ilovepinktaco - thx for the offer...trust me I would love to see this guy get what he deserves...

when I was trying to set up the sting - it made my flesh crawl when I had to talk to him on the phone...

 

You know seeing this post made me think maybe we should be engraving our VIN numbers in the seats to at least try and have a way to prove that are yours after the fact. I know it wont help the OP, but maybe it may save someone in the future?

tmkarab....good luck!!

John

 

How much was it? The garage doesn't guarantee that no one will mess with your car but you might want to consider what you're going through now...

I'm definitely interested in figuring out some way of engraving or even branding my VIN on my seats.

 

You could have someone go CSI on this dude and prove the seats are yours by matching up gouges created when the nut is tightened. Same way a bullet is matched to a barrel.

 

That would be awesome! Hope everything works out for you dude.

 

When my car was broken in to and my cluster and start button were stolen I went on a bunch of boards, called my local shops and within an hour had a call back from a performance shop telling me that he found parts exactly like what I was missing on a Toronto forum. Over the course of 4 days I created an account, posted a bunch of messages all over the forum about fake things, commenting on other peoples' builds etc to build up some credibility.

Then I messaged the guy selling the parts. He and I emailed several times, he claimed the parts were from an '04 (despite the 9k tach) and all kinds of things. I contacted the guy who runs the board, then found out he was a friend of a friend and he supplied me with all the IP logs of the seller. A little Google searching yielded more for sale threads of countless other random parts on 4 other forums, so I spoke with the admins of those and had the IP logs sent to the police.

This whole process took over a month with ongoing communication with the detective on my case, and never were they able to go visit the guy's house even. I was told that if I wanted to go buy the parts (with my own money), record (video or audio) the transaction, and then match up the cut harnesses to the cuts in my old dash harness, that they would confiscate the parts I bought as evidence and try to use them against the seller to get him arrested and ultimately convicted.

In the end the cop said it was just too unlikely that anything would happen because as soon as he claims he bought the parts elsewhere, he would be off the hook without even having to prove it.

Just ridiculous that they expected me to directly fund this investigation and collection of evidence, as well as put myself in danger while they sat behind their desks directing the show (which they did a horrible job of).

In the end I gave up and wrote off the whole deal.

Total claim including damage and vehicle contents: over $16,000.

You'd think they would have an interest in catching these guys but apparently not. They just want to take reports so they can make maps with pretty statistics of hot crime areas.

 

Wow...cops not wanting to do their jobs? So what exactly do they do? Oh thats right....go after us for no front plate, driving 8 mph over the speed limit. ****ing Nazis. They are too scared to patrol certain bad areas so they go after car enthusiats and when they are presented with a case of theivery take a pass. Why do we pay taxes again? "Serve and protect" my ass....more like "Rape and pillage your wallet with excessive fines so we can justify our fat salaries, pensions and asses."

 

tmkarab,

post his info in the UMW forum. At least the locals should know not to buy anything from this guy.

 

I deal with insurance companies ALL DAY LONG.

its my job.

I repeat: geico sucks

 

This is just unreal- did you see the other thread about the crazy texan that shot two guys in order to protect his neighbors property? You need a friend like him

It sounds like the best thing to do is cut your losses at this point, and stop wasting energy being frustrated by these thieves . If the police won't even help you, what can you do? I once had my mr2 broken into and stripped pretty badly when I lived in Houston, they drilled the ignition and consequently there was machine oil all over my interior, with entire handprints let alone fingerprints everywhere inside. When I asked the police if they could at least take the prints, they laughed at me and quite obnoxiously I must say. 2 weeks later, my wife's mr2 was stolen from that same spot (on xmas eve, no less). When the police found hers a full year later burned, they gave us a really hard time about commiting fraud! Her car had 160k miles, was purchased for $1800, and had minimum coverage. I eventually told the detective that was harassing us to kiss my ass, hung up, and he never called back.

Sadly, police busting car thieves doesn't generate any revenue, or help them meet any kind of quota... they couldn't care less. They are rarely there when you need them.