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With the holidays approaching, so do thefts.. I made the mistake on Friday last week of not taking my gps out of the window. I got to work at 6:20 am. By 7:30, my window was smashed and the gps was gone. One of our tenants has security cameras installed in the parking lot. We can see the guy entering the driveway, and leaving exactly 1 minute later. Its probably 100' from the driveway entrance to my car. My insurance agent said he's been getting loads of calls lately about the same thing.

I'm so sorry Ken.

And not to hijack your thread, but there was a news item on the local station last nigh. People were getting double hit, their GPS and the garage door  opener was stolen form the car then the scumbags were looking up the victim's home addresses stored in the GPS , and hitting the houses by getting rthrough the garage!!!

I'm passing it along because I never ever thought of being that devious. Be care ful out there, hide your stuff,  lock the car, and be careful.

If I ever have to park my truck outside, I've been bringing my G-opener inside with me. That kind of crap has been going on for years around here.

Sorry for your loss Ken! That is why we pay for insurance though - right?  :upside:

That has been happening here in Kansas City as well.  I reprogrammed the "Home" address on all the GPS's to the address of the police station which is about a half a mile from my house! :biggrin:

That's a good one Brian! I'll have to remember to do that as well.

That is a good one Brian......I'll try that .. cause in all reality I think I know where I live by now...
it's just a good rule of thumb to put in a fake address in the GPS.. so when you hit home, when in a place that you need immediate directions, at least it will point you in the right direction... but obviously when you get close to your city, I would think you should know where to go?

Too bad we have to live in a world like that... but hey....

Crack Aint Free... and you gott buy it somehow!!!  :glare:

Never ever leave anything of value in plain sight, windows and locks only keep out honest thieves. Another scam is dirt bags will sit in their car by best buy.  wait for some poor sucker to come out with his new LCD, plasma tv, laptop. They watch you put it in your vehicle then drive across the mall parking lot.. While you are now shopping at Kohls, Walmart they break into your vehicle. I have done hundreds of police reports for this.  

Of course, I have a $500 deductible on the car an on my homeowners which would have covered the gps. To have someone replace the window it would have cost me about $400 - less than the deductible of course. I ended up buying the window for $200 and installing it myself. The gps cost me $250 about a month ago. So thats a loss. And the bigger kick in the ass is this same gps I thought I got a good deal on is now selling for almost $100 less.

I did have my home button set to home. We have been taking extra precautions around the house, but I'm not really that worried. The guy that stole it isn't looking to get into my house. I'm sure he pawned it on the street corner within minutes. These all have locks on them so you have to enter a password to turn it on. I'll be doing that on the next one for sure. My garage door opener is still in the car luckily. I don't keep that out in the open.

When the cops finally showed up about 8hrs later, I showed them the video. They said it should be an easy catch as they got a good image of the guy. I don't ever expect to hear anything or see my gps, but it would be nice to know he got caught. I will recognize the guy and if I ever see him on the street, he will have a piece of pipe across his knees.

Go Tonya Harding!! You go girl!!  :tounge:

Sorry for the loss, would love to catch the guy, shoot him in the leg and put him into an empty 110 , and leave him in there for a week or two. If you steal from  a soda collector this is what you should get in return.

I am with Mr. Soda all the way!

Thanks for the info about the home address on the GPS.  Never thought about that and will head out to the car and change it to the Police Department now!

Another thing about the GPS units that tips them off is the tell tale suction cup mark left on the windshield.  So even if the unit is out of sight they may still break in if they see that.

Sorry for the loss Ken!  I had a similar experience years ago when my car got broken into and they took my $300 Escort Radar Detector.  Got jammed on the deductible and the radar detector of course was not covered by AAA or homeowners.  The AAA adjuster about laughed when I asked the question.

I never leave anything in plain sight and I always lock the doors everywhere.  Even at the gas pump.

Sucks that you can't trust anyone anymore until they prove otherwise!

 :drinking: Tim :drinking:

Ken, Sorry about the loss, thanks for posting I would have never thought about the home settings on the GPS.

Ken,

Sorry to hear the news!
As everyone has stated, society is always looking for short cuts and unfortunately, the honest people are footing the bills!
As a firm believer that violence does work to convert people, this case may not have provided the ideal situation for such force...

The really said thing is when they get caught, 99% of the time the judge lets them off and says do you promise to refrain from this type of behavior, and they just walk off scott free. If it wasnt for my fear of confined spaces, there would be a lot less scum bags on the street.

One more tip,  this was ocurring in the Chicagoland area last year around this same time.  Scum bags were listing expensive-collectible items for extremely low prices.  Poor victim thinks he is getting the deal of the century. Shows up with cash in hand and gets robbed instead. If it seems to good to be true it usually is. Unless your Sodakbob  he does get the deals