Dumb criminal of the day, maybe month

[BigRon]

The common denominator seems to be that all the smart criminals are on TV. Real life smart crooks, maybe not so much.

[seamusTX]

Smart crooks commit identity theft or white-collar crime, and many of them get away with it.

The smart, elegant "It Takes a Thief" criminal is probably rare.

- Jim

[ml1209]

That's great.

[DoubleJ]

Smart crooks commit identity theft or white-collar crime, and many of them get away with it.

The smart, elegant "It Takes a Thief" criminal is probably rare.

- Jim

/agrees

[fickman]

While this story has a happy ending, please please, don't leave your keys in the ignition when you get out of the vehicle. I have seen way too many bad outcomes of this practice, including vehicles being stolen with children in them, and children putting vehicles in gear.

- Jim

It's against the law in Fort Worth. They'll go around on cold mornings and ticket idling cars with no drivers.



I understand the reasoning, but this is another example of punishing victims instead of bad guys.

It reminds me of the George Brett pine tar incident. . . the rule was that no player could have pine tar above a certain spot on the bat. Why? Because if the bat hit the ball and the pine tar got on the ball, then the pitcher could do nasty things with it, making it unsafe for the batter. The rule? Make it illegal for batters to have pine tar above a line on the bat. The punishment? The batter is out if they are caught. The result? A rule to protect batters that actually punishes them. Needless to say, the league did away with the rule soon after Mr. Brett tap danced from the dugout to home plate.

[seamusTX]

There's no need to let a gasoline-fueled vehicle idle on a cold morning in Ft. Worth. Modern cars can be driven as soon as the engine starts.

I used to live in northern Illinois and do that even when it was -20.

- Jim

[DoubleJ]

maybe if you want the seat warmer to be nice and toasty when you get in.
I mean, who doesn't like toasty buns??? Quizno's did a whole ad campaign based on that premise....

for me, I find the heater warms up significantly faster if I just drive it, as opposed to let it sit an idle.

[fickman]

There's no need to let a gasoline-fueled vehicle idle on a cold morning in Ft. Worth. Modern cars can be driven as soon as the engine starts.

I used to live in northern Illinois and do that even when it was -20.

- Jim

I keep mine in the garage, so no need for me to warm it up. I also work from home, so my commute is 16 carpeted steps. -20 would effect the diesel guys. . . I agree that it typically doesn't even get cold enough in Ft. Worth to bother the oil burners.

. . . I still think it's a stupid law to punish the potential victims instead of the BGs.

[TxDrifter]

It does affect us diesel guys, but usually if you purchased your vehicle in an area that is that cold they have the block heater option already installed. I have a remote start on mine that lets me start it. I'm rarely doing it because of cold, but in August I sometimes kick it on while I'm checking out and it is running the A/C during my walk from there to the truck.

[seamusTX]

. . . I still think it's a stupid law to punish the potential victims instead of the BGs.

I agree that it's typical of laws that try to solve a problem at the wrong point in the process, similar to the ordinance around here against drinking alcoholic beverages in public (not being intoxicated, just drinking).

However, leaving vehicles with keys in the ignition is a serious problem and has resulted in the death of innocent people.

- Jim

[seamusTX]

Today's dumb criminal is from Wichita, Kansas. At a gun show yesterday, a man attempted to walk out the door with four handguns that he had not paid for. The result was about what you would expect.

http://www.kansas.com/news/crime-courts ... 44197.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- Jim

[DoubleJ]

dude's lucky someone didn't have an AD in his direction!

[ninemm]

Smart crooks commit identity theft or white-collar crime, and many of them get away with it.

The smart, elegant "It Takes a Thief" criminal is probably rare.

- Jim

My wife was a victim of identity theft several years back. The perp was a woman who worked in her office and did the payroll there and had access to all of my wife's personal information. She opened up four credit cards in my wife's name, had the bill sent to the office and maxed them out (a total of $55,000). For some reason, she changed the address to our home address once they were maxed out. When the bill came in it didn't have much detail as the individual purchases were on previous month's statements. We had just moved into a new house at the time and my wife at first thought the statements were associated with some furniture she bought where she got 10% off if she opened an account with them. She made the comment that she didn't realize she had spent so much and was about to make a payment on it when she showed it to me (the first one that came to our home address). I thought it was odd that it was an AVON mastercard and suggested that she call and get the last five purchases (which you can usually do with the card company's IVR system). When none of those charges made sense, she hit "0" to talk to a representative. Because we couldn't come up with the code word (supposely my wife's mother's maiden name) we couoldn't get any info. After speaking to a supervisor, we were finally able to figure out what had happened when we were told that the account had an authorized user of xxxxxx, who was the person who worked in the office with my wife. We contacted the Dallas PD and filed a report with our suspicions. A couple of days later, a detective contacted us and got some info. He talked to the card company's fraud department and interviewed the perp. The perp told him that she had my wife's permission to set up the account and that she had given her the information to do so. He called us a couple of days later to go over what he had found. The detective (a black man) made the comment that the thing that convinced him that the perp (also black) was lying was that she had given "Washington" as my wife's mother's maiden name. He laughed and said that the last white person he knew of with the name Washington was "George".

The interesting thing is that the card companies won't get involved with helping to prosecute. They just write the money off and go on. As far as we know, the perp (who had given my wife some fairly expensive Christmas gifts - charged to the accounts she set up in my wife's name) did get arrested but was ROR and the DA never presented the case to the grand jury.
So it didn't cost her a dime and all it cost was a few (daylight) hours in detention and going before a magistrate.

[seamusTX]

What's ROR?

That identity thief was a clumsy one. The better ones don't associate their own name with the card. They use it online (so there's no photo record) and have the loot shipped to some drop box or address of an accomplice.

- Jim

[ninemm]

I didn't say she was too bright. Heck, she couldn't understand why my wife was upset or why she was fired.

ROR is "Released on own Recognizance".