I hate thieves!!!

[Farmwithjunk]

A friend is an appraiser for a local chain of pawn shops. She told me that they can't keep cordless sawzalls in stock. They get bought up as soon as they go on the shelf. Thieves are buying them to cut off catalytic converters, remove air conditioner coils, and saw up anything else they can steal. Kind of ironic in a way, pawn shops used to be where thieves took their plunder to sell. Now they go there to buy equipment to steal with.

 

[sseelhoff]

A friend is an appraiser for a local chain of pawn shops. She told me that they can't keep cordless sawzalls in stock. They get bought up as soon as they go on the shelf. Thieves are buying them to cut off catalytic converters, remove air conditioner coils, and saw up anything else they can steal. Kind of ironic in a way, pawn shops used to be where thieves took their plunder to sell. Now they go there to buy equipment to steal with.

Wanna bet the sawsalls are stolen too? The smash and grab guys are supplying the metals guys, with the pawn shop making a profit as the middle man. Nice set-up.

 

[jcims]

I'm not so sure its the economy as much as thieves are thieves. Scrap metals are at all time highs(catalytic converters & copper wire),

My brother works for AT&T and he said that the number of times phone and electric(!) is cut is amazing. Some guys got a good (and final) lesson as to what those guy wires on the big poles are for, and of course regular cases of the following:

Copper thieves die trying to steal wire - USATODAY.com

You would think it's self-limiting, but it seems that stupid breeds fast.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Wanna bet the sawsalls are stolen too? The smash and grab guys are supplying the metals guys, with the pawn shop making a profit as the middle man. Nice set-up.

Pawn Shops in this area are now required to fingerprint and get picture ID's from anyone who's selling and/or pawning. While that in and of itself doesn't mean that some (many?) of the sawzalls aren't stolen, it's cut down considerabley on the numbers of tools being sold to those pawn shops. My friend says the new law seriously cut into their business when it was enacted.

So, now these guys just steal the sawzalls and never pawn them. They just put 'em directly to work.

Volume of business at the pawn shops decreased. Theft rates haven't.

 

[Roger2561]

Hi all,

Like everyone else here, I too hate thieves. A couple of minths ago I had to close my credit card account with my credit union. It appears that someone stole my number when I made a purchase and charged something rather expensive. Thankfully, I had had signed up with freecreditreport.com to monitor all of my accounts and I received an email from them stating that there appeared to be a charge on my account from the mid-west. I assured them that the last time I visited the mid-west was about 8 years ago. The credit union ate the unauthorized charge, which was cool. Roger

 

[Gizmo36]

I went off for a few days last week some one poured my diesel fuel out and took my tank . about 250 gal on the ground , I would have shot them if i had seen them.

 

[Grapeman]

I'm getting a little paraniod about things on my farm. Put motion detector lites on most of my buildings and lock everything up as much as possible. Price of fuel, gas and diesel, is making me concerned about my fuel tanks which are not near any electric. Bought a solar powered motion lite at TSC earlier this week and plan on standing a 4x4 up and mounting unit to it. I'm going to put it behind the tanks and make it too tall to be reached without a ladder. A better lite unit is available at Lowes but is a little more pricey. Thieves work better in the dark so I figure I'll brighten it up a little for them. Maybe the lite will make it easier for them but figure the neighbors will see something going on if I don't.

 

[wedge40]

If you have electricity, video surveillance is the way to go. That way if/when they get caught, there shouldn't be any reason for them not to convicted.

I have a pretty hard core attitude about drug dealers and users.
Any dealer caught a proven guilty would die. There is no age limit on this stipulation. Ya ya the bleeding hearts would have a cow. But I'm pretty sure that after a year or two of putting a 1000 or so of these people in the ground things would start to change.

Wedge

 

[smfcpacfp]

I think it is also a function of where you live, and your neighborhood. Our country road has relatively affleuent neighbors and has very little traffic other than residents, since our street dead ends at both ends.

I leave my house unlocked except when we are away for a multi-day trip, and no one has come in and taken anything. Locking would provide very little protection, except for th most timid, since it is not in view of any neighbor. I don't lock my cars or chains my bikes to anything and have never had a problem. When I am in town I do lock my car however.

 

[wedge40]

I think it is also a function of where you live, and your neighborhood. Our country road has relatively affleuent neighbors and has very little traffic other than residents, since our street dead ends at both ends.

I leave my house unlocked except when we are away for a multi-day trip, and no one has come in and taken anything. Locking would provide very little protection, except for th most timid, since it is not in view of any neighbor. I don't lock my cars or chains my bikes to anything and have never had a problem. When I am in town I do lock my car however.

Ya but up there in Gods country you have worry more about coming home and finding critters in your house. I also live out in the country, in the middle of the woods. So if someone wanted to clean me out no one would see a thing. I still lock things up for insurance purposes.

Wedge