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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
So who is going to be the first one to submit this story to the Darwin Awards site?
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
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:
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]
a story with an amusing anecdote you'd tell your friends over a game of halo, not a discussion topic for the /. cround
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......
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.
"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!
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.
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