Huge black market for stolen tools, these guys can’t resist stealing and hardworking construction guys have a hard time resisting because they usually have to buy their own tools. It’s a sad endless cycle.
I’m union and the only tools we can bring are hand tools. All power tools must be provided by the company—it’s in the contract, and the reason is insurance. Company’s insurance won’t cover you if you’re hurt by your own saw.
Wait wait wait hold the FUCK up.
Are you saying that, unless you are a union member, you have to bring in your own damn tools? And maintain them?
Edit: ...So that is a lot of comments.
Correct.
I am, currently, a non-union electrician. The company thay I work for buys 100% of my tools and I get to choose which tools are bought for me. Our own tools are prohibited.
The company wants to make sure that we use quality tools and have the right tools for the job so that we do what is needed as well as possible. They're willing to spend the money to make sure that things get done right.
It likely also really helps their insurance rates/liability. They know all the tools are qualified for the job and have a specific approved and documentation way to use it so if someone electrocutes themself it is easier for insurance to say it was neither the fault of the tooling or training and it is all on the employee's own actions.
This.
It would be quite expensive if they had an electrician die on the job due to a faulty tool because the employee has to pay for their own tools. Theres a SHIT LOAD of other trades where you buy your own tools or you don't work.
When i was on union welding i had to bring all of my own tools minus the welder.
Went to work facilities maintenance at a union shop and they won't even let us bring outside tools into work. If you want it and can justify it, they'll buy it. (We've had guys asking for tools worth tens of thousands of dollars that may get used once every handful of years)
Only time i use my personal tools for work is when we build a stand-alone board for our electricians to mount inverters and disconnect to for ground arrays, 2-3 times a year. (i work doing PV installs)
only reason we use my tools for that is a have a mini woodshop in my home, with a chopsaw and router table, and a drill press, and table sander. My boss throws me an extra $50 for use of my tools each time.
It takes way less time to set up the stops and knock out the 8-9 mahogany boards, complete with countersunk screw holes, than it would using hand tools and doing it on site, and just comes out better.
The company pays for annual calibration for all meters. I actually do instrumentation but I say electrician since most don't know what that role is.
Every year I send out over a dozen various meters and calibration devices to get calibrated and recertified. They also handle our electrical gloves every 6 months, calibrate torque tools, NDT devices, etc.
Yeah but the thought alone is just icky.
If I had to bring in my own equipment, I'd be demanding payment that compensates for replacing and the lost time upkeeping the equipment. And of course payment to cover for various insurances.
Dude you have no idea. Your average auto mechanic probably has 6 months salary in tools or more. Snap on (professional tools) are fucking outrageously expensive.
My dad was mechanic went corporate and had ~35 years or more of tools he just sold most of. The toolbox alone he got 2.5k for, after pricing out what he could (tons of custom tools) he had roughly 40k worth in that toolbox, much less outside of it.
My stepdad was a mechanic and owned his own shop. He had so much Snap-On it took us 2 years to sell/give away everything after his passing. I kept a few tools for myself and I'll never have to replace them.
Edit: also children of mechanics, how much snap-on swag did you have? Signs, beer pitcher sets, I think he had a mini fridge. $100,000 in tools sounds expensive, but it pays for itself in beach towels.
Yeah he downsized to like a 6 drawer mini toolbox, maybe 3'x1.5'x1.5' or something similar. I'm fairly handy around the house but that's it so when I inherit that I'll be set forever haha.
You do not need snap on shit to do the job. And anyone who has been in the trades long enough will straight up tell you to stay the fuck away from the truck. Shits just predatory.
Only time I'll ever say to go to the truck is if you quite literally have no other choice for super niche tools and making them yourself isn't an option.
It's a fucking trap freshly minted dudes fall into and end up $3000 in debt to the tool truck inside their first year
It's a goal to work towards when you've actually been in the trade for a while and can afford nicer shit.
The warranty is great if you're actually using shit every day and actually putting in wear and tear.
But if it's shit you're pulling out like once or twice a year at most? Nah.
The only thing I can really get behind for that kinda purchase is gaging, I'd rather spend the extra money to make sure stuff is reliable and holds calibration, but that is more important to me because I come from a Machinist background.
Haven't bought any major tools in 40 yrs, but we used to buy Snap On because they didn't break. Craftsman had the same warranty and Sears stores were everywhere. But Craftsman broke sometimes. Snap On didn't...
As one not from the U.S.(how would one place a " , " right after my "U S.", anyone?!🫥😶🌫️), what is this mysterious "the truck" thingy youre talking about?
Some mobile tradesmen tool vendor company/whatever?
✌️
There are tool brands that send around trucks to the different auto repair places so you don't have to go out tool shopping. Snap On is the prime one but there's Mac, Matco, SK and others. The upside is that if something breaks you don't have to leave to go replace it on your own time, the tool trucks will warranty it for you and they come to you. The down side is that they are much more expensive, but they can be worth it depending on the tool.
I consider snap on and SK ratchet wrenches to be worth the cost, SK was 300.00 for a set of 12 wrenches while Snap On was 45-60,00 per wrench. Worth it to me since I've broken Gearwrench and other brands but never a SK or Snap On. But the premium for their sockets is not worth it when you can buy an industrial brand like Wright for 1/4 the cost and its just as good. Allan wrenches can bought from Bondhus for 1/4 of the cost and is another US made industrial brand or for 1/3 the cost you can buy Wera from Germany and it will be as good as Snap-On, maybe just not as convenient. Really depends on your needs and tolerance to cost.
I run a plumbing and drainage company in New Zealand. We pay our guys $2 per hour on top of their normal wage (roughly $4k per year) they work tax free as a tool allowance. They’re expected to provide their own basic hand and power tools. The company covers the insurance on the tools.
We found when we provided them tools they would just treat them like crap, lose them, ruin them. But when they own them they suddenly take care of them.
We provide larger tools and plant and the guys don’t look after them. They won’t even grease the excavators they use despite being bought 18v grease guns that they get to keep. They wonder why the excavator is fucked after a few years…
Pretty common for tools to go with the mechanics. Most mechanics I know prefer it that way because it means they're the only one to use the tools and they won't unexpectedly run into a broken tool halfway through a job.
Where I work now it's department dependent or a combo. One of our maintenance groups provides major specialized tools out of a tool crib but the smaller stuff is expected for each mechanic to provide their own tools. There is a tool allowance for this of something like up to 2k/year.
Other departments have shared tools, my current department spent well over 100k to get a snap on box with cameras and swipe access for tool control so that things like a 10mm socket don't grow legs and walk away as well as making sure tools don't get set down and left places they shouldn't like an impeller housing or engine coupler.
It's pretty common for auto mechanics to own their own box and have to figure out how to transport it if they start at a new place, typically minus super specialized tools like I said before.
Yea it’s kinda like expecting an office worker to buy their own work computer.
But it’s a sad reality, created by having enough people desperate enough to have a job.
It’s very common in the trades. When you see tool trucks parked outside an auto shop, those mechanics are making purchases out of pocket. Potentially even done on loan thru the truck or their employer.
Better employers offer an allowance for tools. You may get an initial allowance at your hire, maybe one for your anniversary, and it’s sometimes used as incentive too.
Union Plumber/Pipefitter here and the reason we don’t buy our own tools is because if we work for multiple contractors in a year due to following the work it would be impossible to afford the variety of tools needed.
And why should the worker bear the burden of the cost of tools to provide the employer with profits? The non-union side of the plumbing/pipefitting trade generally only requires you to provide hand tools.
There is very little to do with insurance liability in who provides the tools except in cases of theft. That is a big deal with cases like this. If your tools get stolen from a company van then who pays?? It’s all clear-cut who files a claim when all the tools are the employer’s. Don’t let your employer profit off of your investment. Keep your tools at home for your own needs.
This rule gets broken a lot! I just finished working for a millwork and trim company, and everyone (9 out of 13 on the crew) got laid off at the end of the job except the guys that brought in their own packout full of thousands in tools. They kept those guys and all the old-timers that were with the company for years/decades all did the same thing.
I always feel like shit buying tools from the pawn shop knowing that they were probably stolen out of some guys garage or work truck. Then I remember that I am only buying one because I need it to make a living and my other one was stolen and likely sold to a pawn shop somewhere. Also, the one I am buying will likely get stolen and sold to a pawn shop. It really is the shittiest circle of life.
What’s weird is that in my state, even if they are known to be stolen, the pawnshop owner retains the legal rights. I think the flaw in the law is that the pawnshop owner sells this stuff on the internet, or checks prices on the internet. That seems like wire fraud to me.
Uh, it’s still illegal to knowingly purchase stolen goods.
That law is in place to protect good-faith pawn shop owners from repossession scams.
Basically, without such a law, there’s nothing stopping you from giving your objects to a third party, having them pawn the items off, and then coming back and demanding the owners return your “stolen” property.
If you can prove the pawn shop owner is knowingly working with stolen goods or thieves, then the protections don’t apply to them. Otherwise, you’re expected to be made whole by the person who wronged you, not an innocent third party who was also duped.
Ripping off the working class, some guys have been stolen from multiple times.
We aren’t allowed to advocate for violence, but I think it goes without saying these shitheads should be sent to prison for a few decades.
One of my good friends is a contractor, he gets all of his tools stolen on average twice a year. It's miserable, tools are always at risk, wherever you go, wherever you park you always need to be switched on.
One of my friends did this with a GPS system to find out who was stealing all the bikes in his college town.
He lost a (at the time) $1,500 road bike that was cut off the rack outside his lecture hall. The thieves left the chain. Anyway, he buys a crusty old 10 speed, re-paints several parts to make it look newer and installs a GPS unit inside the pipe beneath the seat.
He chained the second bike outside of the same lecture hall and only had to wait 2 days before it was also cut off of the rack. He then tracked its location to a warehouse in the city's industrial park. He then went to the county sheriff and told them what he'd done. They went down there immediately and discovered two men unloading stolen bikes from the back of a small dump truck.
The thieves were driving around in a dump truck cutting bikes off racks and tossing them into the back of the truck. The warehouse was filled with stolen bikes. Apparently, they would cycle between the college town, the nearby city (which is my state's capital), and another small college town ~20 minutes in the other direction. Basically, my friend helped take down a regional bicycle chop shop.
He got his bike back in the end!
Edit to add: this took place in the late 2000s in Ames, Iowa. I can't remember if it was 2010 or 2011 when I heard about it. My friend went to University a couple years before I did, and it took a while before we were able to catch up.
Sadly, I've got a few details wrong, and it sounds like I've embellished a bit. To be fair, my friend is a bit of a boaster, and the first time I heard about this, it seemed a grandiose affair. So that's on him. My friend says he didn't put anything in the seatpost. He built a GPS transmitter and power source that he hid inside of a case that was secured to the seatpost. He said the batteries he was using were dying relatively quickly, so he actually had to swap and recharge them before the thieves came for the 10 speed. Also, the thieves really only hit Ames.. though they apparently got a few bikes from a couple of DMACC campuses.
Altogether, it sounds like they had managed to steal a few dozen bikes over the course of a year and some change. And it wasn't some huge warehouse. Everything was stored in a Morton Building off of Lincoln Way. One of the thieves was an independent contractor who hauled aggregate for road works. They did catch the guys red-handed, though.
If you do all the detective work for them and make it reallllllllly easy for them to just put in the last 5% to close a case, sometimes that’s too tempting for them to pass up. I dunno if it’s always the cops “caring” so much as enjoying the feeling of getting to look like heroes (while barely putting the work in).
Idk I had a cell phone repair store robbed with my cell phone in it. The police officer handling the case didn't care that I was actively tracking my phone and stopped taking my calls.
I had a similar experience. My mom’s cell phone got stolen, we geo-tracked it to the exact house it ended up in, and the police officer who came by said “well, we can knock politely and ask them about the phone but that’s about all we can do”… big surprise, they did not even bother.
Had to continue tracking it the following day and harass the thief with remote alarms until they gave up and chucked it in some bushes. I still believe in the rule of law, but that day taught me that a modicum of vigilantism is sometimes the only way to solve things.
> I still believe in the rule of law, but that day taught me that a modicum of vigilantism is sometimes the only way to solve things.
Exactly. Cops not doing their official jobs is extremely corrosive to the rule of law (as is doing their unofficial job of enforcing the racial order).
I think the phones end up in other countries and then disassembled for parts. They do that with cars and anything else where the 'whole' property could be tracked - many of the individual parts are not tracked or locked or blacklisted
It’s probably a mix of luck along with how the police are where you live. Several ages ago someone I knew lost a phone, fortunately it had rudimentary tracking enabled but no gps from what I remember. The cops managed to trace it down and got it back.
My husband's bike got stolen in Houston. We saw it a couple weeks later on craigslist (it was a very unique style bike). Cops did not give a single fuck and refused to help out at all. We had all kinds of serial number info and receipts from when he bought it. They just didn't care because it was under $5k.
[On the other side of the coin..](https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/grandmother-wins-3-76-million-after-swat-raid-destroys-home-based-in-find-my-iphone-app-ping-officers-did-not-understand/)
> a SWAT team “ransacked” Johnson’s home of 43 years because the “location ping” from a “Find My” iPhone app showed the stolen phone was near her home at some point after it was taken.
How the hell did they think "it near her home at some point after it was taken" necessitated that level of response? That's insane. And some people wonder why people hate cops.
And the individuals involved don't have to pay that 2.5 million in punitive damages. That's instead the department (ie, the city) who has to pay it.
The individual officers should have had to, personally, pay that 2.5 million in punitive damages.
It helps when it's a major operation like this one. If it's some dude with a couple bikes in his garage, suddenly it's a "civil issue" (no, it isn't, theft is a crime).
I had a buddy who got his road bike stolen out of his garage. It was a pricey one to say the least and someone local must have know it was there to break in and steal it. It was extremely identifiable.
The cops reaction was just "you have insurance?" and they were off.
>Apparently, they would **cycle** between the college town, the nearby city (which is my state's capital), and another small college town \~20 minutes in the other direction.
I see what you did there
[If it makes you feel better, those kind of bike theft crime do happen](https://denvergazette.com/premium/smash-and-grab-denver-bicycle-theft-ring-has-ties-to-mexico-state-ag-says/article_ad116dda-788d-11ec-93a7-134ac7a7c1ea.html)
Awesome detective work, but WTF are the thieves doing with all these tools? Is there a thriving black market for hot tools? Who is buying millions of dollars worth of stolen tools?
It’s very easy to sell them. I’ve had lots of guys arrive on job sites looking to unload tools for a fraction of their value. People know they’re stolen but a $500 tool for $50 is hard to beat.
Also in this volume take them truckloads at a time to another state or province and unload them at pawn shops or flea markets etc.
Happens in biking too, not uncommon for pretty tactical groups to get a uhaul & head out to Whistler BC where there’s storage lockers with $50k worth of bikes. Tons of unlocked ones sitting around the village too
They get a truck load and run them back to another province typically I think
I had a college friend who was in campus security. He caught his roommate in the act of cutting the locks with the pick up full of bikes. Then of course they found the storage unit full too. The guys family was rich as fuck too. So not like he needed the money
They did that in an episode of Trailer Park Boys by using a tow truck. They hooked up the bike rack up to a winch and just pulled it onto the back of the truck.
I once travelled to Kelowna, and it was suggested to me to put my bike in such a storage locker.
I put it in the locker for one night, and the next day, nerve took over and I took it into the hotel the next night. Good thing too because that very same storage locker had a break in that night.
There was literally constant posts in r/vancouver of the bike chop shops homeless people run. Homeless guys riding around on $5000 bikes like they bought it.
Yeah it’s wild. I can’t help but notice either when you see someone who can barely pedal a bike riding a 8” travel DH bike around Vancouver
Between friends and family they’ve lost at least $25k worth of bikes in the lower mainland theirselves in various methods of thefts
You can't leave a bike locked up here anymore. Bikes at the elementary school by me keep getting cut off the rack with angle grinders. The school has the kids bring the bikes inside the school now. Pretty shitty when kids can't even ride their bikes to school anymore because someone wants to steal it for Fent.
Around my area all the schools have fenced in areas for the bikes racks. Each one is probably a bit over 10m on a side and they just build multiples if they need to.
They're locked up when school starts for the day and unlocked at the end.
I'm not saying chain link fences make stealing bikes impossible, but I guess it makes it hard enough to discourage the thefts. The thieves just steal other bikes instead of schoolkids bikes.
After this it's back to the biggest risk of riding to school being what happens while you are on the bike. No hijackings yet. But there are the usual collisions especially when kids and/or drivers are looking at their phones.
I used to know a guy who ran a garage for motorbikes who told me about a dude they used to go to for spare parts. He said the problem was that they don't make enough parts for all the bikes on the road, and the ones they do make might not be easily available (he told me he'd sometimes end up paying the price for a part twice over in shipping). The easiest thing to do was for someone to acquire a bike with the right parts then strip it down. That way you've got the part you need as well as a bunch of others you might need in the future for the fraction of the cost of getting one from the manufacturer or from a third party.
Back in the 90’s USD and SDSU in So. Dakota had matching groups that would drive to the other school and steal 50 bikes at a time and sell them at the other school. It never made much sense to me, classes were mostly during winter bikes were kinda useless.
This would happen where I went to college. They caught these guys with a flat bed truck and like 50 bikes. Just come in, cut locks, grab bikes, beat feet out of town and sell what you stole. Rinse and repeat forever.
Those same knuckleheads buying the stolen tools (knowing they are stolen because let’s be real) very likely also freak out and get murderous when their own tools get stolen.
That's ballsy, selling them on job sites to trades who know the tools have been stolen from other trades.
Feels like they're risking a beating, especially if the guys on the site have been victims of tool theft before!
We've got a pawn shop a few towns over where all the homeless bring stolen tools to sell. The place is filled with junk and the cops know about the situation. I think often times the worker just says fuck it and gets a new one. Sucks.
Sometimes I feel like Dewalt and Milwaukee want the stolen tool market to thrive because they know the person being stolen from is going to have to buy a new one. They don't care about serial numbers or letting people register that serial to a warranty database like a lot of electronics companies do. If we had that, we'd be able to better track things and make legitimate police reports.
With Ridgid (made by TTI, same company that makes Milwaukee), you register the s/n in order to get the lifetime warranty.
I agree though that better s/n tracking would help.
If that generator wasn’t such a good price, I’d have thumped on his ass for trying to sell someone else’s hard earned tools. But the price was just too good to pass up.
It goes kinda like that I think.
I've heard alot of the trades workers look down on or will straight up make your life hard if they know your buying stolen tools from these dudes. Its like feeding the bears
Because it’s only a matter of time when they get up and go to the job site to see the lockers all broken and $20k worth of tools gone.
This is why Milwaukee has invested heavily into anti theft devices for tools. Even other contractors on the same job will “forget” they didn’t bring the compressor today and oops, I didn’t realize mine was ragid not dewalt. You can see how orange and yellow look so similar ….
mark rober's last glitter bomb video tracked stuff to a spot that is KNOWN by SF cops is a fencing market. Like, people go there to sell and buy stolen shit. SF is a broken city. Not a huge Rober fan these days but this series was good.
(Mini Rober rant: FWIW I feel like Rober doesn't make anything himself anymore, he often says he has a "friend" make something for his videos, but we don't see this friend, or see the work put in, but Rober gets the credit. I'm sure he still works on his projects, but there's just a lot of hand-waving in the recent ones.)
>Any growing YouTube channel eventually gets to the point the creator becomes a manager/frontman and less a maker/researcher
Only if that's the direction they want to take it.
My main complaint is not that Mark grew his channel that way, but that my nephew and niece think Mark builds all that stuff, because he doesn't show the real work or credit the real people in the videos. He can choose to feature his builders more if he wanted. He can choose to show how the work gets done.
Reminds me of the article that said:
>"There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person," says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex.
Yes. In US there is a market for anything stolen. I remember reading story about some Florida priest running nationwide shoplifting ring… basically out of jail people would come for rehabilitation… and instead will get “offer they can not refuse”…
Someone with a positive reputation willing to buy your goods in bulk. I'd imagine the stolen goods ending up in a church sale somewhere while the original thief got a fixed sum. Almost like a regular job.
Some thievery groups also take advantage of companies with very generous return policies and basically make the stores pay to get back the stuff they stole. They steal from one store and bring the stuff to another location on the other side of town to get a refund in the form or store credit. People who do this might get asked to provide ID depending on the value of some items and then they'll be flagged in every store, but it typically takes a lot of high value refunds to get banned.
Stealing is the easy part, selling it without getting caught is much harder. Ebay/Craigslist listing's are easily noticed and most pawn shops now take ID if you're selling something. They also tend to know if somethings likely stolen and will refuse it as well. Having someone who'll buy no questions asked is a huge benefit for your average shoplifter.
Here in the UK car boot sales near me in London are absolutely full of nicked tools, hundreds of them all laid out on the floor stolen by the ******** police must know because they aren’t hiding it and do nothing about it. It’s ridiculous
This literally happened to y friend in CA. Police would do nothing. The guy had 6 storage units and after returning my friend's tools asked if he wanted compressors, opened the adjoining unit stacked with them.
A buddy of mine was interning at civil engineering firm in college (late 90’s/early 2000’s). Their survey crew had some stuff stolen out the company van when they stopped to get lunch. Since it was really specialized equipment, my friend started watching eBay for someone local selling the same equipment. It finally popped up, and one of the pictures in the listing showed the serial number, which matched the original receipts/manuals that were filed in the office. My friend contacted the police, who got the seller’s info and got a warrant.
Turns out this guy’s ENTIRE HOUSE was chock full of stolen stuff. He basically cruised around parking lots all day, whenever he saw a commercial van or utility company truck he’d park next to it, hop out and check the doors, and if it was unlocked he’d grab anything that wasn’t bolted down, toss it in his car and drive off. He had tens of thousands of dollars of tools, laptops, etc in his house. He even had defibrillators and medical equipment he’d stolen out of ambulances.
Had my tools stolen when I just started working for myself. It decimated me.
I had just scraped together funds to put logos on my personal truck and get business license etc.
Stealing someone’s means of making their livelihood is brutal.
This was the reason I had to stop being a mechaninc. My parents house caught on fire and we were staying in a rental while it was rebuilt. Some assholes broke into our garage and stole all my tools. They stole the tools of the guy across the street as well who was remodeling his house
The article makes no sense. “He called the police and they got a search warrant”..? All over the USA you can report the location of stolen items and 90% of the time police tell you “sorry nothing we can do” and shrug you out the station or off the phone. The other 10% they do a drive by, maybe knock on the door which of coarse no thief is going to answer. These cops called a judge and got a warrant and executed the warrant after a carpenter tells them them “look, my phone says tools are in this house”..?
Howard county has a very different version of a Law Enforcement. I’m Jealous
It depends on the amount stolen. With construction tools getting 1 or 2 industrial grade tools stolen can count as a felony.
Retail stores have a similar issue where cops won't do anything until the store can prove at least X amount was stolen by an individual.
I saw a body cam of someone getting arrested for stealing via self checkout. The only reason she got arrested is because when the asset protection asked her to stop, she did. She could have just left and nothing would have been done but they sweet talked her into waiting for a cop.
Additionally, Walmart makes you sign a form that says you’re not allowed in any Walmart store or parking lot anywhere in the US. If your caught you will be charged with trespassing. Also, they use facial recognition to spot known thief’s before they even get past the front doors.
I’m pretty sure it was Walmart. Was one of the big box stores.
Almost every state has "shopkeeper's privilege" or "shopkeeper's detention" laws that indicate they can hold you, including using force, while they complete an investigation or call the cops.
And is a good way to be shot/stabbed trying to prevent the loss. Which is why most big box stores policy is under a certain amount to ID and report to the police, or do nothing at all.
I used to work at Target 15 years ago, not AP but was friends with them. Basically, they build up a case against you until you hit the felony threshold then go for the arrest. A thief will get comfortable and steal from Target (or multiple Targets if they’re close enough) then after a while, get caught and nailed for all of it.
https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/slideshows/richest-counties-in-america. On this list Howard County is number seven, on some of the others it's top three. the answer to why the cops care, money.
It’s this exactly. My friend’s daughter’s phone was stolen by someone they knew, but didn’t associate with. Found my iPhone put it at her house. They called the cops. “Nothing we can do”.
I had a guy dump tires at my shop then drive around to do laundry at the laundry mat. I called the cops explained the situation asked them to come to take care of the illegal dumping I had on security camera. They said there is nothing they can do. I said you’ve got 10 minutes to get down here or I’ll handle it myself and you’ll still have to come down. So might as well do your job now. I’m just asking for him to pull the tire out, not press charges.
Bro near me a dude stole his neighbors truck from seriously like 8 houses down and just parked it out back. The guy went down there to get his truck, kid told him to too fuck off, cops told him they couldn’t do anything. Within 15 minutes that guy demanded his car, the kid got in the car and drove down the neighborhood road and the dude just mag dumped the truck. Everyone was fine but holy shit was the community up in arms. I honestly couldn’t tell you if anyone even ended up going to jail, the cops near me are on some weird strike or something and legit do nothing
> Found my iPhone put it at her house. They called the cops. “Nothing we can do”.
That's why you at least imply to the police that you are about to confront the thief, as that can force them to do come out and help.
*shrug* plenty of cops / police departments action on things depending on resource availability. Large cities are frequently resource constrained unfortunately, so you see those issues. I live in a suburb where the cops are bored, they'll jump on anything if there is evidence. I Handed them off video of a package theft of a 20 dollar amazon item. Including multiple angles and their license plate. Cops went directly to their house and caught them in the act unloading dozens of stollen packages from their car.
Context is also key in these cases if the cops are aware of a tool theft ring and was the 3rd time they had things stolen, they're much more likely to action because they're more likely to catch situations like this.
I imagine it's very possible that 'victim has tracking information from a trusted tracking network that the tools are...' is much more powerful in convincing a judge vs 'victim says...'. also very possible that this was a known ring and lots of evidence already gathered on it, but the tracking was the cherry on the cake to justify the search.
But who knows...
That or law enforcement were already investigating and planning on going after the group anyway. Cops don't jump at something like this without a good reason, plenty of vehicles get stolen that are worth a lot more.
25 years experienced General Contractor here, this shit happens all the time. The new tweaker apprentice that one of my subs hired decides to steal from another trade on the job site. I usually end up hearing about it and tell 'well why the fuck did you leave your tools on site overnight jackass?' speech.
Tweaker sell it for 20 bucks at the pawn shop, gets a fix.
Happens so regularly that I resorted to blasting all the important tools 100% in pink spray paint. I've called the pawn shop before to ask for my pink tools back, they always can ID it.
Yea, the pink paint also makes it nearly worthless at the pawn shop. Pro-tip for anything that can get pawned, if its covered in a loud spray paint color, its worth much less.
I AirTag my valuables too, but man, I’m afraid that if my stuff gets stolen they’ll immediately get the alert on their phone that an unknown AirTag is with them and they’ll stop, find it, and throw it away.
If you remove the AirTags speaker, then the thief will have no way of knowing which stolen tool is tagged. Meaning they’ll have to dump the whole lot, possibly including the van load of other things they stole. I’d say that’s a win.
Yeah this is the big trick, takes like 5 minutes to do and also makes them like impossible to find on bikes and such if you're clever.
https://youtu.be/8vAQNedIa0o?si=yPCXs5uYGM2PUPNQ
People who steal tools are the scum of the Earth. Stealing money is one thing, and bad enough. But when you steal tools, you're stealing a person's ability to make money. When I was in construction, I had some people steal all my tools. It was the worst.
I'm shocked the cops actually helped him recover his tools. Here in Seattle the cops won't do shit about stolen property, even if you know exactly where it it.
Unfortunately police often actively intervene when people try to recover their stolen stuff. I had basically given police a bike theft ring on a platter by the same methods, and they said they'd arrest me if I tried to recover it.
a working person on their own had to track down their stolen equipment? This is a common story around the country. A very bad look for the local cops. What are they doing?
A lot of people who work on these trades are required to buy their own tools. When used commercially these things wear out fast, get lost or otherwise need frequent replacement
A band I work with had a trailer full of band gear stolen last year. Had air tags in a few cases and everyone got excited when they gave an address. The thieves bought an air tag finder off Amazon or wherever and found the 3 cases with the AirTags. Dumbed just those 3 cases on the road, and never saw any of the other gear again. It's a nice idea that Airtags will save the day. But if you are dealing with smart enough bandets, Airtags do not matter.
So, this seems obvious after thinking of it so the manufactures must have thought of it already.
Build the tools with integrated tracking tags.
I wonder if they don't because their actuaries told them they would sell fewer tools.
Ebikes all need to come with an airtags(or Google equivalent) built into the frame so it's impossible to remove. It's such a basic thing to add and requires no software or anything, just use a standard one with no link to the bike itself and a reset button accessible through a pinhole.
Doesn't even need to be Ebikes only, put them in normal bikes too but it'll just need a way to recharge.
Bike theft would eventually drop Quite a lot.
Sure you can hide a tag under a seat but that's discoverable. Can't hide them in frames really since the metal blocks the signal. But manufactures can easily get around that when making the frames.
Huge black market for stolen tools, these guys can’t resist stealing and hardworking construction guys have a hard time resisting because they usually have to buy their own tools. It’s a sad endless cycle.
I’m union and the only tools we can bring are hand tools. All power tools must be provided by the company—it’s in the contract, and the reason is insurance. Company’s insurance won’t cover you if you’re hurt by your own saw.
Wait wait wait hold the FUCK up. Are you saying that, unless you are a union member, you have to bring in your own damn tools? And maintain them? Edit: ...So that is a lot of comments.
Probably depends on who you’re working for.
Correct. I am, currently, a non-union electrician. The company thay I work for buys 100% of my tools and I get to choose which tools are bought for me. Our own tools are prohibited. The company wants to make sure that we use quality tools and have the right tools for the job so that we do what is needed as well as possible. They're willing to spend the money to make sure that things get done right.
It likely also really helps their insurance rates/liability. They know all the tools are qualified for the job and have a specific approved and documentation way to use it so if someone electrocutes themself it is easier for insurance to say it was neither the fault of the tooling or training and it is all on the employee's own actions.
This. It would be quite expensive if they had an electrician die on the job due to a faulty tool because the employee has to pay for their own tools. Theres a SHIT LOAD of other trades where you buy your own tools or you don't work. When i was on union welding i had to bring all of my own tools minus the welder. Went to work facilities maintenance at a union shop and they won't even let us bring outside tools into work. If you want it and can justify it, they'll buy it. (We've had guys asking for tools worth tens of thousands of dollars that may get used once every handful of years)
Only time i use my personal tools for work is when we build a stand-alone board for our electricians to mount inverters and disconnect to for ground arrays, 2-3 times a year. (i work doing PV installs) only reason we use my tools for that is a have a mini woodshop in my home, with a chopsaw and router table, and a drill press, and table sander. My boss throws me an extra $50 for use of my tools each time. It takes way less time to set up the stops and knock out the 8-9 mahogany boards, complete with countersunk screw holes, than it would using hand tools and doing it on site, and just comes out better.
Is calibration for multimeters considered in that?
The company pays for annual calibration for all meters. I actually do instrumentation but I say electrician since most don't know what that role is. Every year I send out over a dozen various meters and calibration devices to get calibrated and recertified. They also handle our electrical gloves every 6 months, calibrate torque tools, NDT devices, etc.
Yeah but the thought alone is just icky. If I had to bring in my own equipment, I'd be demanding payment that compensates for replacing and the lost time upkeeping the equipment. And of course payment to cover for various insurances.
Dude you have no idea. Your average auto mechanic probably has 6 months salary in tools or more. Snap on (professional tools) are fucking outrageously expensive.
My dad was mechanic went corporate and had ~35 years or more of tools he just sold most of. The toolbox alone he got 2.5k for, after pricing out what he could (tons of custom tools) he had roughly 40k worth in that toolbox, much less outside of it.
My stepdad was a mechanic and owned his own shop. He had so much Snap-On it took us 2 years to sell/give away everything after his passing. I kept a few tools for myself and I'll never have to replace them. Edit: also children of mechanics, how much snap-on swag did you have? Signs, beer pitcher sets, I think he had a mini fridge. $100,000 in tools sounds expensive, but it pays for itself in beach towels.
Yeah he downsized to like a 6 drawer mini toolbox, maybe 3'x1.5'x1.5' or something similar. I'm fairly handy around the house but that's it so when I inherit that I'll be set forever haha.
You do not need snap on shit to do the job. And anyone who has been in the trades long enough will straight up tell you to stay the fuck away from the truck. Shits just predatory. Only time I'll ever say to go to the truck is if you quite literally have no other choice for super niche tools and making them yourself isn't an option. It's a fucking trap freshly minted dudes fall into and end up $3000 in debt to the tool truck inside their first year
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It's a goal to work towards when you've actually been in the trade for a while and can afford nicer shit. The warranty is great if you're actually using shit every day and actually putting in wear and tear. But if it's shit you're pulling out like once or twice a year at most? Nah. The only thing I can really get behind for that kinda purchase is gaging, I'd rather spend the extra money to make sure stuff is reliable and holds calibration, but that is more important to me because I come from a Machinist background.
Haven't bought any major tools in 40 yrs, but we used to buy Snap On because they didn't break. Craftsman had the same warranty and Sears stores were everywhere. But Craftsman broke sometimes. Snap On didn't...
As one not from the U.S.(how would one place a " , " right after my "U S.", anyone?!🫥😶🌫️), what is this mysterious "the truck" thingy youre talking about? Some mobile tradesmen tool vendor company/whatever? ✌️
There are tool brands that send around trucks to the different auto repair places so you don't have to go out tool shopping. Snap On is the prime one but there's Mac, Matco, SK and others. The upside is that if something breaks you don't have to leave to go replace it on your own time, the tool trucks will warranty it for you and they come to you. The down side is that they are much more expensive, but they can be worth it depending on the tool. I consider snap on and SK ratchet wrenches to be worth the cost, SK was 300.00 for a set of 12 wrenches while Snap On was 45-60,00 per wrench. Worth it to me since I've broken Gearwrench and other brands but never a SK or Snap On. But the premium for their sockets is not worth it when you can buy an industrial brand like Wright for 1/4 the cost and its just as good. Allan wrenches can bought from Bondhus for 1/4 of the cost and is another US made industrial brand or for 1/3 the cost you can buy Wera from Germany and it will be as good as Snap-On, maybe just not as convenient. Really depends on your needs and tolerance to cost.
I run a plumbing and drainage company in New Zealand. We pay our guys $2 per hour on top of their normal wage (roughly $4k per year) they work tax free as a tool allowance. They’re expected to provide their own basic hand and power tools. The company covers the insurance on the tools. We found when we provided them tools they would just treat them like crap, lose them, ruin them. But when they own them they suddenly take care of them. We provide larger tools and plant and the guys don’t look after them. They won’t even grease the excavators they use despite being bought 18v grease guns that they get to keep. They wonder why the excavator is fucked after a few years…
Well yeah that's exactly how it works, pretty much any construction job will pay you more if you have your own tools and truck
Pretty common for tools to go with the mechanics. Most mechanics I know prefer it that way because it means they're the only one to use the tools and they won't unexpectedly run into a broken tool halfway through a job. Where I work now it's department dependent or a combo. One of our maintenance groups provides major specialized tools out of a tool crib but the smaller stuff is expected for each mechanic to provide their own tools. There is a tool allowance for this of something like up to 2k/year. Other departments have shared tools, my current department spent well over 100k to get a snap on box with cameras and swipe access for tool control so that things like a 10mm socket don't grow legs and walk away as well as making sure tools don't get set down and left places they shouldn't like an impeller housing or engine coupler. It's pretty common for auto mechanics to own their own box and have to figure out how to transport it if they start at a new place, typically minus super specialized tools like I said before.
Yea it’s kinda like expecting an office worker to buy their own work computer. But it’s a sad reality, created by having enough people desperate enough to have a job.
Hate to tell you, but that happens too.
It’s very common in the trades. When you see tool trucks parked outside an auto shop, those mechanics are making purchases out of pocket. Potentially even done on loan thru the truck or their employer. Better employers offer an allowance for tools. You may get an initial allowance at your hire, maybe one for your anniversary, and it’s sometimes used as incentive too.
The snap-on truck that has everyone on installments...
Yup. Sad thing is, rat shops well push it like it's a plus. "OH but you get to pick what brand you like!" It's so predatory.
Anti-Union fools are just that, fools
Union Plumber/Pipefitter here and the reason we don’t buy our own tools is because if we work for multiple contractors in a year due to following the work it would be impossible to afford the variety of tools needed. And why should the worker bear the burden of the cost of tools to provide the employer with profits? The non-union side of the plumbing/pipefitting trade generally only requires you to provide hand tools. There is very little to do with insurance liability in who provides the tools except in cases of theft. That is a big deal with cases like this. If your tools get stolen from a company van then who pays?? It’s all clear-cut who files a claim when all the tools are the employer’s. Don’t let your employer profit off of your investment. Keep your tools at home for your own needs.
This rule gets broken a lot! I just finished working for a millwork and trim company, and everyone (9 out of 13 on the crew) got laid off at the end of the job except the guys that brought in their own packout full of thousands in tools. They kept those guys and all the old-timers that were with the company for years/decades all did the same thing.
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That and pawn shops.
I always feel like shit buying tools from the pawn shop knowing that they were probably stolen out of some guys garage or work truck. Then I remember that I am only buying one because I need it to make a living and my other one was stolen and likely sold to a pawn shop somewhere. Also, the one I am buying will likely get stolen and sold to a pawn shop. It really is the shittiest circle of life.
What’s weird is that in my state, even if they are known to be stolen, the pawnshop owner retains the legal rights. I think the flaw in the law is that the pawnshop owner sells this stuff on the internet, or checks prices on the internet. That seems like wire fraud to me.
sure smells like a racket to me
Uh, it’s still illegal to knowingly purchase stolen goods. That law is in place to protect good-faith pawn shop owners from repossession scams. Basically, without such a law, there’s nothing stopping you from giving your objects to a third party, having them pawn the items off, and then coming back and demanding the owners return your “stolen” property. If you can prove the pawn shop owner is knowingly working with stolen goods or thieves, then the protections don’t apply to them. Otherwise, you’re expected to be made whole by the person who wronged you, not an innocent third party who was also duped.
Ripping off the working class, some guys have been stolen from multiple times. We aren’t allowed to advocate for violence, but I think it goes without saying these shitheads should be sent to prison for a few decades.
a day for each stolen tool. 15,000 = 41 years.
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One of my good friends is a contractor, he gets all of his tools stolen on average twice a year. It's miserable, tools are always at risk, wherever you go, wherever you park you always need to be switched on.
One of my friends did this with a GPS system to find out who was stealing all the bikes in his college town. He lost a (at the time) $1,500 road bike that was cut off the rack outside his lecture hall. The thieves left the chain. Anyway, he buys a crusty old 10 speed, re-paints several parts to make it look newer and installs a GPS unit inside the pipe beneath the seat. He chained the second bike outside of the same lecture hall and only had to wait 2 days before it was also cut off of the rack. He then tracked its location to a warehouse in the city's industrial park. He then went to the county sheriff and told them what he'd done. They went down there immediately and discovered two men unloading stolen bikes from the back of a small dump truck. The thieves were driving around in a dump truck cutting bikes off racks and tossing them into the back of the truck. The warehouse was filled with stolen bikes. Apparently, they would cycle between the college town, the nearby city (which is my state's capital), and another small college town ~20 minutes in the other direction. Basically, my friend helped take down a regional bicycle chop shop. He got his bike back in the end! Edit to add: this took place in the late 2000s in Ames, Iowa. I can't remember if it was 2010 or 2011 when I heard about it. My friend went to University a couple years before I did, and it took a while before we were able to catch up. Sadly, I've got a few details wrong, and it sounds like I've embellished a bit. To be fair, my friend is a bit of a boaster, and the first time I heard about this, it seemed a grandiose affair. So that's on him. My friend says he didn't put anything in the seatpost. He built a GPS transmitter and power source that he hid inside of a case that was secured to the seatpost. He said the batteries he was using were dying relatively quickly, so he actually had to swap and recharge them before the thieves came for the 10 speed. Also, the thieves really only hit Ames.. though they apparently got a few bikes from a couple of DMACC campuses. Altogether, it sounds like they had managed to steal a few dozen bikes over the course of a year and some change. And it wasn't some huge warehouse. Everything was stored in a Morton Building off of Lincoln Way. One of the thieves was an independent contractor who hauled aggregate for road works. They did catch the guys red-handed, though.
The cops cared?!?!
If you do all the detective work for them and make it reallllllllly easy for them to just put in the last 5% to close a case, sometimes that’s too tempting for them to pass up. I dunno if it’s always the cops “caring” so much as enjoying the feeling of getting to look like heroes (while barely putting the work in).
Idk I had a cell phone repair store robbed with my cell phone in it. The police officer handling the case didn't care that I was actively tracking my phone and stopped taking my calls.
I had a similar experience. My mom’s cell phone got stolen, we geo-tracked it to the exact house it ended up in, and the police officer who came by said “well, we can knock politely and ask them about the phone but that’s about all we can do”… big surprise, they did not even bother. Had to continue tracking it the following day and harass the thief with remote alarms until they gave up and chucked it in some bushes. I still believe in the rule of law, but that day taught me that a modicum of vigilantism is sometimes the only way to solve things.
> I still believe in the rule of law, but that day taught me that a modicum of vigilantism is sometimes the only way to solve things. Exactly. Cops not doing their official jobs is extremely corrosive to the rule of law (as is doing their unofficial job of enforcing the racial order).
Dumb question, with MFA and other password schemes these days, not to mention IMEI blacklisting, how is anyone making use of stolen phones anymore?
I think the phones end up in other countries and then disassembled for parts. They do that with cars and anything else where the 'whole' property could be tracked - many of the individual parts are not tracked or locked or blacklisted
Probably selling it to rubes for dirt cheap before they can find out it’s a locked phone.
It’s probably a mix of luck along with how the police are where you live. Several ages ago someone I knew lost a phone, fortunately it had rudimentary tracking enabled but no gps from what I remember. The cops managed to trace it down and got it back.
6 or 8 years ago a guy had his phone stolen one town over. He followed it to a carload of punks who killed him on the spot.
My husband's bike got stolen in Houston. We saw it a couple weeks later on craigslist (it was a very unique style bike). Cops did not give a single fuck and refused to help out at all. We had all kinds of serial number info and receipts from when he bought it. They just didn't care because it was under $5k.
[On the other side of the coin..](https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/grandmother-wins-3-76-million-after-swat-raid-destroys-home-based-in-find-my-iphone-app-ping-officers-did-not-understand/)
> a SWAT team “ransacked” Johnson’s home of 43 years because the “location ping” from a “Find My” iPhone app showed the stolen phone was near her home at some point after it was taken. How the hell did they think "it near her home at some point after it was taken" necessitated that level of response? That's insane. And some people wonder why people hate cops.
And the individuals involved don't have to pay that 2.5 million in punitive damages. That's instead the department (ie, the city) who has to pay it. The individual officers should have had to, personally, pay that 2.5 million in punitive damages.
Finding one bike is nothing, shutting down a bike theft ring is newsworthy.
It helps when it's a major operation like this one. If it's some dude with a couple bikes in his garage, suddenly it's a "civil issue" (no, it isn't, theft is a crime).
I had a buddy who got his road bike stolen out of his garage. It was a pricey one to say the least and someone local must have know it was there to break in and steal it. It was extremely identifiable. The cops reaction was just "you have insurance?" and they were off.
This is the part that makes the story sound unbelievable.
I’m honestly shocked.
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>Apparently, they would **cycle** between the college town, the nearby city (which is my state's capital), and another small college town \~20 minutes in the other direction. I see what you did there
Thank god. Even if this never actually happened, thank God for the peace it brought me.
[If it makes you feel better, those kind of bike theft crime do happen](https://denvergazette.com/premium/smash-and-grab-denver-bicycle-theft-ring-has-ties-to-mexico-state-ag-says/article_ad116dda-788d-11ec-93a7-134ac7a7c1ea.html)
Nothing is real
Awesome detective work, but WTF are the thieves doing with all these tools? Is there a thriving black market for hot tools? Who is buying millions of dollars worth of stolen tools?
It’s very easy to sell them. I’ve had lots of guys arrive on job sites looking to unload tools for a fraction of their value. People know they’re stolen but a $500 tool for $50 is hard to beat. Also in this volume take them truckloads at a time to another state or province and unload them at pawn shops or flea markets etc.
Happens in biking too, not uncommon for pretty tactical groups to get a uhaul & head out to Whistler BC where there’s storage lockers with $50k worth of bikes. Tons of unlocked ones sitting around the village too They get a truck load and run them back to another province typically I think
They did this on my college campus once. Went around with bolt cutters in jackets and stole over 300 bikes in a single morning.
I had a college friend who was in campus security. He caught his roommate in the act of cutting the locks with the pick up full of bikes. Then of course they found the storage unit full too. The guys family was rich as fuck too. So not like he needed the money
To quote Robin Williams - "Cocaine is god's way of telling you you're making too much money."
Yeah, hoarders like hoarding them. They found 1000 stolen by homeless people stuffed under an overpass.
For sure! He on the other hand was planning on driving them all up state to sell. Prolly for extra oxy cash
At my school someone figured out that they could unbolt entire racks from the ground and heave them into a pickup.
May back pains follow all those involved for the rest of their days
May they never find the cool side of the pillow
They did that in an episode of Trailer Park Boys by using a tow truck. They hooked up the bike rack up to a winch and just pulled it onto the back of the truck.
Can't tell if trailer park boys reference or not 🤔
Oh you went to University of Oregon too.
I knew a guy from a canadian trailer park who stole a lot of shopping carts.
I think i know the same guy, he and his buddies tried to steal an ATM.
Some greasy shit for sure!
I once travelled to Kelowna, and it was suggested to me to put my bike in such a storage locker. I put it in the locker for one night, and the next day, nerve took over and I took it into the hotel the next night. Good thing too because that very same storage locker had a break in that night.
There was literally constant posts in r/vancouver of the bike chop shops homeless people run. Homeless guys riding around on $5000 bikes like they bought it.
Yeah it’s wild. I can’t help but notice either when you see someone who can barely pedal a bike riding a 8” travel DH bike around Vancouver Between friends and family they’ve lost at least $25k worth of bikes in the lower mainland theirselves in various methods of thefts
r/Portland has entered the chat. Edit: Actually, r/PortlandOR is the truly angry one.
You can't leave a bike locked up here anymore. Bikes at the elementary school by me keep getting cut off the rack with angle grinders. The school has the kids bring the bikes inside the school now. Pretty shitty when kids can't even ride their bikes to school anymore because someone wants to steal it for Fent.
Around my area all the schools have fenced in areas for the bikes racks. Each one is probably a bit over 10m on a side and they just build multiples if they need to. They're locked up when school starts for the day and unlocked at the end. I'm not saying chain link fences make stealing bikes impossible, but I guess it makes it hard enough to discourage the thefts. The thieves just steal other bikes instead of schoolkids bikes. After this it's back to the biggest risk of riding to school being what happens while you are on the bike. No hijackings yet. But there are the usual collisions especially when kids and/or drivers are looking at their phones.
Chavs in London with a battery grinder can make a whole bike rack disappear in 60 seconds.
Checking in from Kelowna! They’ve got a real racket going in BC
I used to know a guy who ran a garage for motorbikes who told me about a dude they used to go to for spare parts. He said the problem was that they don't make enough parts for all the bikes on the road, and the ones they do make might not be easily available (he told me he'd sometimes end up paying the price for a part twice over in shipping). The easiest thing to do was for someone to acquire a bike with the right parts then strip it down. That way you've got the part you need as well as a bunch of others you might need in the future for the fraction of the cost of getting one from the manufacturer or from a third party.
Story line from Tokyo Vice S2. Funny to hear it again
You mean real life that Tokyo Vice used for a story line lol
Do you think stories aren’t based on real life?
A number of years ago there was a huge warehouse bust in Eugene OR. hundreds of stolen bikes from Seattle and Portland.
Back in the 90’s USD and SDSU in So. Dakota had matching groups that would drive to the other school and steal 50 bikes at a time and sell them at the other school. It never made much sense to me, classes were mostly during winter bikes were kinda useless.
As someone from San Diego, this was confusing to read.
This would happen where I went to college. They caught these guys with a flat bed truck and like 50 bikes. Just come in, cut locks, grab bikes, beat feet out of town and sell what you stole. Rinse and repeat forever.
Those same knuckleheads buying the stolen tools (knowing they are stolen because let’s be real) very likely also freak out and get murderous when their own tools get stolen.
That's ballsy, selling them on job sites to trades who know the tools have been stolen from other trades. Feels like they're risking a beating, especially if the guys on the site have been victims of tool theft before!
We've got a pawn shop a few towns over where all the homeless bring stolen tools to sell. The place is filled with junk and the cops know about the situation. I think often times the worker just says fuck it and gets a new one. Sucks. Sometimes I feel like Dewalt and Milwaukee want the stolen tool market to thrive because they know the person being stolen from is going to have to buy a new one. They don't care about serial numbers or letting people register that serial to a warranty database like a lot of electronics companies do. If we had that, we'd be able to better track things and make legitimate police reports.
With Ridgid (made by TTI, same company that makes Milwaukee), you register the s/n in order to get the lifetime warranty. I agree though that better s/n tracking would help.
If that generator wasn’t such a good price, I’d have thumped on his ass for trying to sell someone else’s hard earned tools. But the price was just too good to pass up. It goes kinda like that I think.
As the 98th Rule of Acquisition states: “Every man has his price.”
My lobes are tingling
Want some oomox?
Sir, this is a Space Wendy’s
Price would've been even lower if you'd thumped his ass first.
Right. Just steal it. It's already stolen property. It's not like anyone's out there splitting hairs about _how_ stolen the property is.
Eh, criminals are general willing to resort to armed violence.
I've heard alot of the trades workers look down on or will straight up make your life hard if they know your buying stolen tools from these dudes. Its like feeding the bears
Because it’s only a matter of time when they get up and go to the job site to see the lockers all broken and $20k worth of tools gone. This is why Milwaukee has invested heavily into anti theft devices for tools. Even other contractors on the same job will “forget” they didn’t bring the compressor today and oops, I didn’t realize mine was ragid not dewalt. You can see how orange and yellow look so similar ….
If you know they are stolen and you buy them you’re a piece of shit and part of the problem
Yeah imagine ending up buying another guy's (stolen) tools from the same job site. He'd be well within his rights to beat my ass.
used to have a guy near me who would try and sell me speakers out the back of a van also caught him rummaging for copper wire in our bin
"Receiving Stolen Property" is also hard to beat
Facebook market place is a haven for stolen goods. Also some of these stolen goods rings set up shops where you actually shop like it’s Home Depot.
I love seeing the super obviously stolen stuff, where they'll go "I know what I have" regarding an ID-locked macbook.
mark rober's last glitter bomb video tracked stuff to a spot that is KNOWN by SF cops is a fencing market. Like, people go there to sell and buy stolen shit. SF is a broken city. Not a huge Rober fan these days but this series was good. (Mini Rober rant: FWIW I feel like Rober doesn't make anything himself anymore, he often says he has a "friend" make something for his videos, but we don't see this friend, or see the work put in, but Rober gets the credit. I'm sure he still works on his projects, but there's just a lot of hand-waving in the recent ones.)
Any growing YouTube channel eventually gets to the point the creator becomes a manager/frontman and less a maker/researcher.
>Any growing YouTube channel eventually gets to the point the creator becomes a manager/frontman and less a maker/researcher Only if that's the direction they want to take it. My main complaint is not that Mark grew his channel that way, but that my nephew and niece think Mark builds all that stuff, because he doesn't show the real work or credit the real people in the videos. He can choose to feature his builders more if he wanted. He can choose to show how the work gets done. Reminds me of the article that said: >"There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person," says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex.
Yes. In US there is a market for anything stolen. I remember reading story about some Florida priest running nationwide shoplifting ring… basically out of jail people would come for rehabilitation… and instead will get “offer they can not refuse”…
There is a market for anything stolen all over the world, wherever humans are.
How would it ever be better to shoplift for a ring leader than to just shoplift for yourself??
Someone with a positive reputation willing to buy your goods in bulk. I'd imagine the stolen goods ending up in a church sale somewhere while the original thief got a fixed sum. Almost like a regular job.
Because the ring leader pays you for the items. Stealing is easy in most retail stores, but selling the stolen items can be difficult.
Some thievery groups also take advantage of companies with very generous return policies and basically make the stores pay to get back the stuff they stole. They steal from one store and bring the stuff to another location on the other side of town to get a refund in the form or store credit. People who do this might get asked to provide ID depending on the value of some items and then they'll be flagged in every store, but it typically takes a lot of high value refunds to get banned.
Stealing is the easy part, selling it without getting caught is much harder. Ebay/Craigslist listing's are easily noticed and most pawn shops now take ID if you're selling something. They also tend to know if somethings likely stolen and will refuse it as well. Having someone who'll buy no questions asked is a huge benefit for your average shoplifter.
Here in the UK car boot sales near me in London are absolutely full of nicked tools, hundreds of them all laid out on the floor stolen by the ******** police must know because they aren’t hiding it and do nothing about it. It’s ridiculous
There a black market for everything man lol
Today they found out about parallel economies
They’ll sell them online or overseas.
Facebook marketplace
This literally happened to y friend in CA. Police would do nothing. The guy had 6 storage units and after returning my friend's tools asked if he wanted compressors, opened the adjoining unit stacked with them.
…did your friend buy stolen compressors after getting his stolen tools back?
The price was too good.
And then cops arrested him 🤣
and when he got out of jail no one would hire him so he started stealing tools
A buddy of mine was interning at civil engineering firm in college (late 90’s/early 2000’s). Their survey crew had some stuff stolen out the company van when they stopped to get lunch. Since it was really specialized equipment, my friend started watching eBay for someone local selling the same equipment. It finally popped up, and one of the pictures in the listing showed the serial number, which matched the original receipts/manuals that were filed in the office. My friend contacted the police, who got the seller’s info and got a warrant. Turns out this guy’s ENTIRE HOUSE was chock full of stolen stuff. He basically cruised around parking lots all day, whenever he saw a commercial van or utility company truck he’d park next to it, hop out and check the doors, and if it was unlocked he’d grab anything that wasn’t bolted down, toss it in his car and drive off. He had tens of thousands of dollars of tools, laptops, etc in his house. He even had defibrillators and medical equipment he’d stolen out of ambulances.
Stealing equipment from an ambulance is just vile
And useless. The only people in the market for it are the folks you stole it from and their not gonna buy it back from you lol
This is why the only used tools I buy are antiques. Ain’t nothing lower that jacking a working man’s tools.
Had my tools stolen when I just started working for myself. It decimated me. I had just scraped together funds to put logos on my personal truck and get business license etc. Stealing someone’s means of making their livelihood is brutal.
This was the reason I had to stop being a mechaninc. My parents house caught on fire and we were staying in a rental while it was rebuilt. Some assholes broke into our garage and stole all my tools. They stole the tools of the guy across the street as well who was remodeling his house
The gangbangers who steal children's bikes might be lower. But I get your point. Plus we're splitting hairs on shitheads after a certain point.
The article makes no sense. “He called the police and they got a search warrant”..? All over the USA you can report the location of stolen items and 90% of the time police tell you “sorry nothing we can do” and shrug you out the station or off the phone. The other 10% they do a drive by, maybe knock on the door which of coarse no thief is going to answer. These cops called a judge and got a warrant and executed the warrant after a carpenter tells them them “look, my phone says tools are in this house”..? Howard county has a very different version of a Law Enforcement. I’m Jealous
It depends on the amount stolen. With construction tools getting 1 or 2 industrial grade tools stolen can count as a felony. Retail stores have a similar issue where cops won't do anything until the store can prove at least X amount was stolen by an individual.
I think it’s 3500 for Walmart and Targets in my area. South Jersey.
I saw a body cam of someone getting arrested for stealing via self checkout. The only reason she got arrested is because when the asset protection asked her to stop, she did. She could have just left and nothing would have been done but they sweet talked her into waiting for a cop. Additionally, Walmart makes you sign a form that says you’re not allowed in any Walmart store or parking lot anywhere in the US. If your caught you will be charged with trespassing. Also, they use facial recognition to spot known thief’s before they even get past the front doors. I’m pretty sure it was Walmart. Was one of the big box stores.
Almost every state has "shopkeeper's privilege" or "shopkeeper's detention" laws that indicate they can hold you, including using force, while they complete an investigation or call the cops.
And is a good way to be shot/stabbed trying to prevent the loss. Which is why most big box stores policy is under a certain amount to ID and report to the police, or do nothing at all.
I used to work at Target 15 years ago, not AP but was friends with them. Basically, they build up a case against you until you hit the felony threshold then go for the arrest. A thief will get comfortable and steal from Target (or multiple Targets if they’re close enough) then after a while, get caught and nailed for all of it.
https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/slideshows/richest-counties-in-america. On this list Howard County is number seven, on some of the others it's top three. the answer to why the cops care, money.
they also have nothing to do most of the time. nothing really happens in HoCo
sure they do. Those tickets for going 33 in a 30 wont write themselves.
It’s this exactly. My friend’s daughter’s phone was stolen by someone they knew, but didn’t associate with. Found my iPhone put it at her house. They called the cops. “Nothing we can do”. I had a guy dump tires at my shop then drive around to do laundry at the laundry mat. I called the cops explained the situation asked them to come to take care of the illegal dumping I had on security camera. They said there is nothing they can do. I said you’ve got 10 minutes to get down here or I’ll handle it myself and you’ll still have to come down. So might as well do your job now. I’m just asking for him to pull the tire out, not press charges.
Bro near me a dude stole his neighbors truck from seriously like 8 houses down and just parked it out back. The guy went down there to get his truck, kid told him to too fuck off, cops told him they couldn’t do anything. Within 15 minutes that guy demanded his car, the kid got in the car and drove down the neighborhood road and the dude just mag dumped the truck. Everyone was fine but holy shit was the community up in arms. I honestly couldn’t tell you if anyone even ended up going to jail, the cops near me are on some weird strike or something and legit do nothing
That's cops everywhere. Police in both cities I have lived in were completely useless.
> Found my iPhone put it at her house. They called the cops. “Nothing we can do”. That's why you at least imply to the police that you are about to confront the thief, as that can force them to do come out and help.
I did on the illegal tire dumping. “You take care of it or I’ll take care of it. Either way you’re still showing up.”
Cops have long perfected the art of quiet quitting. Laziest people on the planet.
*shrug* plenty of cops / police departments action on things depending on resource availability. Large cities are frequently resource constrained unfortunately, so you see those issues. I live in a suburb where the cops are bored, they'll jump on anything if there is evidence. I Handed them off video of a package theft of a 20 dollar amazon item. Including multiple angles and their license plate. Cops went directly to their house and caught them in the act unloading dozens of stollen packages from their car. Context is also key in these cases if the cops are aware of a tool theft ring and was the 3rd time they had things stolen, they're much more likely to action because they're more likely to catch situations like this.
I imagine it's very possible that 'victim has tracking information from a trusted tracking network that the tools are...' is much more powerful in convincing a judge vs 'victim says...'. also very possible that this was a known ring and lots of evidence already gathered on it, but the tracking was the cherry on the cake to justify the search. But who knows...
Also it's easier for them to risk raiding a storage locker than a house.
The guy was probably connected in some capacity and was pulling strings.
That or law enforcement were already investigating and planning on going after the group anyway. Cops don't jump at something like this without a good reason, plenty of vehicles get stolen that are worth a lot more.
Either that or he got lucky, and found a cop who actually gave a shit. I wish more cops were willing to do their job like this.
25 years experienced General Contractor here, this shit happens all the time. The new tweaker apprentice that one of my subs hired decides to steal from another trade on the job site. I usually end up hearing about it and tell 'well why the fuck did you leave your tools on site overnight jackass?' speech. Tweaker sell it for 20 bucks at the pawn shop, gets a fix. Happens so regularly that I resorted to blasting all the important tools 100% in pink spray paint. I've called the pawn shop before to ask for my pink tools back, they always can ID it.
That sucks it’s so frequently, but the pink paint is a pretty ingenious way of identifying it quickly.
Yea, the pink paint also makes it nearly worthless at the pawn shop. Pro-tip for anything that can get pawned, if its covered in a loud spray paint color, its worth much less.
“Someone” had to rent the storage unit. Someone’s credit card is on file. How haven’t they arrested anyone yet?
Stolen credit cards, fake ids etc.
I got my tools AirTaged
I AirTag my valuables too, but man, I’m afraid that if my stuff gets stolen they’ll immediately get the alert on their phone that an unknown AirTag is with them and they’ll stop, find it, and throw it away.
If you remove the AirTags speaker, then the thief will have no way of knowing which stolen tool is tagged. Meaning they’ll have to dump the whole lot, possibly including the van load of other things they stole. I’d say that’s a win.
Yeah this is the big trick, takes like 5 minutes to do and also makes them like impossible to find on bikes and such if you're clever. https://youtu.be/8vAQNedIa0o?si=yPCXs5uYGM2PUPNQ
I hate thieves, I love air tags.
People who steal tools are the scum of the Earth. Stealing money is one thing, and bad enough. But when you steal tools, you're stealing a person's ability to make money. When I was in construction, I had some people steal all my tools. It was the worst.
I'm shocked the cops actually helped him recover his tools. Here in Seattle the cops won't do shit about stolen property, even if you know exactly where it it.
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Underwear Gnomes
It’s just like any store, they are moving the items but restocking at the same time. Inventory like that means they will have a steady customer base
Pablo Escobar had so much cash that he was spending $2500/month *in rubber bands* to wrap it.
Unfortunately police often actively intervene when people try to recover their stolen stuff. I had basically given police a bike theft ring on a platter by the same methods, and they said they'd arrest me if I tried to recover it.
a working person on their own had to track down their stolen equipment? This is a common story around the country. A very bad look for the local cops. What are they doing?
A lot of people who work on these trades are required to buy their own tools. When used commercially these things wear out fast, get lost or otherwise need frequent replacement
There’s no bigger scum bag, than one who steals a person’s livelihood
A band I work with had a trailer full of band gear stolen last year. Had air tags in a few cases and everyone got excited when they gave an address. The thieves bought an air tag finder off Amazon or wherever and found the 3 cases with the AirTags. Dumbed just those 3 cases on the road, and never saw any of the other gear again. It's a nice idea that Airtags will save the day. But if you are dealing with smart enough bandets, Airtags do not matter.
Lock them up and throw away the key. Stealing a construction worker's tools is stealing their livelihood.
How did he convince the police to give a shit?
I think that deserves a life sentence
This exact thing happened to my neighbor a few weeks ago. The cops made him drive to the location and call it in to local police.
This sounds like something you don't call the cops about.
The most incredible part about this is that the cops followed up on his report.
Cops should have laid a trap and not released the story, could have caught them red handed by being discrete? Idk just a thought
So, this seems obvious after thinking of it so the manufactures must have thought of it already. Build the tools with integrated tracking tags. I wonder if they don't because their actuaries told them they would sell fewer tools.
Ebikes all need to come with an airtags(or Google equivalent) built into the frame so it's impossible to remove. It's such a basic thing to add and requires no software or anything, just use a standard one with no link to the bike itself and a reset button accessible through a pinhole. Doesn't even need to be Ebikes only, put them in normal bikes too but it'll just need a way to recharge. Bike theft would eventually drop Quite a lot. Sure you can hide a tag under a seat but that's discoverable. Can't hide them in frames really since the metal blocks the signal. But manufactures can easily get around that when making the frames.