Slashdot Mirror
How Not to Steal a Sidekick
timmit was one of many readers to point out the story of a stolen Sidekick, writing with this excerpt from the site: ""When my friend realized that she had left the Sidekick in the taxi she asked me to immediately send a message to the phone saying that we would give a reward for the phone. There was no response. After a day of waiting, she had to go to the store and spend over $300 on a new Sidekick. When she put her SIM card in, she saw that the person(s) that had taken the phone had not only signed on to AOL leaving their name and password in the phone, but they had taken pictures of themselves." I can sympathize, after someone with the address Rmluckyguy@aol.com tried to sell me back the Visor Deluxe stolen from my car last year in Philadelphia. I hope Evan has better luck.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but diggers can beat the rush and see it early!
I'm not sure where the SideKick is, but the fat dude in the pictures needs to hop on that exercise bike out on the porch.
EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
at its finest. "i got ball this is my adress 108 20 37 av corona come n do it iam give u the sidekick so I can hit you wit it" awesome.
I love how this goes to show how easy it is for anyone to find out information about you, and the people you know with social networking sites. You had better think twice about creating a myspace page if ever engage in any kind of criminal activity no matter seemingly small or insigificant it is. Granted the people who were involved here were exceedingly stupid. Cue up the "stupidity of people on myspace" jokes....
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -Hunter S. Thompson
Z.
Yes, stealing someone's cell phone is very wrong. Obviously it needs to be returned to its rightful owner (ie. the person who bought it.) and it's strange that the thief hasn't just admitted it and taken the cell phone over to the owner.
However, it looks to me like the young girl in the pictures may be somewhat innocent. Let's call them Mr. Army and Ms. Booty, just to make it easier (any similarity in naming between real life and the monikers is purely accidental... no really.) Mr. Army says, ostensibly, that a cabbie sold it to him. I doubt that's true. They also say that Mr. Army gave it to Ms. Booty as a present. That's probably what happened. And she got a SIM card and took some pictures and logged onto her AOL and now this guy takes her and shows her to the world as if she's a monster. The person who deserves the world's ire is the thief, Mr. Army.
He really needs to own up to the situation. If he bought it from a cabbie, he had to know it was stolen. And if he stole it himself, well... the best thing he can do now is take the phone back and apologize. Anything else is just prolonging the inevitable, and possibly getting him a larger sentence, should Mr. Shamer choose to press charges.
I feel like Ms. Booty is at least somewhat innocent. As it stands now, it would appear that she knows the phone is stolen, but obviously she's young, and judging by the fact that she has a child, probably none too bright, and easily swayed by Mr. Army's persuasion. This is a black mark on her life that will follow her around for many years to come. I'm sure she will have to endure some harsh judgement from her peers at school, and I'm not absolutely certain she deserves that.
And now that Mr. Shamer has rejected offers for free webhosting 'gone over his current provider's bandwidth cap' and put up a donation link, it amounts to little more than a cry for cash.
I feel sorry for everyone involved.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur. . . . . . . .
If you leave a phone in a taxi, can you really consider it 'stolen'?
If the person who finds it uses the service that they're not authorized to use, I would imagine that counts for something in the realm of stealing.
Say you find a wallet full of cash. I'm not sure of the legality of keeping it for yourself, and it's a jerky thing to do anyway , but it's definitely illegal to try to use the credit cards that you're not authorized to use. Using their phone service without permission is probably similar.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
Honestly now, what do you expect? /*ducks
Exactly. And the thieves are dead wrong thinking NYPD has bigger fish to fry. NYPD dispatched a detective to come and arrest an employee at my mom's shop in Manhattan who skimmed $38 from the till. We had the whole thing on the surveillance DVR. Basically, if you collect good evidence and hand them a case that they can chalk up a win on, they will do it. I think our boy has done exactly that. They will be in custody soon. The funny thing is how they multiplied this from a simple misunderstanding where they could have said "sorry, here's your Sidekick back", to now having multiple charges to answer to. I wouldn't put it past an NYC ADA to subpoena a paternity test to see if the guy should be charged with statutory rape.
cat
1. Find some partners to "steal" your sidekick.
2. Create a story about how they are ethically challenged.
3. Crow about how you had to buy another one and these people are bad.
4. Reluctantly put up a Paypal account to collect money for "incurred costs".
5. wait for the naive techno fans to queue up to "help the cause".
6. Profit!!!
Assuming 2000 people give her $1 and 6 other people involved, now everybody has free sidekicks!
Hey, that's better than most mid 90's internet startups!
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
I suppose this isn't technically stealing
Maybe not, but posession of stolen property is a felony. They know that it's stolen property. There's a police report filed regarding the stolen property. T-Mobile is apparently going to shut off the service, which means they're convinced it's stolen property.
If this guy really is an MP then he's putting his military career in jeopardy. This is the sort of thing that could get him booted out of the military, possibly after a trip to the brig, and undoubtedly with a dishonorable discharge.
If the army soldier WarriorPena84@aol.com did in fact write and send this, he is going to be attending the UCMJ School of Hard Knocks, and that is going to suck:
"listen you dumb mother fucker my sister bought that phone from some cab driver so what the fuck do you want . shes not going to return it if she bought it, and am military police so dont give me that bullshit about you going to the cops over a lost phone the nypd has better things to do then to worry about your friend losing her phone. you better stop harrasing my sister or you'll have to deal with me and you dont want that"
Shows a lack of impulse control, immaturity, and absence of sound judgement: given the mutlple recent international incidents our military has been involved in, I truly hope they take away his weapon privileges, and soon.
I am not a JAG, but, there are about a dozen things they can charge him with there, from 'conduct unbecoming', to making a threat, conspiracy, etc. Not good.
They should turn him over to the grammar and spelling Nazis too....
Some thieves stole a camera, among other things, and spent the rest of the night taking pictures of themselves
committing other crimes.
One of them was caught a few days later, with my camera. The police returned my camera, and when I checked the memory card, I found that it contained a number of pictures of the two guys who had taken pictures of each other, breaking into cars and houses, all very clear and recognizable. It was obvious that the police had not inspected the camera memory.
The guy that was caught, had tried to claim that the camera was his, and when they pressed him with the evidence they had, he eventually admitted to one car break-in, and insisted he was alone. The date-stamped images on my camera told a different story. It was actually very satisfying to show this stuff to the detective. But, he made it clear to me that thieves doing stupid things is not at all unusual.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
The subject is now in jail with 2 felony charges and some misdemeanor charges.
Here's how it went down. A week ago I was at a gas station talking with my fiancee in the car while the tank was filling up. My phone was on the sidepocket of the door (the armrest thing on the door) and the door was open. I know, stupid move. But I had been really paranoid about losing it cause I had just bought it so I was checking on it every 30 seconds ago so I figured it was safe enough. The tank finally finished filling so I exited the car and that's when I noticed that my phone was missing.
I did that whole thing where you check the ground and your pockets and begin to freak out. Then I remembered some dude had walked right by our car maybe 30 seconds before I saw it missing. I looked on the other side of our pump and there was this 40+ something Hispanic gangsta dude with tattoos all on his neck asking some people for money for his "Car that broke down."
In his breast pocket I could see what appeared to be the outline of my phone. He saw me looking at him and approached me and gave me some cockeyed story about how he ran out of gas and if I could only spare a dollar or so it would really help him. I told him I was busy at the moment if he would wait for me "over there" (out of earshot) I would be with him and maybe I could help him.
I looked at my fiancée and said, "Call my cellphone."
She asks what's going on.
I tell her just to do it.
So she calls my phone.
As I approach the guy I hear, clear as day, the techno ringtone coming from his breast pocket.
Damn I love how loud that thing is.
I get in his face and tell him to give me my phone back.
He looks confused.
I point at his pocket and say, "You stole my phone, give it now."
He pulls it out of his pocket, gives it to me, and says, "Oh no man, I found this over there." (points to the opposite side of the gas station).
"No you f*cking didn't. You stole that phone from me asshole. Don't play stupid fess up."
"No man, I don't know what you are talking about. Look, can you spare me some money or what?" [he's trying to avoid the discussion]
"You just f*cking stole my cell phone. You know how much that thing cost me? What, you think I'm rich or something?"
At this point everyone in the gas station is looking at us cause I'm berating this punk and getting ready for a showdown.
"Dude, if you don't want to help me that's fine."
He starts walking across the street to another gas station to evade me.
I look at my fiancée and say, "Call 911."
I chase after the guy and call 911 myself and explain to the dispatcher what is happening. I'm no more than 5 feet behind this guy at all times while he's trying to evade me and people are wondering what's going on. At one point he comes at me in a threatening manner saying, "Man- Who you on the phone with!?" I tell him I'm calling the police.
The dude runs back across the street and I run back after him weaving through traffic. He gets in a nice newer Nissan Maxima and I jump in front of the car and read off the plates to the dispatcher. The asshole tries to run me over with his f*cking car, peels out, and speeds away.
By this time everyone in the gas station is in total awe looking at what unfolded before them.
It takes forever to get the Sheriffs there but I'm pleased with the way they respond and handle the situation. They take a report from myself and witnesses. They later call me and tell me the license plate was registered to this guy's daughter. They went to her address and she told him to check at the ex-wife's. When they get there they find the dude. They discover heroin paraphernalia in his vehicle.
They book him with Theft, drug, and assault with a deadly weapon (his car).
What a day.
The dude picked the wrong guy to f*ck with. In two weeks I'll be in police academy.
Watch out for your stuff people. People are not always as they seem.