Thieving Little Toe Rags

[circuitmonkey]

Sorry, just a general rant;

Left my car outside the girlfriends in Coulsdon (quite a nice area tbh) the other night and stupidly left my ipod and stereo fascia in the car, but it wasn't like they where on display (4 inches of snow over the whole car!)

Some little toe rag smashed my right side rear vent window, unlocked the car and ransacked it, took the aforementioned ipod, stereo (nice sony bluetooth jobby), my ashtray full of change (that will be fun to replace!) and broke my glove box.

So have just had to shell out for getting the window fixed (£75 excess), which they bodged and managed to scratch the car and bend the metal around it so the seal doesn't sit correctly (really wished I had checked this properly, unfortunately the turned up late and where making me even later for picking up the girlfriend from work). £140 for a new stereo and now can't justify spending a further £180 on a new ipod. And all this at the time of year where I really would prefer to be spending that money on other people and all this because my dad won't let me claim on his insurance!

GRRRRRR!!!!!

And it wasn't like the Police where any help, I wasn't exactly expecting CSI, but the fact that the same thing happened the my girlfriends car not 3 months earlier, and I was staying in a coppers house, I expected a bit more than "our telephone investigation team will contact you within 75 hours"

sorry, rant over. just thought I'd vent a bit

[aidanjt]

And the moral of the story, leave things in the glove compartment or your pockets, and buy your own car insurance.

[kalniel]

Very sorry to hear that. Being a victim of theft really sucks - above the material loss.

Why didn't your insurance cover the stereo? I guess the ipod wouldn't be covered as unattended cars are usually listed as exceptions in contents insurance.

It's a very bad time of year for thefts from cars that aren't normally in an area - thieves are looking out for cars with presents in them.

[Perfectionist]

ipod shuffle, sorted
£60, 4 GB - plenty of room for lots of music, 1000mp3s, 4 CDs even in lossless (remember portable cd players? we don't think about how good we have it now and take it for granted) - it's daft anyway to store your whole music collection on a portable device, and people who put their music on loud because they want other people to know what they listen to are just sad.

don't let it get you down just move on and don't make the same mistake again really - but really really really try see if they can at least check for fingerprints, kind of chavs who do this have usually been in trouble before to have a record.

[razer121]

wow thats pretty gutted.....hopfully although doubtfull you might* catch the buggers who napped them...hey look on ebay you might find your stuff!

[Perfectionist]

hey look on ebay you might find your stuff!

That's good advice actually! I've heard of people doing that before.

[razer121]

yes they do...i cannot remember where i read it but it has happened, also check in your local cash converters! that rubbish cash say about not buying in stolen goods is total crap lol, ive gone in there to find my stolen amp before safe to say i was happy to have it back again took alot of arguing mind!!

""edit"" also if you can...mark your items with a uv pen, if i didnt with my amp i dont think i would of got it back!

[Biscuit]

yeah always good advice to do that. Totally at their loss aswell, they have to just give it back to you. Serves them right of course!

I should really stop leaving my tom tom in the glove box. I live in a pretty nice area myself, as do my parents but its onlya matter of time till some little scally goes in anyway.

[Perfectionist]

So you told them beforehand what was written in UV, then you shone a UV light on it, and they still argued? WTH? What did they say? Sounds like you maybe should have reported them for selling stolen goods which is almost as much of a crime legally as actually doing the stealing

[razer121]

yes, they didnt have a uv light, i had to go home and get mine lol problem was they refused to take it of sale untill i could prove it was mine! i think it had something to do with the fact i was only 18 and the time alot of retail shops dont belive a thing you say at that age!....the cash convertors around me is pretty bad for it, im suprized there still going!! totaly usless but sometimes you do get some good deals there mind!

[Saracen]

...... and all this because my dad won't let me claim on his insurance!

GRRRRRR!!!!!

And it wasn't like the Police where any help, I wasn't exactly expecting CSI, but the fact that the same thing happened the my girlfriends car not 3 months earlier, and I was staying in a coppers house, I expected a bit more than "our telephone investigation team will contact you within 75 hours"
....

I'm not sure why you think "staying in a copper's house" should make any difference? One rule for them, and one rule for us, perhaps?

Nor am I entirely surprised that your Dad won't let you claim on his insurance. If he does, his premiums will almost certainly go up. MOreover, they'' very likely do so even if he has a protected no claims discount. I caught an insurance company at this a few years ago, and their MD admitted to me that they do it, though did also say the claim controller that admitted it shouldn't have.

The way it worked was that I had these incidents in fairly quick succession. In one, I was statinary at lights when the car behind failed to stop. Not exactly my fault. In another, I wasn't even in the car, which was parked, when someone backing off their drive backed into it. Again, not my fault. In both those cases, the company were notified, but no claim made as I recovered in full from the other party. The third incident was a theft of the vehicle, and I did claim for that .... but had a protected no claims bonus. On the last incident, it occurred after the renewal notice had gone out, but before the policy expired. Despite having a protected NCD, the company loaded the basic premium because I was, and I quote "accident prone", and sent out a revised figure for the renewal. Accident prone because the prat behind me can't see red lights and stationary traffic? Or because some idiot can't look behind them when backing off their drive? Or because the car gets nicked?

The way NCD sometimes works is like this (with example figures).

Basic premium £1000.
NDC 40% therefore discount = £400.
Premium to pay = £600.

Then you claim.

Revised basic premium £1500
NCD 40% therefore discount = £600.
New premium to pay = £900.

So .... despite having a protected NCD, when you claim you risk having your premium loaded, and if you do, it can be loaded not just the following year, but for some years to come. Your dad has good reason for refusing to claim over a relatively trivial amount, because he could well end up paying more than that in premium hikes.

I don't know if all companies do this, and I do know that some have admitted that they used to but say they no longer do. But do we trust them to be doing what they say they are? I sure don't.

There is very definitely a vlaue of a claim below which it simply isn't worth claiming, as it'll cost you more to claim than it will to just grit your teeth, pay out and move on.

For instance, when I went out to my car one morning and found some little scumbag had nicked both wing mirrors. That cost me over £700 just for the mirrors, let alone paintwork. Or when another scumbag slung a beer bottle from a moving car and it went through the rear windscreen. That one cost close to £1000. Or when a little mountjack deer ran out right in front of me on a motorway. That one cost me about £600 in repairs to the front spoiler. And given the car and the premiums, none of them were worth claiming for.

The lesson to be learned from all this? Motoring is expensive, and life isn't fair. Be prepared to be crapped on at regular intervals, because it will happen, in one way or another, sooner or later. And if all it involves is a bit of money, consider yourself lucky. What about the lady whose husband was killed trying to defuse a bomb in Afghanistan? What about the parents who find out their young child has incurable leukemia .... or those whose teenage kid is killed in a car accident?

Sure, it's galling when some scumbag breaks into your car and nicks stuff, but a lot less galling than when you break into your home and wreck it searching for something worth nicking. And I'm not going to say what would have happened to the little bleep that ripped off my car mirrors had I ever found out who they were, but suffice it to say I had an idea or two.

But all said and done, it's just money and not that much of it at that. Welcome to life in the real world. I hope it's a very long time before you get a more serious lesson in life's inequalities, like being born in a country far less fortunate or affluent that the UK, where your priority isn't an iPod, but getting food, life-saving health care or avoiding a murderous and despotic regime.

Enjoy a rant, by all means, and I sympathise with anyone that's a victim of crime .... and would personally and quite cheerfully give the "fire" order to the firing squad for a lot of types of criminals. But keep it in a little perspective.

[dave87]

Whilst I can't help but feel Saracen has his 'Bah Humbug' cap on, he is, as usual, spot on.

Particularly galling that it is in the run up to Christmas, but I won't even leave my car on my own drive with anything valuable on display - iPod, SatNav etc all get taken in with me, and due to the design of the Honda dash - no one will have any use for a Civic standard stereo purloined from my dash. The only thing I do leave in, the Parrot Bluetooth kit - is useless without the control module buried deep in the dash, and, well, considering how long it took myself and Rastamanblues to get into the dash, and with the commensurate number of trips to Halfords for tools we had no idea we would require, good luck to them!

I can agree with your distaste at the perceived lack of a response from the police, however I must admit my experience of the Norwich Constabulary is completely the opposite. Whilst not a car break in, having some failed genetic experiments trying to ignite my neighbours uPVC window frames with a lighter, that we had a van full of PCs & PCSOs round quite sharpish. The fact that the miscreants were unfortunately long gone by the time they had arrived, is beside the point, the effort was certainly much appreciated.

With your particular situation however, I very much doubt there is much they could do, apart from catching them in the act of selling your items on, or indeed, inflicting the same misfortune upon another poor fellow. So, best advice is, chip up, admit you were a muppet for leaving them on display, and carry on.

Sorry chap,

[Andeh13]

Had my CD player & sat nav nicked from my car new years eve few years back, ruined the night for me. Insurance company said that it was all covered and they'd be able to help...only then telling me they wanted my £350 excess & NCB before they would pay me the £360 money. You'd have thought they wouldn't have played the helpfull card knowing how little chance there would be of me accepting it.


Happens to the best of us mate, live & learn and you'll be over it in no time!

[Saracen]

Whilst I can't help but feel Saracen has his 'Bah Humbug' cap on, he is, as usual, spot on.
....

You mean I've got it on again?

It goes on in September and comes off again .... erm .... end of August, usually.

Part oif the problems with police "response" is that they unfortunately know what they likelihood of catching certain types of offenders actually is. And, often, virtually nil, unless something entirely fortuitous drops into their laps.

When those car mirrors were nicked, I asked (when reporting it) if it was worth finger-printing as it must have taken some force. Somewhat to my surprise, they agreed and asked me to bring the car to an appointment at the station., I did, and they dusted them. I asked the guy doing the printing what the chances of a result were, and he gave me a weak smile and a wink. I concluded that the odds were that whoever nicked them wasn't quite stoopid enough to not be wearing gloves. I was right. I got the impression that the fingerprint guy was, more or less, just going though the motions as I'd asked, but realistically, unless the perpetrator(s) were seen, or caught on CCTV, or the mirrors somehow came to light, that the chances of ever catching them were basically zero.

And that is the reality facing the involvement of the police in so many situations .... it's as much a PR exercise to reassure the public, to give a "feel good" factor that something is being done when in reality there isn't much that can be, as it is about any real prospect of catching the offender, a LOT of the time.

So much of the time, we'd be in trouble with the law if we take it into our own hands, whilst at the same time, there's naff all they will, or often can, do to protect us. Small wonder I've got a large supply of bah-humbug hats. They're on special offer at the National Cynic's Union shop.

[Biscuit]

I'm not sure why you think "staying in a copper's house" should make any difference? One rule for them, and one rule for us, perhaps?

I should hope this concept isnt completely new too you...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...g-let-off.html

Not directly related but its the most obvious example

[Saracen]

The worst thing about getting your car broken into is often not about the cost of what's nicked, but about the cost of repairing the break-in damage.

I tend to leave the glove-box, centre armrest and ashtray compartment all open, so it's visible there's nothing in them, if leaving the car in an area I'm suspicious about. If you have to pay put for replacement locks, door damage or new windows, it's not much consolation that the bleep that broke in didn't find anything much ... and a closed glove box is a temptation.

So personally, I don't settle for not leaving valuables in the car, I usually make it obvious I haven't, from the outside. My attitude, with my selfish bah-humbug hat on, is that if I can't prevent people from breaking in to cars, then the next best thing is for me to remove the incentive for them to break into my car.