Ever had your car stolen?
 

Sadly, my daughter left her keys in and ran into a convenience store. Lost brand new car.

It'll probably show up in a few days, a little worse for wear. Or it's hidden behind a big truck three blocks from the store. Don't ask.

not very convenient.....any chance it has onstar :) I had a friend who's truck got stolen a few weeks ago...they found it in 5 hours or so. Hopefully they find it within 24hours after that they say the odds drop a lot.

Ive lived in winnipeg before, unfortunatly if you havent had a car stolen from you living there.....just wait a little longer. They found it running in an alley about 2 days later. I am sorry to hear that happened. With the cold weather coming it will become an everyday occurance. Shut your car off if you are getting out please ppl. Its not a fun experience.

A few years back, I left it at work over night (right at the building) and the next morning it was gone. I thought someone from work was playing a joke, but by mid morning after everyone had arrived I finally figured out it was actually stolen. They found about 4 months later. Never did see what shape it was in as I settled with insurance. Loved that little car - Cavalier Z24.

Yah, she feels awful. She's never done that before, and actually consciously thought about it before leaving the keys in....

If it turns up wrecked, does she still pay for five years on her car loan because of that....:surprise:

Oh, no Onstar. Her cell phone was in there. She suspended that and had the home locks changed since the keys and address were in there.

yup, but then thats why we have insurance

Pardon?

I dont think insurance will make her pay anything other than the deductable, it was a mistake.....if it happens again on the other hand they wont let it go. That is what i have heard.

Insurance will pay off the car loan (providing she has theft insurance)

Yep, someone took my old truck and in a way was happy. Was getting to be a bit of a pig and only had PLPD on it so didn't really care. 6 weeks later cops recovered it about 2 blocks away in the back lot of an apartment building. Rather than calling me to walk over and get it, they had it towed to their yard, waited a week to call, then hit me up for towing and storage fees.

Been there, done that. Thought I had forgotten where I parked at the mall and wandered up and down the parking lot rows for 1/2 hour after the movie let out thinking what an idiot I was for not remembering. My buddies even laughed and drove off (although they felt bad afterwards).

Turns out whoever took it kept it as his own car. It took them 6 months to find it, and in that time the guy put major mileage on the car and crashed it and abandoned it somewhere. It took the police 6 months to id the car as mine (stellar stuff - they wouldn't let me even see the car until "they" made the determination). What was left of the car after rotting in their impound lot for so long wasn't pretty. The guy had changed the ground effects and swapped out the stereo and speakers too. Ballsy.

And don't get me started on what a pleasant experience the insurance process was.

In the end they asked me if I wanted to exercise the option to buy it back. Thinking I could maybe have a little project on my hands and restore the car, I said "sure". They said, Ok here's how it works. We'll send the car to auction. We let you know what the highest bid is. You get to place the last bid, if you want the car, outbid the highest bid. I said, no thank you.

Most people I know who have had their cars stolen have had them found sooner or later, most usually sooner. Mine and another friend of mine's stories are the most incredible that I know of (my one buddy had a 1980 Pontiac GTA of all things ripped off and it was found in Hwy1 east of here on blocks - well, what was left of it which was basically the frame, maybe the steering wheel and the windsheild. Not pretty. He was absolutely convinced it was a Pontiac dealership in town behind the theft. I kept saying, no way, BS, no way. It's a random crime dude, get over yourself. Anyhow fast forward a few years and the police inform him they caught the individual mastermind behind his and other thefts ... and it was indeed related to the dealership, well, an employee at the dealership anyhow. I couldn't believe it.)

My case was never resolved - never found the dude, no charges ever laid, etc. Just an insurance payout that didn't cover anything. That's the worst part. It's bad enough being stolen from but you get stolen from twice - once by the theif, once by your insurance company.

Best of luck to her. Sorry to hear this. I empathize with her pain/inconvenience.. :(

Haven't had my car stolen but I have had my purse stolen out of my car. Partly my own fault for forgetting my purse in the glove box and accidentally leaving the car unlocked :sad: anyways, it sucked to find it missing.

Hope her car turns up unharmed.

God, I hope so.

She has my vehicle now......:lol:

I agree, Tony, its funny how the guys that install your car stereo and alarm say it is impossible to steal yet it gets stolen from most likely the same ppl that installed it and have the address from your work order.......i always thought that was a strange coicidence

The older daughter had hers stolen up north of us. The police somehow forgot to do the APB, and the car was discovered much later by someone who knew her. The culprit (previous friend )had run the car totally out of gas on the highway and of course then there were mechanical issues with it afterwards.

Man, we only had our license plate stolen (it wasn't the EmilyB one thank God !!)

I have to.

:surprise: I'd be so ****ed off if that happened to me!

:shocked!: Wow that really sucks! I can't imagine having my car stolen, then finally found, only to be told that I have to buy back what was rightly mine in the first place! :evil:

I must admit I'm curious....

Thats what happened to me came out and it was gone kids telling me I am dumb as I can't remember where the van was parked.
Turns out it was raining that day and someone needed a ride. They found it the same night a few blocks away.

God Tony, I hope she doesn't have to go through that. Perhaps tonight they'll catch the dude driving around. She didn't have much gas in the car....

Heh... I was trying to have one stolen out of my garage... Just couldn't seem to make it go away...

Then this little elf (erm troll) came along tonight...
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...e/DSCF6955.jpg
Whaddya know - 4runner fits in the back of my FUGLY truck :D

Nobody will ever steal my truck - nobody would willingly be caught dead in it :mrgreen:

If you leave your keys in the car in BC, and get stolen. ICBC does not cover you. I hope in Alberta is differant.

My friend was working in norther BC moving oil rigs. One of his crew members cought a guy in his gradge. So he hit him in the head with a bat and knocked him out. Tried the guy up and through him in the back of his truck, and started to drive to work. The guy came too about 20km off the highway. The guy was screaming don't kill me, but he drove faster and hit very pothole. About 45km off the the highway, he stopped and took the guys jacket and shoes, and throught him the the dich. He told the guy if his place gets broken into he would come back and kill the guy. He got on the radio and told every one not the pick up a guy with no shoes or jacket. It was the middle of september. An hour later my friend drove past the guy, and he was walking the wrong way.

I don't think that guy would break in to anyone house or gradge again.

Had my old 4Runner stolen from in front of my mom's place one winter when I came home to have lunch in between tutoring students. They broke in & drove it away. Recovered a couple of days later on Marine Drive with no tires. I had on big, almost new BFGoodrich All-Terrains 31". I heard later that there was a rash of trucks being stolen just for their tires because of the snow.

Never ran as well after that but then when I bought my new CRV, I gave it to my "little brother" (did sorta big bro thing with a summer camp) to drive back to Winnipeg after he flew here to be my best man at my wedding. Figured he & his dad could work on it together & get it running nice. It was a fun 4x4 that's for sure.

Anthony

Break and Enter = bad.
Assault, Unlawful Confinement, Kidnapping, Theft, Uttering Threats = long, long time in jail. Your buddy was lucky he didn't get caught. Usually you have to be a cop in Saskatoon to get away with that sort of thing.

I had the battery out of my car stolen one night. The theif left about $50 in change in the center arm rest, along with tons of CDs. It was the middle of summer, and they did it right in front of a martial arts school.

In August of 2004 we parked our old car a chevy, at West Edmonton Mall. We came back no more then 10 minutes later to a cleaned out car. We are pretty sure someone tried to steal it too, but couldn't drive stick. The car had moved about a foot forwards, the equivalent of popping the clutch on that car. They stole insurance papers out of the glove box, sweaty gym clothes, my climbing equipment, and school textbooks. The next morning they did come to our apartment and try to get in around 10am. I scared them off and they were never seen again. UofA Campus police were a million times more helpful then the city of Edmonton officers were. City of Edmonton wouldn't even let us fill out a police report, asked us to come back on Monday, as this happened on a Friday afternoon.

As an insurance broker, and former claims adjuster, I'd recommend your daughter contacting her insurance broker to find out all the answers to her questions, and ask them how the process works. They have the information on what product they sold your daughter, and what will happen now that a claim has occurred. As I am not your daughter's insurance broker, unfortunately I am not able to provide you any information on what the process is, and what to expect. Good luck with the claim, and statistically, vehicles are usually found within the first 30 days, so hopefully hers turns up soon, with no damage.

no, no. Matsqui, West Van, lots of places. West Van, you'd get a drive up the mountain and lose your shoes. :)

That's actually changed quite a bit. MPI is now forcing everyone who has a car on the most stolen list to get an immobilizer or the won't renew your insurance. The list of cars they can steal is getting lower and lower by the day.

Granted an immobilizer won't stop someone with a tow truck or if they have the keys, it has really cut down on kids stealing them to go joy riding.

Not true, I thought the same thing but when my blazer was stolen after I left the keys in it, I was informed that those acts of stupidity are covered by them... I felt suitably told off :lol:

Never had one stolen, but with my old truck someone used to rummage through it on a regular basis. They used to leave the door wide open after they did it. I never locked the doors because there was nothing in it worth the cost of the window that would have gotten broken.

Had mine stolen a couple of months ago... 2000 civic. It was from my underground parking at my condo, managed to get footage of the guy who did it. Except it was to blury to be of any help. Stole the car in under 2 mins from the time he walked up to it! They ended up finding it 5 days later, insurance fixed evertying, I didn't even have to pay the deductible. The car is actually in better condition than it was before!

Just wondering, but what type of car was it???

i hate people who steal car's. at mazda its sad cause every second car that i work on has a dent above the door handle (old models you used to be able to hit it with something and the door would open). but there are all these people who get damage on their cars for nothing.

It was just a Dodge Calibre. The cops said...oh, we don't get many of those stolen......

So they did find the car last night out of gas. Her cell phone and gadgets were gone, they left their jackets and their cheap cell phone...lol.. Funny the cops didn't keep the jackets??? They did keep the cell phone when my daughter jokingly asked if she could keep it..

But, the crooks kept the keys. So.....they could go get it again whenever. She's working on trying to solve that now. Can you get your car locks changed? Expensive, I bet...

Yes, and yes! Good to hear they found it undamaged though! If you know where they found it exactly, might be worth a drive to see if you can spot the keys on the side of the road.. it's a long shot, but sure beats getting everything re-keyed/replaced!

Rant Rant Rant...
 

I have had a run of bad luck with many vehicles. I am glad your daughter got her car back. My father had his prized caddy stolen last year after some one lifter his keys from his jacket at a resturant when he went to the washroom. They wrecked the brakes and tires pretty bad.

So I gave him one of my company cars to drive for a few weeks at the end of November while we got it sorted out. Oh and yes they never called us from impound until a good week or so of storage had been racked up.

So while the Caddy was getting the ABS repaired he was Chrismass shopping in the car I loaned him... Broad daylite down town Johny Crack head jumps my father busted his ribs and shoulder up steals the keys and takes off with the car...

So the car is found about 3 blocks away only the fifty bucks in his wallet taken. Now the druggy that beat and robbed my father fits a pretty easy to spot description. I wasn't notified until several hours after by my brother. I followed up on the police report a couple of days later beyond filling out the paper work nothing had happend.

In hind site I am not sure if I wish I had known what I know now. Because almost a year later it makes me feel like you have to take care of some things yourself.

In keeping this thread about auto theft. I own a company in the vehicle industry. We had a vehicle pass through with a swapped VIN. The poor new owner had his vehicle seized. FYI we now have an auto theift unit in the calgary police. So all the info gets passed to them I met with the inspectors over the matter..

Wait for it...

The guy who sold the car showed up at my office.....

I called the office from the auto theft unit "hey I got this guy here I'll keep him busy, send some one ASAP"

The response "oh I am having lunch give the guy my number and have him call me"

WTF....

All I can say is wow, I was in youth work for a while and had to quit because it was just dragging me down and now I have lost a ton of faith in the people and system that is suppost to be protecting us. I mean vehicles is one thing. My father is a whole other and they way it was handled leaves me to belive they only care about fees (Impound) and money(Traffic Tickets). I could go on and on about the stabbing on my front step and the neighbor who cornered the guy and the police said they could'nt leave to go arrest them because they had to protect the crime scene. EMS had scrubbed it and left meaning it was no longer a crime scene..

What can I say hope others have better luck with the police and thefts than I have.

My story doesn't touch yours but I was still incredulous about how the auto theft unit detective handled the case.

Detective: We think we may have found your car, can you identify it?
Me: Of course I can, where can I go see it?
Detective: No no, you have to tell me something about it I can use to identify it.
Me: Well what about the VIN? Did you check the VIN?
Detective: We don't check VIN's..
Me: (stunned silence) What? What do you mean?
Detective: You have to tell me something else about the car I can use to identify it as your car.
Me: Ummmm it's a black VW Rabbit GTI, it has a red interior .. there's a slight dent in the lower right corner of the hatch, .. um ..
Detective: Did you have ground effects on it?
Me: What? Er, .. no.. um ..
Detective: Was the car is really bad shape?
Me: What? Er, no .. um .. no it wasn't er, .. what do you mean in really bad shape?
Detective: This car is is really bad shape. It must not be yours. Thank you, we'll keep looking and let you know ...
Me: Well, couldn't I just come look at it? I mean I'll know right away if it's my car or not.
Detective: No, you can't come look at it until we make the determination that it's yours. You said your car wasn't banged up, this one is, it's therefore not your car. Thanks, have a nice day! <click>
Me: ... WTF? .......

I mean at this point I guess I didn't care anymore as I had my insurance claim settled and it wasn't technically my car .. but to think that in SIX MONTHS perhaps not some damage might have been done to the car that I didn't know about, MIGHT have been a possibility??? I mean wow. And to be told six months later "Yeah OK it must be yours. You may come take a look now." Uh, gee, thanks ...

EmilyB: Even if you find the keys, I would not be so quick to dismiss the possibility a copy may have been made. I would rekey the house and rekey the car just in case. One would LIKE to think that the odds of them coming back to victimize her a second time are pretty slim, but why play the odds. If I was not able to lock the car in a garage when I'm not in it, I would get a steering wheel lock in the meantime, or see if it can be disabled in the meantime (ie. disconnect the battery or something when not using the car). Heck, take a wheel off (Ok maybe that's pushing it.. I don't know). The fact that her keys are "out there" is something I would treat with great caution.

Best of luck and I hope this is resolved quickly.

Unbelievable stories..:surprise:

Yes, I know the key thing is bad. She can park in the garage where she lives, but the garage key is also on her key chain. It doesn't look like they messed with the glove box at all, so they may not even have the address, but then, it IS possible and I know I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.....

I think she's just going to keep it garaged at a friends nearby for the moment.

Im very glad your daughter got her car back.
As for the legal system in this country it does seem to be all about the money. Cops spend most of their time on traffic because that's where the money is: traffic fines, etc. The dopers & thieves they bust don't have any real income to pay for fines so they don't seem to spend as much time on them. They don't put them in jail anymore, just slap probation on them. And it seems to be getting worse all the time. I know an individual who has been busted 3 times for selling coke & crack. Has at least one assault/battery conviction. The last time he was busted he had a loaded shotgun in his possession. Didn't do any time. Still riding around in his $100,000.00 vehicle.
I just don't get it!!

if she had her house key on the key chain have the whole house re-keyed

last thing she needs now is to come home to a break in. i don't know if this is the same with dodge but all of our keys have to be programmed. maybe she could just get the car re-programmed to a new code and the most they can do is get into the car but it won't start. i will have to ask at work if its possiable, just an idea right now.