Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with stealing

Help Me Stop the Tomato Thief

mygothlaundry — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 10:44:19 -0800

Somebody is stealing my tomatoes. How do I stop them? I have a big vegetable garden in my front (1st photo shows how close it is to my house; 2nd how close to my street) yard. It's on a fairly busy street; there are lots of cars, dog walkers, joggers, etc. I just moved into the house last October and I'm on a friendly basis with all my immediate neighbors - not, you know, much more than chatting acquaintances but not silence and icy looks either.

My vegetable garden has been yielding a giant crop of squash and cucumbers and peppers but I couldn't figure out why the tomatoes weren't ripening until Saturday, when I realized that two tomatoes I had had my eye on as probably being ripe by the weekend were just - gone. There are six tomato plants in the garden. Suddenly it all clicked into place: the persistence of green only tomatoes, the weird non ripening and the peculiar shortage of tomatoes. I have a tomato thief and, clearly, it has to be somebody who is keeping a close eye on the garden, because they're taking them right as they ripen. They're even taking the cherry tomatoes.

So, how do I get this person to stop? I thought about a sign "Please leave my tomatoes alone" or something but my experience with passive/aggressive signs has always been that they backfire and also, I don't want anyone to see the sign and think "Aha! I too could be getting free vegetables here!" I thought about tying my dogs up in the front yard but that's a bit rough on the dogs. I am still thinking about trying to find some kind of electric eye apparatus that would whoop and blink but I'm a complete electronics ignoramus and don't want to spend the earth on this either. I really would like to have a couple of ripe tomatoes this summer, so, please help!

he's got to stop it

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:05:26 -0800

How to put a young man on the right path ? My wife has a son from a previous marriage. He's 18. His father lives far away, in another country. He has a lot of money and carries very large sums in his pockets. His business, as far as I know, is perfectly licit. Two years ago, the boy began to steal money. He stole 400$ in a moneybox that I had been keeping for a long time (I was suspicious because the moneybox wasn't doing the same sound as when it was full of banknotes. I broke it and all the banknotes were gone, but there was a pin inside, which was lost in the operation of extracting the notes). We confronted him, and he confessed he had done it.

Back to quietness for some time, and then we noticed that some money was disappearing again. Some change that was purposely left in the car. Some withdrawals on my wife's balance sheets were unexplained. His father told us that after his son had been visiting him, during some holidays, he had noticed that some money was missing. We talked about it with his grandfather : he had some money missing too, in a drawer of his desk. And then we discovered that he had stolen money from his uncles (both of them), his grandmother, my parents - he took the keys to their house that were on my desk, went to their place as he knew they were gone for a few days, and proceeded to find money by searching all over the place - needless to say, everyone was confused to have to say that he was stealing from them. Once again, we confronted him, but it was much harder to have him confess his stealings.

We summed up everything to know what he had to pay back, told him that any money or gifts from anyone in December were bound to participate to the payment of his debt, and that his pocket money was going to be tremendously reduced for the same reasons. We asked him to give back the money and discuss with each person he had been stealing from.

Apparently, that money was used to bet on the results of soccer matches. He began by losing a little, and proceeded to bet more and more money to get back the whole sum he had lost previously.

He's not working at school right now. He said he wanted to be a journalist, but most schools only accept people who have a basic college degree here, so I told him to study Law, or History, or Economics.... whatever he wants, as long as it appeals to him and he gets some pleasure out of it. He chose Law (?) but apparently, the results are going to be poor, since he doen'st seem to get really involved (to get involved at all)

He says that he's going to work in a restaurant or a factory to make some money but he doesn't search actively and to me, it sounds like he's once again in dreamland (looks like there's a crisis around).

Well. The problem is that his grandfather and his uncle have noticed that once again, some money has disappeared. He even confessed that he had stolen greater sums from his father (apparently, around 3000 $). So his debt has exploded once again.We thought that we had been through it and that it was over, but unfortunately it wasn't true.

I don't know what to do now. We have difficulties to trust him, and while he's asking us to trust him - he says that his father does, and that it's a big difference between him and us - I can't help but feeling that the trust issue is but a way to negotiate some more room to carry on without changing anything at all.

I've checked :
http://ask.metafilter.com/95736/Should-we-press-charges-against-a-kid
and
http://ask.metafilter.com/114818/Help

But it doesn't really address the issue since obviously we don't want to press any charge against him . I think that we need a way to show him what Law is, but I don't quite see how to effectively do it : to tell him isn't enough. There is a boundary that he doesn't really see, and he even stated once that he's not into the "moral thing". Well, I think that you can imagine what chasm opens in front of your feet when a young man whith the problems described above tells you that. He has begun a light sort of therapy to meditate upon his behaviour a little while ago, but apparently, it hasn't induced any major change - yet.

Thanks for any useful advice.

Can a husband sue his wife?

daveyt — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 06:12:27 -0800

Are there any circumstances in (UK) law that would allow a friend to 'sue' his wife for what he considers the money she stole from their joint account. Long story much shorter.

Boy meets girl, gets married. Within 11 months she reveals (out of the blue) that she never loved him, not even on their wedding day.

Before getting married she convinced him that they should have a shared savings account, and a shared current account. She contributed nothing to savings, and little to he current account. She has spent over £70K during the marriage with no consultation with him.

Yes he's an idiot - he didnt check his statements/accounts at all. He had no reason to - he trusted her.

Yes she is an idiot - she has pissed this money up the wall. He now has a very long bank statement detailing exactly where all the money has gone.

Yes they are separating - for some reason, not divorcing - I dont know why - at this stage, he didnt divulge.

Yes he is lawyered up. He isnt, I have to say, a person of great judgment, and at the moment, utterly depressed and angry. I'm listening to him mostly, and I've told him to dump the village conveyancing solictor he told me is a "lovely sweet old lady" because he's being a fricking idiot and to find a rottweiler of a lawyer.

Is there a case here - as I think there might be - for some sort of conspiracy to defraud?

The amounts involved, and over the given time period suggests that this might have been premeditated.

The girl is young, immature, unpleasant, described by her 'friend' as a deeply unlikeable person and I have no doubt she knew exactly what she was doing.

Does he have a leg to stand on?

Death penalty for small theft

KRS — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 06:11:01 -0800

"Must the maid hang?" -- death penalty quote Hanging used to be the penalty for any theft, even if a mother stole a loaf of bread to feed her children (see Les Miserables).

Then someone (perhaps John Dryden) seriously asked "Must the maid hang for stealing a loaf of bread?" Merely asking the question (at the right moment) made it self-evident that this was unjust.

Does anyone have the source of this probably mangled quote?

That's just wrong!

sixcolors — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:45:54 -0800

How common is it for young people to conceal (weapons and drugs) and steal? I know stealing and concealing drugs/weapons are kind of different subjects, but what they both have in common...if they get caught other people (innocent) can get in trouble too. Guilty by association.

Within the last month, I found out some crazy things about a few of the people I hang out with.

-I gave a couple a friends a ride down to the bar. Little did I know that the person sitting behind me was drinking from a flask. It is illegal in my area to drink alcoholic beverages in a moving car. Fortunately another friend "told" on her.
-There are rumors that some more people sneaked in flasks at an overnight service project.
-One of my friends discovered that some people sneaked pot in his car.
-A couple people, mostly the guys, carry knives and sometimes guns to everyday places, such as malls and parks.
-Two people admitted to shoplifting.
-One friend caught another friend stealing at her house.

Now, not all of these people are close friends, thank God, but I do hang out with them on semi-regular basis. And I have been hanging out with them for a while. I was just unaware of their "deviant activities" until recently.

Am I just associating with a rough crowd? Or, am I naive and it is quite common for young people (20-28) to do those sort of things?

How do I get a website to stop using our property?

Pantengliopoli — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:47:08 -0800

How do you find out who to contact when a website is using your "copyrighted" material to generate ad revenue? This website:

http://www.ski-touring-mountaineering.com/tripreport/all

Appears to be a collection of skiing and mountaineering trip reports for climbs and ski descents in Washington State. The shitty part is that they appear to be A) getting all of their content from the personal websites (evilfungus.com, repete.us, cascadecrusades.org, randosaigai.com) of my friends and acquaintances and B) using it to generate some potential Google ad revenue. The owners of these sites that I've spoken with are not keen on having their work used as a simple one-click revenue generator for someone who can't even ask permission to use it.

The site has no contact information that I can find -- I'm wondering if I can track down the owner of the domain, but I'm not sure how to go about it.

Last part -- do we have an expectation of "copyright" to this material, given the circumstances?

Is soda water soda or water?

hypocritical ross — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 12:48:53 -0800

Is soda water free at fast food restaurants? When you say you just want water at a fast food restaurant, is it okay to take soda water?

I know that people say "just water" at fast food restaurants all the time and then just take whatever soda they want, and while I assume that nobody has EVER been thrown out of a fast food restaurant for filling up their "just water" cup with a soft drink, that's still stealing. Is it stealing if you take soda water?

The problem is a lot of places give you a clear plastic cup when you say "just water" (to discourage you from stealing soda?) and when you fill it up with soda water it looks like you're stealing Sprite or 7-Up or whatever.

Where does water end and where does soda begin? I think that's the essential question here. Does soda begin at carbonation or at the addition of syrup?

P.S. I have tried asking cashiers about this and they have met the question with blank stares.

Mental health & petty theft

GoodJob! — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 12:39:45 -0800

What is the pathology of a person who steals small personal items such as shoes, underwear and sunglasses in order to remember or think of someone?

How to deal with Internet thieves?

justonegirl — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 10:32:30 -0800

Anyone have experience addressing copyright infringement/plagiarism (efficiently and easily) without a lawyer? Or will a lawyer generally handle numerous cease-and-desist orders and/or lawsuits for a relatively reasonable fee? (I realize people answering these questions are not necessarily lawyers and are definitely not my lawyer!)

My husband and I own a pretty successful small business in our region, and are just starting to attract national media attention and opportunities. One of the cornerstones of our success thus far has been the detailed text on our website, which is probably the most informative and thorough in our industry. He and I personally wrote this text, putting a tremendous amount of work into it. We've recently found numerous other companies have stolen this text -- ranging from a few paragraphs to the entirety of our site. (So far we've identified about two dozen companies who've done this, but are still trying to track down any others.) Some of the companies have also submitted this text as their own to various online service directories within our field, and/or submitted the text in the form of an article to various websites.

When we first realized this, we started by sending emails to the companies' owners, as well as a cease-and-desist letter we created from a template. We've had mixed luck with this effort. We also are in the process of contacting the companies' website hosts and ISPs, and any directories/linking sites.

We're now looking for a more effective means of protecting our work, but aren't sure if this is something we can handle internally without too much trouble or if we need to hire a lawyer. Obviously, we also don't want to spend a ton of money on a lawyer's services just to get the sites taken down, especially if we aren't due any monetary damages.

(Also, not sure if this makes a difference, but just a few of the companies are local enough to possibly be considered competitors, but the bigger problem is the potential harm to our credibility. For instance, if a national media source were to research our company and find our text elsewhere, and not know where it actually originated.)

Does anyone have any experience dealing with something like this, or know whether a lawyer would generally charge us one lump sum or a per-instance fee? Thanks in advance.

What to do with a thieving adult child?

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 05:39:20 -0800

How do we discipline an adult aspergers son? Some background: My son has aspergers and a chronic health condition that sometimes becomes dangerously acute. He is now an adult and does some volunteer work, goes to community college and is assisted by a welfare organization in work skills. He receives an allowance from the government for disability. We charge him $100 per fortnight rent and 1/3 of the utilities. I expect him to pay for his own medication but we pay for his health insurance.

I still attend some doctors appointments with him as he doesn't always give the doctors the information they need and can't relay their instruction back to me, which means the instructions are not followed.

I tend to over-parent. I am his mother. He was a very very very sick premmie. Almost two decades ago.

Current ground: I don't know how to parent a 18 year old who is allowed to vote, have sex, look at pornography. I don't know what rules I can or should enforce. And I don't know how to discipline him. He lives with us because it's not safe for him to live away from home with his current set of living skills and income.

This is not always a problem except today, for the millionth time, I found him trying to steal from my husband's wallet. I don't think he'd done it for a long time. I've threatened to throw him out for this transgression in the past, and once did (he had a night at the YMCA). But today he is actually quite unwell and I had to take him to the doctor yesterday. I also had to insist he stay at home today even though he wanted to go to college.

My husband is very very angry and I am very very sad. What do I do to stop this, how do I punish and what rules are reasonable to enforce and if you're in the mood for another part of this question - should I give him complete autonomy with his own money? I had told him to keep $50 in his account at all times and he agreed and now he has reneged on that and has no money till his next pay day.

He states that he was not stealing. I believe he was taking petty change which is his usual modus operandi.

He has never been good with money. He is terrible with boundaries with my property. He helps himself to all my technology that he likes. In spite of dire threats. He doesn't care about many things so I can't take them away as consequences of his actions. He doesn't have any friends.

If I ground him he usually does something "illegal" around the house like steal my ipod for his use or my cell phone to play games or take my cds.

Help me with my current dilemma regarding the wallet and please give any other advice you care to. I hope I have covered it all. I have a throwaway email account which is worriesomeson@hotmail.com .

In advance thank you. And apologies for the ramble.

been caught stealing...?

timory — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 23:35:21 -0800

A close friend has accused me of stealing from her. I didn't. How do I mend this? I visited a good friend of mine in Chicago a week or so ago. She has since announced to me that she has found a lot of things missing from her room (mostly plastic jewelry, and a shirt I think... nothing of value) that she says I must have taken from her. She says that she will not listen to anything I have to say on the subject, and the impression I get is that she does not ever want to speak to me again.

Needless to say I am completely shocked, but most of all I am heartbroken - I would never dream of stealing from a friend. I don't know how to set things right with her, if that's even possible. Is there etiquette for this? I know I haven't actually taken anything, but should I try to replace these items? Send her a gift? Cash? (Oh, and yes, I rooted through all of my bags from the trip just to make sure that nothing of hers sneaked in, and I've got nothing. In fact, I think I left a few things there!)

For what it's worth, her room is such an absolute cluttered mess that if she's made up her mind that these things are gone, then they are effectively gone. Even if she were to find them, she is not the kind of person who would admit to it. Still, I want to make her feel better at the very least.

How can I steal someone else's girlfriend?

jewzilla — Wed, 16 May 2007 19:30:14 -0800

How can I steal someone else's girlfriend? I'm giving a speech tomorrow on how to steal girlfriends. Unfortunately, I have no experience with this. Please suggest techniques or things to watch out for. I'm already aware of girlfriendstealer.com, but I'm looking for more esoteric tips that only the hive mind could provide.

Hotel thieves?

miles1972 — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 02:30:17 -0800

I just tried to find my backpack in my hotel room. It's gone. I'm pretty sure it was stolen. Does this make any sense? The only reason it seems weird to me is that my GF and I both had laptops out in the open and laying around, and there were various other things like that also could have been taken, and were closer to the door, etc.

We've been here for 2 weeks and I feel like we have a relationship with the chambermaids. I mean, not really, but we do see them everyday, and say hello, and the like... it just seems risky to me that they would do this.

The backpack had some notes on a manuscript, pretty much irreplaceable, but I'll get through it, and some cash. I don't really want to think about that. And yes, I shouldn't have had the cash lying around in there.

i feel like I'm not explaining this very well. I just think it's weird that someone would take something of lesser value. Has something like this ever happened to any of you?

How much can the person I'm borrowing wireless from see?

urania — Tue, 23 May 2006 08:08:29 -0800

Okay, so I often use free wireless connections...whether they be in coffee shops or occasionally my neighbor's open network. My question is, how much of what I post online/what sites I visit can be seen? Sometimes I post things I don't want to share with my neighbors, also I check email. If other open wireless network users CAN see what I'm looking at, how do I prevent it? The network I use is belkin 54g. This shouldn't be a problem soon, as I am getting my own connection. When I had my own, I left it open so others could share. I assume my neighbor is doing the same thing? But for now, I would like to know that my neighbors can't see the pix I send my long-distance boyfriend and/or what I post on our shared journal. Is this unrealistic? Thank you for your help.

Dead man's initials

altolinguistic — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 06:16:51 -0800

Is it OK to use a 500-year-old monogram on my website? I am writing content for a professional website which will promote my translation services. It so happens that my initials are the same as Albrecht Dürer's (144K image, relevant monogram at bottom of woodcut) and I'd like to use this monogram for my own site.

I'm assuming this would be legally OK as he's been dead a long time - am I right? Also, is it generally a good idea? (I might also include a bit of a St Jerome theme, and Dürer might be able to help with that). I'm also imagining that any decent web designer would be able to come up with something if I supply e.g. the image I link to here, along with an explanation of the kind of thing I'd like. Am I right?

This is the first website I've been involved with creating, so be nice...

Why do people steal shit?

symphonik — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 21:14:27 -0800

Credit card number and address was stolen. $2200 of camera/DVD equipment was bought. Stranger: it's been shipped to my address. Tomorrow. What would you do? The headline pretty much says it all. But through various yelling bouts and some social engineering, I was able to get:

- suspect's e-mail address (a yahoo.com one, probably bogus?) -- no Google records on it
- order number and order contents (an in-dash DVD player and an expensive camcorder, both $999)
- UPS tracking number (for the first package, there's two coming)

The police have been informed and claim detectives will be calling, but I doubt I'll hear from them by the time UPS shows. My current plan is to sit outside with a friend of mine (we're both pretty big dudes) and wait for the guy. See if he shows to pick up the package.

If the cursory evaluation shows he's no threat, we'll tackle him if he accepts the package. Otherwise, or if we just decide to play it cool, we'll take photos. This is of course assuming he even shows. The police will only show if I can give them no more than a half-hour window (does UPS EVER give that short a window)?

Strange: why ship to my address? I live in an enclosed apt complex, so he'll either have to break in or wait for the UPS man in front. Maybe he doesn't know?

The credit card is cancelled, absolutely. Not that they were ANY help.

Thoughts?

Does image theft worry you?

Gator — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 09:55:38 -0800

Photographers and graphic designers: How much do you worry about people stealing and/or taking credit for your work? As most of us know, there is no way to keep people from ganking anything you put up on Ye Olde Internette. Every so-called "security measure" you can think up, from no-right click scripts to posting everything in flash, can be gotten around easily by anyone with two brain cells to rub together. This is a fact of Internet life, and there's no getting around it.

My question is for those of you who have, say, Flickr accounts or Menalto Galleries on your sites, and the like: Do you worry about people taking credit for your work? Has it happened to you, and how do you deal with it? I take a lot of hi-res photos, just as a hobby, and a friend of mine has been encouraging me to put up a gallery to show them off, but I've recently had a bad experience (with an ex-boss, no less) where someone decided to just go ahead and take credit for some online work that I did, and I'm not in a financial position to pursue the matter in court at all.

Just to be perfectly clear, my question is not "How can I keep people from stealing my images," since I'm not naive enough to think that's remotely possible.

What if I don't RETURN TO SENDER?

cmonkey — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 09:36:15 -0800

If I open a piece of mail that was delivered to my house, but addressed to a former resident, is that, legally, "stealing mail" and thus a federal offense? Assume that I haven't done anything shady to recieve this mail, and also assume that I don't really care about the "ethics" or "morals" of doing it.

Best place to steal a car.

jeremias — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 05:24:27 -0800

In an abstract sense, what would be the best way to steal a car? Ok. So this is more of a thought experiment along the lines of How would you dispose of a body? So I'm not going to steal a car, nor encourage anyone to do so . .blah . . blah. But if you wanted to . . . I figure there are a few factors that should be considered for the "best" way.
(1) Expense. The more expensive the car, the better the answer. (2) Ease of theft. A running car with the keys inside is perhaps the best answer. Hotwiring skills can't be assumed. (3) Chances of getting caught. The longer it takes for the owner to realize it's been stolen- the better the answer.

So my first thought would be to hang out around a daycare facility in a tony neighborhood like Greenwich, Connecticut. That would satisfy fairly well the first two factors: there are likely to be expensive cars with the keys inside as parents are dropping off their kids. However, this wouldn't do very well on the third factor. The missing car would quickly be noticed and a call to the police would ensue.

How can I tell if my neighbor is stealing phone service from me?

pieoverdone — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 13:37:51 -0800

Short version: How can I tell if my neighbor is stealing phone service from me?

Short version of a much, much longer story inside:

Stolen Items from Checked Luggage

gottabefunky — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 22:25:53 -0800

Unpacking from a recent flight back to the U.S. from abroad, I just noticed that a few things were missing from my checked baggage (a pair of high-quality outdoor jackets). I'm wondering which avenue of renumeration would be the best to pursue - the airline (Continental), my renter's insurance policy, even the TSA - and how? I've heard horror stories of runarounds from the airlines on things like this, and although the TSA is supposed to be paying in certain instances, I have no idea how to file a claim, or prove things one way or another (I know they were in there when I packed...).

For that matter, what about things that get damaged during plane flights, like bikes?

How do I deal with being robbed?

luriete — Thu, 09 Sep 2004 17:35:53 -0800

My home was burgled yesterday while my wife and I were at work. Our cats are uninjured; my camera collection, large collection of criterion & kino DVDs, powerbook & lcd projector, and all of her good jewelry were not so lucky.

My question: how do I go about exacting revenge?

Ethics and dangers of tapping into your neighbor's wireless net access.

CunningLinguist — Sat, 19 Jun 2004 10:08:34 -0800

Ethics and dangers of tapping into your neighbor's wireless net access. So I just got a wireless laptop and I know zilch about how all this works. When I turn it on in my apartment, it tells me there are nearly a dozen available networks I can access. Some seem to require some kind of password, several don't. I'm assuming these are networks my neighbors in nearby apartments are paying for. My questions are: is it ethical to leech off someone else's account? Will it affect their own surfing? (The second question has implications for the first, in my view.) Will they notice? Should I try to find the person whose access I'm using and offer to pay half their bill?
What security dangers am I opening myself up to? If I keep doing this, can I get away with just not using this computer to send banking passwords and the like, seeing as I don't really care if anyone reads my email. Can someone now access my computer, not just the stuff I send? Are there any programs I should be using to protect myself? (Oh, and if you could use teeny tiny words, that would be great - I'm clueless technologically. Part of the problem here is I don't even know how to go about getting my own wireless access.)