Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Not all thieves are stupid!

I saw this on another forum and thought it would be worthy of sharing!

* I never thought about this !
1. Long-term Parking
a couple left their car in the long-term parking at San Jose while away, and someone broke into the car. Using the information on the car's registration in the glove compartment, they drove the car to the people's home in Pebble Beach and robbed it. So I guess if we are going to leave the car in long-term parking, we should NOT leave the registration/insurance cards in it, nor your remote garage door opener.

This gives us something to think about with all our new electronic technology.

2. GPS.
Someone had their car broken into while they were at a football game. Their car was parked on the green which was adjacent to the football stadium and specially allotted to football fans. Things stolen from the car included a garage door remote control, some money and a GPS which had been prominently mounted on the dashboard. When the victims got home, they found that their house had been ransacked and just about everything worth anything had been stolen. The thieves had used the GPS to guide them to the house. They then used the garage remote control to open the garage door and gain entry to the house. The thieves knew the owners were at the football game, they knew what time the game was scheduled to finish and so they knew how much time they had to clean out the house. It would appear that they had brought a truck to empty the house of its contents.

Something to consider if you have a GPS - don't put your home address in it... Put a nearby address (like a store or gas station) so you can still find your way home if you need to, but no one else would know where you live if your GPS were stolen.

this is unbelievable
3. CELL PHONES

This lady has now changed her habit of how she lists her names on her cell phone after her handbag was stolen. Her handbag, which contained her cell phone, credit card, wallet, etc., was stolen. 20 minutes later when she called her hubby, from a pay phone telling him what had happened, hubby says 'I received your text asking about our Pin number and I've replied a little while ago.' When they rushed down to the bank, the bank staff told them all the money was already withdrawn. The thief had actually used the stolen cell phone to text 'hubby' in the contact list and got hold of the pin number. Within 20 minutes he had withdrawn all the money from their bank account.

Moral of the lesson:
a. Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact list. Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, Sweetheart, Dad, Mom, etc....
b. And very importantly, when sensitive info is being asked through texts, CONFIRM by calling back.
c. Also, when you're being texted by friends or family to meet them somewhere, be sure to call back to confirm that the message came from them. If you don't reach them, be very careful about going places to meet 'family and friends' who text you.

As of now, I no longer have 'home' listed on my cell phone.

Even if this does not pertain to you....Pass it on to your family and friends.

I have Home on my GPS, but it takes you to a spot in the woods that you can't get to, not by vehicle.

If a guy breaks into my car at extended parking at the airport and decides to come to my home, he stands to be shot by my wife and/or mauled by 280 lbs of large dog, as I'm most likely on a business trip.

I'm sure all of the incidents listed have happened.

Back in high school, a couple of kids were valet car parkers. They'd copy keys and get home addresses from the registrations. They stole a bunch of cars, and the one kid did a few years upstate.

I think if I worried about all the stuff that might happen, I wouldn't have time to do anything else. It just seems to me that there's a lot of time spent by honest folks thinking up ways that someone could cause them harm. Sure, some of that COULD happen, just like a chunk of the international space station COULD crash through my roof at any moment.

As an example, there's a new rule on the books here in Indiana requiring portable ice fishing shelters to have their owner's name and addy on the door. The ice fishing site I frequent is up in arms over the possibility of criminals cruising the shorelines with binoculars, getting those addresses and paying their homes a visit while they're fishing. How is this new? You drove to that BOW, your vehicle is parked somewhere close by, what's to keep someone from getting that info off the registration in the glovebox? And don't you have a license plate on that vehicle? What if the thieves have an insider at the BMV?

I'm all for taking precautions, but it's awfully easy to drift over the line into paranoia.

Just because I'm paranoid sprkplug, does not mean someone is not out to get me.

Sprk, taking precautions is the key, without becoming paranoid. It's being aware as well as being educated on what's happening and how to prevent losses and protecting our families and property.

The company I represent is very proactive with Insurance Crime Bureaus, on a State and Federal level, passing on to the agents in the field more information about insurance fraud and crime than I care to know or remember. And what these criminals come up with is mind boggling!

What they were doing here locally as in the Snopes article, was taking garage door openers from unlocked vehicles in driveways and using them to access the unlocked door leading into the house when the residents weren't home (doesn't take long to know their patterns). They can then park their truck in the garage, close the garage door, fill it up with goods and out they go.


My folks were robbed in the home they lived in for 40 years, on a Saturday in broad daylight while they were watching TV in the living room. Vehicles were in the driveway with the garage doors open just like any other day, when the perp just walked in.

After that, you could never tell they were home. Cars in the garage, garage doors closed and house locked up. It was never the same! Did they become paranoid? No,,,violated, yes!

When they caught the perp, his trunk was full of garage door openers and linked him and his brother (the Love brothers no less) to many other burglaries and robberies in the Lincoln area. I'm sure we all have, and know similar stories. But when it happens to you, or worse yet your folks, it really hits home!

Each community is different with different levels of trust and comfort, but it's also easy to let our guard down and become too trusting.

I don't think that just by having this information/knowledge will make someone paranoid, but an incident might, and could be life changing.

By the way, my folks sold their home 2 years later and now live in a development of small acreages near a small town 10 miles outside of Lincoln. Garage doors normally closed.

I think Sparkie is saying it is all about balance. Definitely take logical precautions but, I think if I set up a snare at my mailbox to catch potential mail thieves, my mail lady might not be happy about the third time I catch her.

When I first moved here and before putting up a gate at the driveway (place had been vacant for 4 years) it appeared someone had cut the screen window beside the patio door.

So I set up a trail cam (total paranoia) which also showed the kitchen and part of the living room.

My son wasn't too thrilled when he discovered a 10 second video of him walking through the house naked.

Personally I thought it was hilarious

I read some of the stories and have to wonder.."did that really happen, or is this story just used to illustrate a what if scenario?" And while I'm sure that at least some of these incidents have taken place, I'm not ready to jump on the wagon that suggests I'm in imminent danger of it happening to me any minute. And this coming from a guy who had his credit card numbers poached a couple weeks ago...and I haven't changed my habits since then at all. Bad things happen, and will continue to happen.

Do I believe that technology has made it easier for thieves? In some instances, yes. But I don't subscribe to the theory that crime has forsaken its "roots" if favor of 21st century methodology. In my home, we lock the doors not as a deterrent to theft, (because it isn't to a determined thief), but in order to be able to say "yes" when the insurance company asks if they were locked. For us, it's not so much protecting what we have, as being able to recoup the loss.

And I suppose that illustrates the mindset that I have on the matter, that being there is no foolproof way to prevent a determined theft, so the next best option is to try and make sure we're covered when it happens.

And I also think geography plays a huge role in the equation. In my neighborhood, garage door openers are not in every vehicle, like they might be in bigger, metropolitan areas. Matter-of-fact, around here I would bet you're putting your possessions in far greater danger simply by attending church....think about it, you leave the same time every Sunday, you're gone the approx. same amount of time, and in many cases the entire family leaves together.

That's not technology turned nefarious, that's crime getting back to its roots, by thieves learning the patterns of their victims.

GPS units and garage door openers left in vehicles, vs. going to Sunday School.....I believe the level of sophistication is relevant to one's location.

Location and neighbors have a lot to do with it. In Chicago my grandmother had the house burgled while she was in the front yard weeding the flower bed. She found some things amiss and missing later on that day.

Here I came home from an out of state hunting trip after dark, and was putting meat in the freezer in the outbuilding. The neighbor and his friend came by with pistols in one hand and flashlights in the other wanting to know who drove around behind the outbuilding.....

Those are my kind of neighbors....stories like that right there is why I drive an hour to work every day. My neighbors are awesome...for the same reason as above. They scared the crap out of a good buddy of mine a few years ago, he came to fish the small pond while I was at work and they drove right over and gave him the old '20 questions' routine, guns in hand.

Thank you Lovnlivin! After reading what you posted I just
made some adjustments in my I-phone directory. Heck I had address
and gate/storage combos stored in my cell phone directory.
Now instead of street names I have 1-2 letter abbreviations
that I know, but "Joe Meth-Head" would not know what
they mean.

Sometimes it helps to see articles like you posted to jolt
me into some simple common-sense preventative actions.
Of course nothing is 100%, but why not be smarter?

I've read of thieves reading the obituaries knowing that the houses of the deceased and listed family members will all be empty during visitation and funeral.

I just get frustrated at friends / family who maintain a pjblic blog on facebook of their real time adventures in some far off exotic locale - nothing like telling 6,000 of your best friends and their friends that you're 3,000 miles away and no one is or will be home for next four weeks.