to catch a thief - need your help
Posted: 10 Apr 2008, 17:59
Here's an ongoing saga in my life, one that has impacts to all of us here as well.
Over the last couple weeks, I've been having packages go missing off my front porch. Last week, on april fools day no less, I lost a very expensive new piece of server hardware. I blamed it on a faulty delivery-figuring that no one would try and steal 2 boxes off stuff off my front porch between the hours of 2pm and 4pm on a bright and sunny day. (I live in a fairly crowded townhome complex)
Last night (april 9th), a neighbor who lives ~ 12 houses down from me handed me a ripped open box that had my name on it. The contents were missing.
Now it's serious. My earlier missing package was no mis-delivery; this is no coincidence; I have a real thief on my hands, who got really lucky on April 1st, and now wants to see what else he can get.
[I don't normally open packages this way-I use a knife or scissors]
The box was full of play dead bootlegs on cassette!
It was from my new friend Jari, who lives in Finland, and these tapes were, while not exactly priceless, certainly one of a kind and irreplaceable.
I was going to transfer them to CD and mail them back, and then of course post all the mp3s here onto the site. This dickhead thief has now impacted people around the globe.
Here is a list of the bootlegs (I hope this is a complete list) that are now missing. If anyone out there has them, please let me know so this won't end up being a total loss.
5 november-81 blades,oxford
?/?-83 marquee
6 may-83 birmingham digbeth civichall
27 july-83 rock city nottingham
30 july-83 digbeth civichall birmingham
11 september-83 hammersmith palais
18 september-83 futurama 5
7 january-84 forum des halles paris
27 february-85 rock city nottingham
Some of these I have (at least the des halles gig) but 2nd copies might sound better than the stuff I have.
Some of these I'd never even heard of-I didn't even have the dates on the gig list.
This is a huge loss to me. Not only rare stuff, but property that wasn't even mine to begin with, which I was supposed to return after I was finished, is now in the hands of someone I don't even know, and he very likely is not a fan of play dead.
There is a slight, slight glimmer of hope though:
Since this guy is obviously returning to scam my place repeatedly, I have now got a motion activated webcam pointed at my front porch, which is monitoring my property while I write this. Hopefully I can determine what this person looks like, and maybe even a pattern of his visits, so it is possible that he might be caught. I will certainly be posting more information as it rolls in. I can only hope he can be caught and his apartment searched before those tapes end up in a dumpster somewhere...
-jeff
(no ! today, I am too sad)
----------------
Update: 10 april
Webcam today caught a UPS delivery and the regular postal delivery guy stopping by my house twice. (not sure why the 1st time, 2nd time he had actual mail) No unusual suspects. Nothing stolen.
The weather was really, really crappy though (wind, rain+snow) so that likely kept my thief inside for the day.
Jari was smart enough to copy all(?) of the cassettes onto minidisc before sending them to me!!! Needless to say, he's upset about the loss, but at least we have some record of the shows. I'd still like to have as many copies of these boots as possible.
Called the postal service today to get packages halted.
Called the postal inspector and left a message about someone stealing my mail. No returned calls. They are likely too busy to care. May care when I get some video.
-----------------
11 april:
Webcam caught nothing. it crashed around 2pm, which is about the time I've been expecting him to show up. damnit. the weather was crappy today again, so perhaps he didn't show anyway. I doubt anything will happen over the weekend, but the camera will be rolling anyway.
No mail in the mailbox when I got home. Caught the mailman stopping by, but couldn't tell if he dropped anything off, or was just checking to see if we had any outgoing mail. It is of course possible that the thief took whatever was in there.
Just had a funny thought that this guy, after getting a handful of tapes that say play dead on them, he might just go onto the internet and find out who this band is, stumble across this very site, and be able to read about my attempt to catch him. heheh.
------------------
12,13 april
No real news. It's a weekend, and the guy can't be THAT stupid to try anything, can he? The camera rolls on, nothing interesting found.
------------------
14 april
monday. figured someone would show up today after a long weekend of not stealing...
Nothing. Well, I caught a beardy college student putting flyers for dominoes pizza on my doorhandle and that's it. sigh.
-------------------
15 april:
Argh! nothing. I left a "Bait" package outside today and really had my hopes up that someone would be interested in it. Nada. Not even a curious peek around the corner, nothing.
-------------------
16 april:
again, nothing. Today was kind of a blowout anyway, as coincidence of coincidences, my home security system died yesterday and I had to get a guy from the company to come out and do some tests to it. So I had a brinks security truck parked outside my place for an hour during the key hours of my previous robberies. This of course may have the desired outcome of scaring the guy away for good, but I really wanted to do that AFTER I caught images of him. gah. Today was also really, really nice out, so people all over the complex were out doing some spring cleaning, which may have been too much for my thief to handle.
-------------------
17 april:
Nada. Thought today might be a good day-weather is cloudy and no one is outside, but not even 1 peek. the bait package awaits still...
-------------------
18 april:
Again, Nada. Just like yesterday, good weather for robbery, but no robbers to do the deed. Another weekend ahead, so there's not a lot of hope that he'll show up sat+sun either.
-------------------
19,20,21 april:
nope. this is getting boring.
i had such high hopes of 007 Bond sneak attacks and captures, but nothing at all-not even a peep.
Over the last couple weeks, I've been having packages go missing off my front porch. Last week, on april fools day no less, I lost a very expensive new piece of server hardware. I blamed it on a faulty delivery-figuring that no one would try and steal 2 boxes off stuff off my front porch between the hours of 2pm and 4pm on a bright and sunny day. (I live in a fairly crowded townhome complex)
Last night (april 9th), a neighbor who lives ~ 12 houses down from me handed me a ripped open box that had my name on it. The contents were missing.
Now it's serious. My earlier missing package was no mis-delivery; this is no coincidence; I have a real thief on my hands, who got really lucky on April 1st, and now wants to see what else he can get.
[I don't normally open packages this way-I use a knife or scissors]
The box was full of play dead bootlegs on cassette!
It was from my new friend Jari, who lives in Finland, and these tapes were, while not exactly priceless, certainly one of a kind and irreplaceable.
I was going to transfer them to CD and mail them back, and then of course post all the mp3s here onto the site. This dickhead thief has now impacted people around the globe.
Here is a list of the bootlegs (I hope this is a complete list) that are now missing. If anyone out there has them, please let me know so this won't end up being a total loss.
5 november-81 blades,oxford
?/?-83 marquee
6 may-83 birmingham digbeth civichall
27 july-83 rock city nottingham
30 july-83 digbeth civichall birmingham
11 september-83 hammersmith palais
18 september-83 futurama 5
7 january-84 forum des halles paris
27 february-85 rock city nottingham
Some of these I have (at least the des halles gig) but 2nd copies might sound better than the stuff I have.
Some of these I'd never even heard of-I didn't even have the dates on the gig list.
This is a huge loss to me. Not only rare stuff, but property that wasn't even mine to begin with, which I was supposed to return after I was finished, is now in the hands of someone I don't even know, and he very likely is not a fan of play dead.
There is a slight, slight glimmer of hope though:
Since this guy is obviously returning to scam my place repeatedly, I have now got a motion activated webcam pointed at my front porch, which is monitoring my property while I write this. Hopefully I can determine what this person looks like, and maybe even a pattern of his visits, so it is possible that he might be caught. I will certainly be posting more information as it rolls in. I can only hope he can be caught and his apartment searched before those tapes end up in a dumpster somewhere...
-jeff
(no ! today, I am too sad)
----------------
Update: 10 april
Webcam today caught a UPS delivery and the regular postal delivery guy stopping by my house twice. (not sure why the 1st time, 2nd time he had actual mail) No unusual suspects. Nothing stolen.
The weather was really, really crappy though (wind, rain+snow) so that likely kept my thief inside for the day.
Jari was smart enough to copy all(?) of the cassettes onto minidisc before sending them to me!!! Needless to say, he's upset about the loss, but at least we have some record of the shows. I'd still like to have as many copies of these boots as possible.
Called the postal service today to get packages halted.
Called the postal inspector and left a message about someone stealing my mail. No returned calls. They are likely too busy to care. May care when I get some video.
-----------------
11 april:
Webcam caught nothing. it crashed around 2pm, which is about the time I've been expecting him to show up. damnit. the weather was crappy today again, so perhaps he didn't show anyway. I doubt anything will happen over the weekend, but the camera will be rolling anyway.
No mail in the mailbox when I got home. Caught the mailman stopping by, but couldn't tell if he dropped anything off, or was just checking to see if we had any outgoing mail. It is of course possible that the thief took whatever was in there.
Just had a funny thought that this guy, after getting a handful of tapes that say play dead on them, he might just go onto the internet and find out who this band is, stumble across this very site, and be able to read about my attempt to catch him. heheh.
------------------
12,13 april
No real news. It's a weekend, and the guy can't be THAT stupid to try anything, can he? The camera rolls on, nothing interesting found.
------------------
14 april
monday. figured someone would show up today after a long weekend of not stealing...
Nothing. Well, I caught a beardy college student putting flyers for dominoes pizza on my doorhandle and that's it. sigh.
-------------------
15 april:
Argh! nothing. I left a "Bait" package outside today and really had my hopes up that someone would be interested in it. Nada. Not even a curious peek around the corner, nothing.
-------------------
16 april:
again, nothing. Today was kind of a blowout anyway, as coincidence of coincidences, my home security system died yesterday and I had to get a guy from the company to come out and do some tests to it. So I had a brinks security truck parked outside my place for an hour during the key hours of my previous robberies. This of course may have the desired outcome of scaring the guy away for good, but I really wanted to do that AFTER I caught images of him. gah. Today was also really, really nice out, so people all over the complex were out doing some spring cleaning, which may have been too much for my thief to handle.
-------------------
17 april:
Nada. Thought today might be a good day-weather is cloudy and no one is outside, but not even 1 peek. the bait package awaits still...
-------------------
18 april:
Again, Nada. Just like yesterday, good weather for robbery, but no robbers to do the deed. Another weekend ahead, so there's not a lot of hope that he'll show up sat+sun either.
-------------------
19,20,21 april:
nope. this is getting boring.
i had such high hopes of 007 Bond sneak attacks and captures, but nothing at all-not even a peep.