercenaries in the inns, i pay em 500 just so i can take em somewhere & kill em...

Remind me not to offer to follow you anywhere. lol

A few more notes about this bug. I did more testing using different followers and different locations.

Apparenlty if you're in a "trusted" location (such as the "Silver-Blood Inn" after you become "liked" and are allowed to "take" many of the items) placing non-stolen items in a barrel and having your follower "Take All" does not seem to activate the "stolen" tag on the items. Placing non-stolen items in a chest in a non-trusted location, such as a chest at a Dragon's peak next to a word wall, and having your follower "Take All" does indeed seem to cause the "stolen" tags to be activated.

To "launder" the stolen items, however, you can't just use ANY follower. I placed items labeled as "stolen" in a container in each of the houses I currently own (Whiterun, Markarth, and Solitude) and then had my follower at the time do a "Take All", then traded to get the items back from him/her. The results were consistent from house to house and container to container. HOWEVER...this does NOT work with every follower, it would seem. When I had Mjoll with me on my "laundering" tests, the "stolen" tags were reset when she did a "Take All". This also worked just as expected with Vorstag and Jenassa. It did NOT work with Jordis no matter the location.

Any information about on YOUR experiences (including location, follower at the time, etc.) is greatly appreciated!
I'm gonna nail down all the specifics on this little glitch one way or another.
- Dave

I noticed this after patch 1.2 and found a similar way to un-stolen flag them

• If you take back an item that they are currently using, it may become a stolen item (I have noticed this after 1.2 update)
  
  • there is a way to fix it but it is not easy. you need to make sure they currently using the item, then have them pickup an item that is more powerful. it works sometimes not always. As long as they not holding item as one of there active items.
    
  • Stolen items if you drop them on the ground and ask Lydia (Follower) to pick them up. Also while they are on ground check for stolen flag (red) on items if they are free pick them up, and have Lydia pickup the stolen items, they usually become free again.

I have not confirmed all aspects of this as I can sell stolen items to a fence so no real need to alter the flag.

Most of the time , at least recently, I have been removing the stolen flag in the whiterun house (99% with Lidia as house Karl)

With Faendal he some times does not even want pickup stolen items when dropped in house

i had the same thing happen. i was using whiterun as my base, then bought honeyside in riften. instead of making multiple trips to move, i asked lydia to follow me (i never use followers unless forced by a quest) and had her carry everything in my house using the 'take all' command on my containers. the items were all marked stolen. thanks for the workaround.

Not sure if it's related or not, but I am not able to sell any items that my follower (Vorstag) has carried for me. They are not, however, showing as stolen items. I have placed in a container in my home, verified that they are white and not red text, picked them back up and attempted to sell, and none of the merchants will purchase the items (my test after I noticed the problem is an inventory of weapons I have taken to several shops and blacksmiths and am unable to sell them). With them not showing as stolen, is there any ideas on a fix? Again, I'm not sure if it's related to the original problem or not.