Taking things for granted: jeopardizing your safety and security

Published 6:50 pm Thursday, April 3, 2014

Many people think criminals are not very smart. For some, this is true. However, for others, this is far from the truth. We received the following information about crimes that occurred somewhere in the United States. Beware, it can happen here as well.
Someone had their car broken into while they were at a football game. Their car was parked on the green, which was adjacent to the football stadium and specifically allotted to football fans. Things stolen from the car included a garage door remote control, some money and a GPS, which had been prominently mounted on the dashboard. When the victims got home, they found their house had been ransacked and just about everything worth anything had been stolen.
The thieves had used the GPS to guide them to the house. They then used the garage remote control to open the garage door and gain entry to the house.
The thieves knew the owners were at the football game, they knew what time the game was scheduled to finish and so they knew how much time they had to clean out the house.
It would appear they had brought a truck to empty the house of its contents.
Something to consider if you have a GPS-don’t put your home address in it. Put a nearby address (like a store or gas station) so you can still find you a home if you need to, but no one else would know where you live if your GPS were stolen.
I never thought of this:
This lady has now changed her habit of how she lists her names on her cell phone after her handbag was stolen. Her handbag, which contained her cell phone, credit card, wallet, etc. was stolen. She called her husband 20 minutes later from a pay phone to tell him what happened and he said he received her text asking about our pin number and he replied a little while ago.
When they rushed to the bank, the bank staff told them all the money was already withdrawn. The thief had actually used the stolen cell phone to text “hubby” in the contact list and got a hold of the pin number. Within 20 minutes he had withdrawn all the money from their bank account.
Purse in the grocery cart scam:
A lady went grocery shopping at a local mall and left her purse sitting in the children’s seat of the cart while she reached something off a shelf. Wait until you read the whole story.
Her wallet was stolen, and she reported it to the store personnel. After returning home, she received a phone call from the mall security to say they had her wallet and that although there was no money in it, it did still hold her personal papers. She immediately went to pick up her wallet, only to be told by mall security they had not called her.
By the time she returned home again, her house had been broken into and burglarized. The thieves knew that by calling and saying they were mall security they could lure her out of her house long enough for them to burglarize it.

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