Thieves on xmas

I'll never understand the mentality of a thief to start with but to steal xmas presents from a child is the lowest a guy can get,here is how our day went.

My wife & I try to do something different every xmas to keep our kids suprised,this year we let them have all of their toys & other assorted goodies this morning as soon as they got out of bed,we never even wraped their stuff we just set it out for them to go nuts over & they did,one of the most memorable family moments we have ever had.

We also decided to give each kid the same amount of cash for new cloths & let them pick out & buy their own stuff so we took them to one of the local shopping malls this afternoon,all was going great & we were on our 3rd stop at a shoe store when we got hit!

While my sons were looking at shoes in walks 5 young men all carrying alot of bags then they all started asking the salesmen to get them different size shoes from the back room,i should have seen it comming but i was stupid & missed it all unfolding in front of me,while my sons were looking at stuff they wanted & all the salesmen were busy running in & out of the back room one of the thieves took one of my sons bags & replaced it with a bag he was carrying , by the time i realized that something was fishy about all 5 guys asking for different size shoes then abruptly leaving it was too late,after we finished paying & my son went to pick up his stuff he knew something was wrong with the bag so we dumped it on the floor & it was full of dirty clothes & a note,the note said merry xmas haha.

We did the standard thing which was to run around & look for them which was a complete waste of time & energy,they were long gone with $510 worth of clothes that wouldnt fit any of them,all that was left to do was to stop my son from completely freaking out about the whole thing,we took him back to the stores where he bought his stuff & bought him the clothes again but he was & still is very bummed out & so are the rest of us

The worst thing isnt losing the lousy $510 its having my kid cry on xmas.

Be carefull folks there are alot of snakes in the grass just waiting to ruin your xmas.

There are snakes alright and they tend to come out at this time of the year

I heard a news report today that some thieves were driving around a neighborhood looking for UPS or Fed-Ex boxes left in front of homes, the cops made an arrest and found an SUV full of merchandise, but the thieves had already removed the owner labels so returning the merchandise was going to be difficult.

Not to appear insensitive, since I remember having a number of material things stolen from me in my youth (my NES and savings in an apartment break-in while seven and an expensive calculator in highschool while my parents and I were so very poor), but please tell me that you reported this to the police? The store may be generous enough to offer you surveillance tapes if you or the local police ask them to. We can't let these kinds of people continue making an income (or even a thrill) from such terrible activities.

You're right though, the memory and emotional toll are worse than the material loss. I wonder if these kinds of things happening to me while young are why I'm so oddly paranoid nowadays?

Damn that is pure shitty inhuman behavior. I simply can't fathom why someone would do that any day of the year, especially to a kid.

This is why they chop off peoples' hands in other countries when they try and pull this stuff. There should be no tolerance for this type of behavior. These criminals know that they are going to get nothing worse than a slap on the wrist if they get caught doing this in the U.S.

It's lousy events like this that turn our children cynical at a younger and younger age. That's really a shame for your family highfihoney.

nav said:

Not to appear insensitive, since I remember having a number of material things stolen from me in my youth (my NES and savings in an apartment break-in while seven and an expensive calculator in highschool while my parents and I were so very poor), but please tell me that you reported this to the police? The store may be generous enough to offer you surveillance tapes if you or the local police ask them to. We can't let these kinds of people continue making an income (or even a thrill) from such terrible activities.

You're right though, the memory and emotional toll are worse than the material loss. I wonder if these kinds of things happening to me while young are why I'm so oddly paranoid nowadays?

Click to expand...

HA,we didnt even need to call the cops they were all over the place in the mall,i made a comment to my wife on the way in about all the cop cars lined up front,6 cop cars in front of the blgd,while we were looking around the mall for them we stopped a cop & let him know,if we want to file a report we now have to go to the police station so thats our 1st stop this morning.

I think im more pissed at my own self for not seeing everything unfold,i feel like a moron this morning for not picking up on the scam quicker,normally i watch everybody & everything but i think i just got caught up in the whole xmas shopping fever.

alandamp said:

This is why they chop off peoples' hands in other countries when they try and pull this stuff. There should be no tolerance for this type of behavior. These criminals know that they are going to get nothing worse than a slap on the wrist if they get caught doing this in the U.S.

It's lousy events like this that turn our children cynical at a younger and younger age. That's really a shame for your family highfihoney.

Click to expand...

Last night i thought the same thing about chopping off a body part but in retrospect im very glad i didnt find them,i would have either wound up getting shot or in jail for wringing one of their necks.

Its funny that you mentioned the thieves getting a slap on the wrist & i see your from MICH like me so you know how screwed up our legal system is here in our state,im just glad that at this point in my life my finances are in order & i was able to cough up some more bucks to replace the stolen stuff.

Highfi,

Sorry for your loss at Christmas. I know how you feel. About a year ago I had $1300 worth of Taylor Made irons, a new bag, Calloway drivers, and a nice putter taken out of my garage on trash day - and I was inside. These guys travel up from W.Va. to pick up odds and ends in trash, and won't hesitate to throw a bicycle or whatever in their pickup truck.

Sometimes these events teach us a lesson. One - keep my garage door shut and don't trust anyone in pick up trucks from W. VA. ! Two - your boys will learn at a young age to have eyes in the back of their head and not be so trusting of strangers. It's not a bad thing, especially growing up in or near a city. That $510 lesson will go a long way in life if they understand the meaning behind it.

As the saying goes, what goes around, comes around. Those kids will someday be thinking of what they did later on in life and hopefully try to make up for it. If they don't, you can bet they'll probably land themselves in jail sooner or later.

They steal anything.

A young girl had her fake leg stolen. Pepole cant understand it because they dont think like a lowlife. Its hard to get through a lowlife with a brick for a brain.

It's sad to hear all this happening in this holiday season...

I'm so sorry for what all had happened to you and ur son. It's just doesnt make sense to me how scumbags can think of something like that.
But please dont ruin your whole xmas holidays over this....Merry Christmas Hifi...

Well something really cool did happen out all of this mess,my wife went back to the footlocker where we got hit & the manager & my wife were talking when the manager told her that both my sons could each have any pair of gym shoes in the store for free We told the boys not to take advantage of their offer & to limit their choices to shoes costing $100 or less.

Its nice to see that there are still a few folks who think of others first.

The bank my daughter works in was robbed today. Fortunately she had the day off and was on her way to visit my wife and I. Three men, two with shotguns, robbed the bank and made off with a boat load of dough. She said the cops took nearly ten minutes to appear. A friend who was working called her after the robbery to tell her. No one was hurt, thank God.

Similar Story

In the Chicago area they just arrested a couple that was "allegedly" following the UPS & FedEx trucks as they delivered to houses. As soon as the deliveries were dropped off, the couple would walk right up and take whatever the delivery companies left. Hope the lowlifes get what they deserve, but since we live in a so-called civilized society, they will get off easy. I say, off with their hands! Anyway, it does seem there are decent people so hopefully these horror stories are the exception rather than the rule during this holiday season. And to all a good night ...

Have fun with the thieves................
Wrap a box of garbage, including dog droppings, and put a UPS or FedEx label on it, and set it on your front porch, in plain sight. You can also leave a note saying Merry Xmas, in it. You can get UPS or FedEx labels, from their drop boxes or their offices. Makeup a name and address, for the labels.

You can leave the packages in your truck or car too, for them. After Christmas, wrap them and put "Happy Birthday" on them. Give the thieves a taste of their own medicine.

highfihoney said:

Well something really cool did happen out all of this mess,my wife went back to the footlocker where we got hit & the manager & my wife were talking when the manager told her that both my sons could each have any pair of gym shoes in the store for free We told the boys not to take advantage of their offer & to limit their choices to shoes costing $100 or less.

Its nice to see that there are still a few folks who think of others first.

Click to expand...

Wow, that's really nice of them I would definately be calling the district manager and telling them about that. That's what makes a store stand out from other stores, that level of customer satisfaction.

On the subject of the thieves, that's so incredibly low, I am sorry to hear it. Stuff like this irks me so bad, I've never been the victim of it, but a lot of people I know have and it has forced me to be extra careful. If I ever caught someone breaking into my car, or in my house they definately wouldn't be walking away from it under their own power.

JVC said:

Have fun with the thieves................
Wrap a box of garbage, including dog droppings, and put a UPS or FedEx label on it, and set it on your front porch, in plain sight. You can also leave a note saying Merry Xmas, in it. You can get UPS or FedEx labels, from their drop boxes or their offices. Makeup a name and address, for the labels.

You can leave the packages in your truck or car too, for them. After Christmas, wrap them and put "Happy Birthday" on them. Give the thieves a taste of their own medicine.

Click to expand...

Something about this plan appeals to me

I was just sitting here thinking about the plan jvc laid out when i remembered a poetic justice story that happened to a friend of mine.

My friend bought an amercian bulldog puppy & from day 1 had nothing but problems with this little pooch,all this dog wanted to do was to chew on furniture,tear up sofa's & mattresses & rip up the carpet so in frustration he started putting the dog outside while he was at work to avoid more destruction & that only partially worked,while outside the dog started digging up the yard.

After having the dog outside all day for a few weeks he came home from work to find the dog was stolen along with his chain & food bowls,at first we thought the pooch ran away till we saw its food bowls were gone too,after the dog was gone a few weeks & my friend started to realize how much better off he was without having this tasmanian devil of a dog tearing all his stuff up he came home from work one afternoon & there was the dog chained back up in his front yard along with its food bowls.

All we could think of was that crazy dog tearing up everything in sight at the thiefs house

Someone a friend of mine knew who lived in the city had his car broken into 4 times within a two month period, the stereo being the target each time.

Finally he got sick of the police doing nothing and took matters into his own hands. He rigged up some brand new razor blades along the edges of the stereo, and inside the mount so it would be impossible to hold even if you knew they were there.

He comes out of his house one morning, door to the car is wide open seats and upholstry are covered in blood, radio is on the floor, also covered in blood.

He calls the police and they say they picked the guy up at the hospital who went to the emergency himself with "Severe lacerations on his hands". They thanked the guy who owned the car because apparently the thief had been plauging the neighbourhood for some time.

It would be crappy to have to clean all that blood up, but well worth it to have your stereo and know the thief got what was coming to him.

Autofac said:

Finally he got sick of the police doing nothing and took matters into his own hands. He rigged up some brand new razor blades along the edges of the stereo, and inside the mount so it would be impossible to hold even if you knew they were there.

Click to expand...

Im very suprised that the police didnt arrest your friend for willfull endangerment & the state prosecute him,where i live near detroit michigan if you do something like that YOU WILL BE PROSECUTED ,some years back i was invloved with something along the same lines where i did something very bad to a guy who robbed me at gunpoint,not only was i prosecuted i was convicted & sent to prison.

People should not do something like this no matter how bad they want revenge because most state governments will put the hammer to them.