Ever been the victim of a crime?

[Wolferz]

Leaving valuables in your car even for ten minutes is foolish. It only takes a few seconds to pop the lock on most car doors. My brother used to work for a lockout company that responded to AAA customers who locked their keys in the car. He could open the door before they could say, "How long will this take?" WOT?!?

My apartment was robbed one day while I was at work. I came home and found the door knob in the floor. I did report it to the police. They could do nothing. I did however have a suspect in mind who lit a shuck when I met him on the street and asked him to speak with me. I just let it go.

[mookiemookie]

Five years ago I went through a bad breakup. I moved out quickly, found a nice-ish apartment to live in, and moved. I was there for five days when I came home from work one day to find my front door kicked in.

Someone had come in while I was away during the day. They took my kitchen knives (not even a nice set), a leather jacket, my cologne, my computer. my PS2, my XBox 360, a rolling suitcase and they had moved my TV by the door. They wanted to steal it, I guess, but didn't have time or couldn't carry it. I called the police, they came out and the first question they had was did I have the serial numbers of the things they stole. I didn't, so they said there wasn't much they could do for me. They tried taking fingerprints but couldn't get anything.

I felt raped and violated. It was an awful feeling. I've become security crazy now. I have an alarm, some other security measures, and I have two copies of all my serial numbers off of all my electronics. If you take nothing else from my story, take 10 minutes to write down your serial numbers and stash them someplace safe. It helps for insurance as well as the police.

[AVGWarhawk]

Just some music CD swiped from my car. Did not report the incident. My window would not go up. Easy reach in and grab. Really no great loss. Knock on wood, no real major incidents.

[GT182]

Yes! 9/8/95 I was attacked by an employer. Partial justice only..... he did get away with the assault charges seeing he was a buddy of the Judge that presided over the trial. They made a big joke out of it. At least I got WC payments for the rest of my life thanks to the WC judge seeing he was lieing thru his teeth.

[Armistead]

The worse one, years ago. I did my bills in my office. I never had problems with the cleaning company I used. Course, I kept my papers locked in a file cabinet.

I started getting a few bills. Long story short, someone stole my
identity. He racked up over 30K quickly. Course the police and different detectives from creditors got involved. They finally caught the guy. They found over 12 more credit card apps in my name filled out and numerous other peoples info. It was a nightmare. One, they tried to pin many charges on me. I bet I signed my name 1000 times. They would come back and say certain charges are mine. I assured them I've never been to those places, fought. It screwed perfect credit up for years. I told these credit card companies to never issue cards in my name again by phone and letter, but later some did.

They arrested the guy. He was an illegal working for the cleaning company. He got out on bail and of course vanished. Two years later he did it again, even though it got caught early, he still racked up several more thousand dollars. Even then, it's almost happened a few more times, but was caught due to multiple layers of protection. Seems my info is sold around the world from time to time. I even got a new SS number.

[geetrue]

I got beat up and my van stolen one time, but I knew who did it so I took a couple of guys with me to get it back.

Got beat up so bad this time I woke up on the operating table in a local hospital with the doctor saying,

"You've lost a lot of blood son"

I said that's nice and went back to sleep waking up the next day in a hospital bed trying to figure out what that thing was on the wall with people talking to each other.

It was the TV set lol

I didn't see the hit coming he hit me from behind with a lead pipe.

So a few months go by and one of my frineds says he saw the van on a street just a few miles away from where I lived. We got in his car and went over after dark and I put my key in the ignition and it wouldn't start.

Dead batttery, so my friend gives me a jump start and off I went a happy camper. I was so happy I drove it to Vegas, but that's another story and I must not keep going or I couldn't stop ...

Reminds me of Vito Dumas saying, "Lucky are those that escape the dreairness of everyday life"

"How many reach the end without ever having lived"

I so happy I lived to tell the story

[Buddahaid]

I was a hostage in a robbery of a record store about thirty years ago just before Christmas. Two guys came in, one with a plastic bag over what looked like a gun. He was yelling and waving his arms so I looked up at him and then went back to browsing thinking it was another nut job off the street. The other guy comes up to me and herded me into the back office where everyone else was.

In the office the nut job was threatening an employee to get the safe open while she was making bricks so hard she couldn't work the combination the first two times. She did get it open, they took the cash and fled telling us to stay put in the office. Any way about ten seconds after they left, the security guard comes out of the restroom that was in that back office!

As far as I know they got clean away and I was thankful they hadn't robbed the hostages, but speed was their goal. I was happy to find out that I keep my cool and it was about two hours later that I got the shakes. That was very interesting and I suppose the result of the adrenaline wearing off.

[Sailor Steve]

In 1995 I was playing in a band and all of our equipment was in a machine shop behind the house where one of us lived. One night we showed up for practice and my Fender Jazz Bass was missing, along with the little PA amp we used for vocals. The Fender was a cheap Mexican model, so it wasn't a priceless classic or anything like it. The guy who owned the house suspected his nephew or one of his friends, as the lad had stayed with his uncle for a few days just before the theft. The police were called and they took statements, but we were advised that the likelihood of recovery was very low.

I bought a cheap no-name bass to replace the Fender and got on with my life. A few weeks later our not-so-bright drummer showed up for practice and asked me "Hey Steve. Do you want a bass like your one that was stolen? I saw one like it in a pawn shop yesterday." I went to the pawn shop in question and immediately recognized certain markings that could only have been put there by me. I went down to the corner McDonalds and used the pay phone to call the local gendarmes. Together we went into the pawn shop. The cops compared the numbers on my paperwork to the ones on the bass and impounded it and the PA amp, which was also there.

In order to stay out of trouble himself the pawnshop owner identified the person who brought the stuff in, and it turned out to be one of the nephew's friends. In due course we got our stuff back, and I turned the no-name bass into a fretless, doing all the work myself. There was a funny aftermath: The kid who had stolen and pawned the stuff called the owner of the house and asked if we could bail him out. We had a good laugh over that.

I 1998 I was living with a friend in a 3-story condo. He was trying to sell some of his furniture, and occasionally had people looking at it. One day I came home from work to find the front door broken open. When I went to my bedroom I found that my Playstation was gone, as were a few of the games I had bought for it. He must have been in a hurry, as my computer, checkbook and everything else of any value to me was still there. My roommate was much harder hit, with his stereo being stolen, and he surmised that it had to be the young guy he was showing his couch to the day before.

Yes, the police were called, and a nice young lady officer spent the better part of an hour taking our statements and asking questions, and looking over the rooms things were taken from. They eventually caught the guy, but the property was gone. My roommate had insurance and everything was replaced, so in the end it we came out alright.