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Daring Console Heist Nets Broken Machines
Thanks to the Indianapolis Star for their article discussing an audacious, but ultimately unfortunate heist of videogame consoles. According to the piece: "In a robbery as scripted as some movie heists, armed bandits struck a Far-Eastside [Indianapolis] warehouse Tuesday evening and used forklifts to load six pallets, containing several hundred of the popular PlayStation 2 and Xbox machines, onto a waiting get-away truck." However, The Indy Channel throws a spanner into the works with their follow-up story, revealing: "Police say many of the video game systems that were stolen from a warehouse Tuesday night were in the process of being returned because they didn't work."
It's not enough to steal software these days, now you have to steal the console as well.
Ah well at least they won't get my soul, mainly cos I don't have one
Try taking it back to the guy
:-(
Me: hey this console don't work
Guy: Tough - send it back to Sony
Sony; hey this is on list of stolen ones. - tough it's not yours bye.
me:
Apparently, you either:
a) Didn't RTFA
b) Don't know what the Darwin Awards are about
c) All of the above
Besides, the crooks will still turn a profit. It's the poor shmucks who BUY the consoles off of these guys that'll lose out. I don't think the guy selling out of his van has a return policy...
Did I mention they usually deal in cash only? What are you going to do, call the cops because the STOLEN merchandise you bought is defective and the guy who sold it to you won't refund your money?
=Smidge=
Well the poor shmucks deserve everything they get, since stuff bough off the back of a lorry is obviously stolen
The fact that the consoles don't work won't matter to the criminals that try and sell them. Whether the consoles work or not they'll still get them sold.
And on christmas morning they'll definitely be some broken hearted children when discs cannot be read and consoles won't boot.
I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't... for those dumb kids and their goony dog! DOH!
[signature]
Are they modded?
peace be with you.
I'm wondering how these thieves are planning to sell these consoles? Even with the info that X number of them probably don't work they still need to get rid of them.
Door to door? Sell them on Ebay, although that might raise some red flags......
I think warehouses should do this more often - get defective goods stolen.
It might stop people buying stolen goods - and if not, it will at least give the rest of us a good laugh and some measure of revenge.
(And yes, revenge - if someone else buys stolen goods, they don't know where it come from - it could have been stolen from your house)
Uhm yea I'm sure this is exactly how they planned it. I know when I get robbed I make sure it's only my broken stuff they randomly take in a methodic heist in the middle of the night...
(And yes, revenge - if someone else buys stolen goods, they don't know where it come from - it could have been stolen from your house)
Some receivers of stolen goods aren't aware the wares they're purchasing were stolen. Wouldn't you be pissed to buy a "used" item from a video game shop or pawn shop to find out it's broken? Or the good deal on your dream toy you find on ebay is a little too good to be true? Upon trying to return or have a manufacturer repair you get tangled up in the mess and labeled as a receiver of stolen goods?
Last I checked, sellers of stolen goods more often than not don't advertise "STOLEN GOODS SOLD HERE". Yea we need revenge on the bargain shoppers, they're obviously part of the problem.
Beware blue cats moving at
these guys just got allot of low budget bullet proof vests...
Yeah, but they're the kids of black market consumers so who cares? They deserve coal for their parents' sins! Besides, they will end up with healthier mentalities for not playing that brain-rot all day long. They will have healthier things to do like play in the cesspools outside their Mexican villas (in actual Mexico. Where else can you get rid of six pallets of junk without anyone asking if those are the six pallets that are broken?)
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Put Linux on them all and build a beowulf cluster.
At least in Michigan, the laws on secondhand store and pawnshop purchases is that the seller's identification has to be taken down, they have to be thumbprinted, the information along with a description of the item and its SN have to be filed with the police, and the device has to sit for awhile (pretty sure it's a month, or was it two weeks,) so the police have time to do their checks on it before it gets a new owner.
If anything they will be sold in 'flea markets' (a bunch of merchants who deal apparently outside of regulations meeting someplace like a parking lot, happens in Florida all the time,) or why not just take them to Mexico where the news will probably not have hit yet, and sell them dirt cheap to poor people who (who may or, then again, may not ask for a bench test,) who you'll hopefully never do business with again?
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
"Hi, uh, I'd like to return some consoles."
"Some consoles?"
"Yeah, I bought some consoles for my family and none of the damn things work! I want a refund."
"OK sir, how many consoles are we talking, here?"
"Uh, about four hundred PS2s and about two hundred Xboxes."
"!!!"
"I have a big family is all!"
I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
Oh, they weren't looking for working consoles. They'd just heard that videogame consoles were bullet-proof and wanted to use them to armour their hideout.
I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
If my experience in the retail industry is any guide, probably half those systems work just fine, they were returned by consumers too stupid or lazy to spend five minutes figuring out what the problem was. Like a game disc in upside-down, or a power cord not seated properly.
Some of the reamaining consoles can be salvaged with a little cannibalizing... take a controller from a game with a fried mobo, match it with a console that works just fine but has a bad controller... you know the drill.
Then you sell the rest on EBay and advertise them as broken. Plenty of people will buy them for parts, or bid thinking that they can get a deal on a console hope they can repair it.
If the consoles weren't adequately secured because they were broken, and that's the reason the thieves were able to steal them... then the crime doesn't sound quite so stupid.
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
"...they like broken video game consoles. Would THAT be a crime?"
"hell no!"
obligatory yada yada yada
just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand!
Eh eh eh yeah, agree.. A couple of years ago, me and my neighbour's girl bikes were stolen. 2 days after, my neighbour gets approached by someone who says "Hey, I got 2 bikes for sale, 50$ for both, they're great". Not telling the guy he got stolen, he goes and see the bikes, and it was his daughter's and mine ! He said he was interested and could get the cash in a couple of hours after he got to the bank, then proceeded to call the police. I got my bike back that way ! :-)
What's a spanner? Is that like an I-beam? A bridge?
in an unholy union Sony and Microsoft paid some guys to jack the systems so they wouldn't have to fix them or pay to get them shipped back. Or maybe the warehouse is just saying they're broken so they won't look like complete morons.
you dyke
Since when did Gord own a Warehouse.
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
...I'm quite sure they can break them apart and sell them as spare parts. The Xbox (and PS2 I'd imagine) spare parts scene is a pretty good one, just look at places like llamma.com.
Perhaps the police are just putting about a story that the consoles are broken in order to discourage potential buyers. Like the news stories of pushers adding ground glass and rat poison to drugs (presumably to kill their repeat customers in order to make less money?)
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Having worked in a warehouse myself for a couple of years that dealt with computers and electronics, every skid (pallet) we sent out that was for broken goods was shrink wrapped and CLEARLY labeled as defective merchandise to be sent back to the distribution warehouse for them to handle.
:D
Each individual item also had some paperwork stuck to it explaining exactly what was wrong with it.
Now, since I doubt six pallets of non working ps2's and xbox's would be shipped out and not have paperwork and signage (signage on the shrinkwrap or at least visable through the shrinkwrap) saying it's defective merchandise, then obviousely the robbers can't read.
More likely I say it could have been an inside job. Perhaps a guy working there has some buddies who could then take all those machines (defective or not) and sell them on the black market or to other friends "under the table" so to speak.
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy