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O/T Another Perfect Scam

J

John B.

Well-known Member
I've heard people are trading their vehicles in that have the GPS screen on the dash. Once traded in a customer test drives the vehicle and looks up on the GPS where the previous owner of the vehicle marked home (on the GPS). The test driver goes by the place marked home, presses the built in garage door opener in the vehicle opens up the garage door and a second vehicle pulls in to rob the residence.

Also take a look at your garage doors. If the top of the door can be pushed in any at all thieves can then stick a rod in and pull the door opener release lever and open the door.

I just heard these two from two different co-workers in the last two weeks.
 
I"ve heard of (SMARTER?) owners that entered the addy of their local police department as their home address.
 
I suppose it's possible this happened once, but I challenge you to come up with an actual example.

The typical burglar/drug addict is going to have a hard time convincing a used car dealer to let him test drive a high-end car. Assuming he even has a driver's license, do you think he's going to hand it over to the dealer while he commits the crime, leaving a clear trail from the burglary back to himself? And don't you think dealers would get a little suspicious, with the same scumbags showing up every day, taking a single car for a long test drive?
 
I read a personal safety bulletin that recommended you use a public location, such as a gas station or store near your home, as the "Home" address in a GPS. This allows you to know where your home is, but not a stranger.
 
Plausible, but unlikely.

You gotta quit watching those Oceans 11 style caper movies. Thieves in real life don't work like that.

Dealers these days don't let you test drive without the salesman in the car with you anyway. The only way it would work is if the salesman was in on the scam. Then we're back into the whole Oceans 11 style conspiracy.
 
Sounds like an urban myth. Sure, it COULD happen but as others said, unlikely that a dealer would let someone take a car w/o copying a driver's license. Also, what are the odds that someone lives close enough to a dealer that they traded their car in at? So a thief would have to pick a car whose owner hadn't erased their GPS "home", lived within a "test drive" distance from the dealer, didn't delete the garage door opener code. And then pull up in the middle of the day with the 2nd car with no one home. And hope they don't have a burglar alarm. Or the neighbors aren't watching. Most people who drive "high-end" cars probably live in "high-end" houses with burglar alarms.
:lol:
It'd be just as easy for them to drive up to a random house and break in. They pull that trick at my house and the alarm would go off and they'd have 2 dogs jumping at them when they walked in the garage door. :wink:
 
Amen.
But the masses have become complacent and depend on a service to tell them where to go. Another app on their smart phone that depends on the grid to lock up, or open up.
The perfect scam, is the marketing that has people convinced that these conveniences aren't luxuries but they need them and have to have them.
 
Anytime we try out a vehicle the salesperson rides along, they want to sell the vehicle, Right! But these have always been new vehicles. As to pushing the top of the garage door open, if the opener is engaged it should be holding it tight against the header! Some people don't have enough real problems to worry about, they have to make up imaginary ones!
 
Getting into a house is breeze for a thief.

People will put all kinds of locks and stuff on a door with a big glass window. Do yourself a favor and leave the door unlocked - it might save you the cost of replacing a window along with your stolen stuff.

If you aren't home and you don't have a dog or some other deterent the average locked door might hold up a thief for for a second or two.

Kind of like most gun safes. Unless the body is made from real plate steel or lined with concrete most thieves will be in them in a minute or two - sometimes using your own tools from the garage.
 
Judging by some of the comments, I would conclude that a lot of people have never lived in a small town. In our town almost eery dealership is located on the same highway, but most of them are less than mile from the residential area, so anyone could take a test drive through there. Also, when my daughter bought a used vehicle last year, the sales person handed her the keys and told her to just have it back by noon which was about three hours.
 
That's why I never enter my actual home address as "Home" on a GPS. I enter a phony address that will get me within a couple of miles.
 
Must be a big town problem. You would be hard pressed to even find a car here with GPS. The last time I test drove a car the dealer told me to keep it overnight.
I could sit down right now and list all the cars my neighbors drive And the cars there kids drive.

There are more garges without door openers than there are with openers. A door opener is an item only the rich have around here.
 
you can get printed maps at any real estate office or chamber of commerce in most towns i learned to read a map in scouts around age 8 or 9 and dont have gps in anything lol
 
NEVER get GPS as an option on a car... expensive and the updates cost $$$. Better idea, buy Garmin or Tom-Tom and throw it away when it needs updating cause its cheaper to buy a new one. Plus you can take a portable with you if you fly somewhere and use it in a rental car...
 
But if it's locked, it becomes BREAKING and ENTERING, as opposed to entering a unattended building.

That said, neighbor had a breaking and entering of two outbuildings - polebarn and garage. Each with padlock as well as door lock. Theives bolt cuttered padlocks, kicked in doors. Made off with several thousands in small fencible hand tools, etc. Left all the big things, like 4-wheelers, snowmobiles, even portable air compressors. Probably weren't on scene twenty minutes. Neighbor is a tool junkie. So he got robbed twice - once by the culprits, and the second time by his insurance company who gave him a hard time over each item, refusing to pay up for a lot of the stuff.
 

Maps are great to get you from town to town and around in major cities. But to find specific addresses in towns or rural areas a GPS beats a map all to hell.
 
I retired a year ago from 1 1/2 million miles of OTR 18-wheeler. Got along fine with cell phone and road atlas. Boss had a GPS and was ALWAYS arguing with / about it. lol!!
 
Back in '55 my Dad was looking for a pickup truck. On sunday afternoon we weent to a number of lots and looked at what they had. Found one that interested him. So on monday during lunch hour a buddy of mine and I walked over to the dealer from school . I told him the about the above and he turned around and grabbed the keys and handed them to me. I had to decline. I didn't have a drivers license. Apparently my FFA jeaket with my nome on it was all the ID I needed.

Areo
 
ok, here is another WARNING story happened to my partner, they stopped for supper and had a few drinks, when they came out there vehicles glove box was open & there garage door opener was missing, what was removed from the glove box was there vehicle registration, with there name & address on it, he raced home but never caught anybody. yet
 
Be weary of a portable GPS, friend lost his when he took it with him on a trip, it made it to the trip, worked good on the trip was packed in his bag when he left for home but alas was not in his bag when he picked it up at the airport. Don't know if it was an airline, airport or TSA employee but someone got it.
 
Oh, yes. Back then if you were looking at a vehicle they would hand you the keys, "Drive it overnight, or all weekend!" House was never locked, and three or four vehicles in the yard with keys in the ignition. Times sure have changed, and not necessarily for the better!
 
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