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Nothing of value was taken.... or was it?

twiggy — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:23:41 -0800

Why would someone break into a bunch of cars but ignore valuables only to rifle through paperwork? Last weekend, my car was broken into (well, it's possible I may have left it unlocked, though that's a very RARE thing for me). No windows were broken, though, so I either left it unlocked, or they used a slim jim.

A few interesting things:

1) I park in a gated lot behind my building, so someone had to hop the fence to get in.
2) Nothing of value was really present in my car, but not even what few things of value I did have were taken (a few CDs, a phone charger, etc)...
3) Whoever it was rifled through my glove box, my console and took out my (unused) ash tray, and left all of them open. My car is pretty messy, so they could've easily made it look like they were never there with about 10 seconds effort.

I thought nothing of this at first. I figured they didnt' find anything of sufficient value and moved on, and while it bothered me that my stuff was rifled through, I figured there was no sense worrying about it.

However, I'm on an email list for my local neighborhood, and just got an email noting that this same thing has happened to several other cars in the past week in their area - just a few blocks from where I'm at.

So - why would someone do this? My first thought was ID theft, but I don't think getting my auto insurance card is going to do you a whole lot of good. My social security number shouldn't be on there. It's also not on my license, but I keep my license with me at all times anyway, it wouldn't be in my car.

Has this happened to anyone else? Have you ever figured out what it was the thieves were after?

Stolen car returned within minutes. Why?

flapjax at midnite — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 04:59:53 -0800

Can you help solve a somewhat bizarre and mysterious crime? Here's the background story: My friend owns a late-model mini-van, in very good condition. She had the van parked on the basement 3rd level (B3) of a parking garage under the Tokyo Dome Hotel, which is adjacent to the Tokyo Dome, a sports arena in downtown Tokyo (seats 55,000 people), as well as an amusement park and a small shopping mall. Here's a link to a map showing the position of the hotel, the Dome and surroundings.

The hotel was fully booked for a Japanese holiday period, and only registered guests at the hotel would be able to gain access to the hotel parking garage. My friend, who lives in Tokyo, was able to park there that day, however, as she has a relative working at the hotel who gave her a pass. She and her family came to the hotel for dinner, arriving around 4PM. She returned to the garage at around 9PM the same evening. She went to retrieve her car, but couldn't find it on the B3 level where she'd parked. Wondering if she'd confused her parking place, she went one level up, to B2. There she found her van. Aside from the fact that it was on the wrong floor, she noticed that it had been parked front-end in, whereas she had backed her van into her parking place on the B3 level. The car was locked: nothing seemed remiss, there were no traces that it had been broken into, and nothing in the car (baby seat, miscellaneous kid's toys, etc.) was missing.

My friend went first to hotel personnel, who called the police. Police arrived at the hotel and inspected the car. They dusted for fingerprints, they took her fingerprint samples to compare. They questioned her about all details, speaking with her from around 10PM til around 1AM. They told her they had dusted for fingerprints on the steering wheel and gear shift, and had found nothing.

The surveillance tapes (which police showed to my friend) show a man driving out of the garage in her mini-van at 6:30PM . Tapes also show a man who is dressed identically but who appears to be a different person (this also according to police who viewed the tapes) returning only 12 minutes later, at 6:42PM. The tapes show the man driving with the palms of his hands and/or his forearms, so as not to leave prints. And although the weather was very hot that day the man (men) were wearing an unbuttoned dress shirt over a t-shirt, plus a baseball cap. Police told my friend that the shirt tail would've been used to work the gearshift, so as not to leave prints. This man had the kind of pass that a hotel guest would have, in order to leave the garage in a vehicle, and return in a vehicle. This pass is also necessary to gain entrance into the hotel building from the garage. This man was also seen in surveillance tapes shot inside the hotel.

The street layout of the hotel/Dome complex requires a driver to take a rather roundabout route, circling the Dome, in order to get out of the complex and onto any other city streets. This route takes approximately 10 minutes. The car was gone from out of the garage for only 12 minutes, so it's safe to say it didn't go very far!

One last thing: the Tokyo cops who talked to my friend told her that these guys seemed very professionsl and then they told her that they'd probably never be caught!

Why would someone steal a car out of a garage, keep it for such a short time, then have it returned so quickly (by another person in identical clothing)?

He sold my car???

autojack — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:28:00 -0800

You are not my lawyer. You may not even BE a lawyer. But my friend needs, if not actual legal advice, some general suggestions about how to proceed. The short story: her ex-boyfriend sold her car without telling her, without her consent, and appears to have fled the state with his ill-gotten gains. This question is probably California-specific. My friend moved from St. Louis, MO to Palm Springs, CA, with her boyfriend in August, 2005. She brought her car with her, and he used it to get to work every day during that time. They broke up in September of 2006, and the car had broken down (wasn't running at all) a few weeks before. Since he had been the primary user of it, her ex promised to pay to get it fixed. She, meanwhile, moved to San Francisco. The plan was that she would come back for the car when it was drivable again.

Since then, she's gotten a steady string of excuses from the ex about the status of things. Most of it has revolved around his employment and financial situations; he supposedly was doing tech consulting but was having problems getting paid. They went back and forth about it for this whole time. In the last two weeks she's had no contact with him, though, and she started to get suspicious. She ran a Carfax on the VIN yesterday and discovered that he had sold the car on July 31 of this year. She then found out through a mutual friend that, as of yesterday, the ex has packed up and left to move back to St. Louis.

The first problem is, my friend is still in posession of the title for the car. Thus, I don't understand how he could have sold it. The new owner wouldn't be able to register it in CA, as far as I know, without a valid title. My friend never transferred ownership of the car to her ex, she just left it with him. My first thought was that the Carfax report must be wrong, but the police in Palm Springs confirmed that the car was sold, and gave my friend the name of the new owner. The police further state that, since she left the car in his possession, the fact that he sold it without her consent is not criminal, but would be a civil/small claims matter. I don't understand how he could have sold the car, without a title, and not have that act be some sort of fraud.

At this point my friend doesn't know what action she should take, other than, "Get a lawyer." It sounds like she would have to sue him in St. Louis, since that's going to be his new place of residence. Naturally my friend has fairly limited financial resources, so while she probably could afford a lawyer for this little project, it wouldn't be worth it if she wasn't likely to get a decent settlement out of it. Any thoughts, facts, or advice would be greatly appreciated!

When can I leave a car with the top down?

-harlequin- — Mon, 08 May 2006 09:38:05 -0800

Car theft: I'm looking into buying a convertible, and would like a feel for when you would leave the vehicle with the top down. Seattle/Eastside area. I have no clue where to draw the line between a "safe" situation in which to leave a convertible with the top down, and a "dumbass" one. What are some rules of thumb and tips for this?

A catch: I'm thinking of a c5 corvette coupe, so taking the roof off/on is not a press-button affair. I would mostly use the car for short trips, so it would be a lot of hassle to be continually changing the top. Thus "always leave the vehicle with the top up" would basically equate to "never get to drive it with the top off".

To cut out the obvious, there would be no bags or purses or anything left lying in the vehicle, (and no rainclouds :).

What kinds of things can be done to make a vehicle with the top down safer? What kind of security additions and systems are recommended?

What kinds of situations would a typical convertible owner leave the top down, vs never dream of leaving it down, eg:

- Grocery parking lot, affluent suburb, daytime, in the store for 30 minutes?
- Same, night time?
- Work parking lot, 9-5pm?
- Downtown Seattle parking lot, daytime, 2 hours?
- Downtown, night time, 1 hour?
- Downtown parking lot near nightclub, night time, 4 hours?
- On street parking, suburb, 1 day and 1 night?
- Urban field/park, parking lot, evening, 1 hour?
- State park parking lot, daytime, 3 hours?

Any other tips? Do insurance companies have requirements regarding this, or is it already reflected in the higher premiums?

How do I protect my car from thieves?

y6y6y6 — Thu, 19 Feb 2004 20:05:55 -0800

How do I protect my car from thieves? I headed out to work this morning and was confronted by this. (that would be all four tires and wheels - $750 worth) I have a Clifford alarm system, I always park in highly visible areas, I stay out of "bad areas", there is a police academy 100 yards from where this picture was taken. What do I do to make this never happen again? [more inside] The alarm never went off. Which I find surprising. No one saw anything. The apartment complex has a roving security guard. I had regular lugs on the wheels, but I've switched to the lock type now. I'm willing to spend some money to secure the car and it's tires. Obviously spending $750 over and over should be able to buy some serious security.

Unfortunately I don't know how to spend that money wisely. What works? What is hype? I like the car and don't want to trade it in for an old Pinto with junkyard rims. I also like San Diego and don't want to move to some rural wasteland.

Please advise.