Quote:
Originally Posted by dumbnative
Wirelessly posted (8830 thru Sprint)
Oooooorrrrr, this might just be one more attempt with a well thought out story from some crazy dude to stalk some girl... That's the first thing I thought when I read this... Who knows, I may be wrong
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No stalking, I promise. We've had four break-ins, three in one location and one in another. Very quick smash-and-grabs. In the location that was broken into only once, the thieves broke through a wall in the back of a shop that sells decorative tile (nothing worth stealing in that shop, therefore no alarm), and then broke through that shop's bathroom into our store's bathroom (no motion sensors in there). Then they were able to quickly dump as many phones into sacks as they could in the thirty seconds or so before the alarm went off (due to the motion sensors outside the bathroom). At the other location, they simply smashed the glass to our showroom floor all three times, and kick in the door to the back room where the phones were. The third time they broke in, they were met by a 1000+ lb safe. No phones for you! The morons made off with two flatscreen TVs we had on the showroom instead, but in doing so, they broke the coax connectors on the back of the TVs because they didn't bother unscrewing the cable. The end of the coax still had the connectors that had been ripped off the TVs hanging from them. Real geniuses.
If it was the same guys all three times, they probably won't be back to that store now that they've seen the safe. I should've thought of this after the first break-in, but how would I know they'd be back?
We're upgrading all our stores with those safes.
We had insurance, but the deductible still hurts. They won't be able to activate those phones on Verizon (they're blacklisted now), but those phones could be activated on Metro or shipped out of the country or whatever. Or they could be sold on Craigslist and the unfortunate souls that buy them will only find out they're stolen when they try to activate them on VZW.
The cops said that similar break-ins are happening at wireless retailers all over.
The only reason I hesitate telling the cops what I'm doing is because we may not even have another break-in, or if we do, it could be many months down the road. Sure, I could call them up and say 'lol dewds, im gonna track the burglarz' and they'll be all 'ROFL awesome' but then eight months go by before a break-in happens, and then I'm really right back to the scenario you guys described - me calling the cops saying 'OMG I KNO WHERE DEY ARE' catching them off guard. If I do this, and if it pays off, this is what will happen - the alarm goes off, the cops arrive on the scene, I get a 4 AM phone call, I come to the location and meet with the police, and I show them the current GPS location of the stolen phone and say 'I hope this can help in some way' and let them get to work. There's no vigilantism here, just a tool in a toolbox that I hope can put an end to this.
Plus, you gotta admit, it's pretty cool and you'd do it too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by texasPI
Also, what does corporate think about this?
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As a retailer, I don't work for corporate VZW, so it doesn't really matter what they think... it's not their inventory that's been looted repeatedly.