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Crime Cellphones

How a Cellphone App Helped a California Man Retrieve His Stolen Car (sfstandard.com) 82

The SF Standard reports that a San Francisco man whose car was stolen in the middle of the night "managed to track down the vehicle using his car insurance app and retrieve the stolen vehicle the following morning within half an hour of noticing it was gone." Harris realized he could track his phone using his app from MetroMile, a San Francisco-based digital pay-per-mile car insurance company that tracks a car's location and charges a rate based on how much it's driven. "I opened the app and found it was in Mission Bay," he said, adding that the person who stole it drove it all night before parking. "I rode my bike down there and picked it up...."

Before picking up his car, Harris didn't consult with the San Francisco Police Department and said officers were confused about why he wanted to report a stolen car that was already back in his possession. He said his driver's side window had been smashed, but there wasn't any other damage, just a mess of marijuana paraphernalia and blunt wraps inside... "If a vehicle owner locates their stolen vehicle prior to the police locating it, we highly recommend that they alert us to the vehicle's location and do not move the car prior to reporting it recovered," Sgt. Kathryn Winters wrote in an email. "Additionally, if they locate the vehicle occupied, they should not approach the vehicle or suspects and should call law enforcement immediately."

There were 274 motor vehicle theft reports in the Western Addition neighborhood, which includes Alamo Square, in the 12 months leading up to Oct. 21 compared with 219 during the same period the previous year, according to police data. Citywide, the problem has also gotten worse in recent years. The number of car thefts has risen from 60 incidents per 10,000 residents in 2019 to 101 incidents this year.

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How a Cellphone App Helped a California Man Retrieve His Stolen Car

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  • WTF? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 ) on Sunday October 29, 2023 @10:16AM (#63963412)
    pay-per-mile car insurance company

    What a nightmare. Just kill me now.
    • Probably the only reason he reported it even after he'd got it back: insurance company would want a reference number when he makes a claim for damages and a refund for the miles when he wasn't the one driving.

      • And to make sure the speeding, sudden braking, and high-speed turns - all dutifully recorded by the on-board software - don't result in higher insurance premiums!
    • Re: WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kenh ( 9056 ) on Sunday October 29, 2023 @10:32AM (#63963448) Homepage Journal

      Or, you know, just don't sign up for it?

      Obviously this car owner, like many big city residents, only drives their car occasionally and has found a solution to lower their insurance costs.

      • Re: WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Sunday October 29, 2023 @11:04AM (#63963514)

        I have this insurance company (Metromile) for a second car which I don't drive very much or very far. It gives me cheap insurance (about $50/month).
        I have the phone app and it does a nice job of tracking my mileage and location so I can see how this fellow could easily find his car. (My Tesla app does the same thing but I don't have Metromile for it since I drive my Tesla a lot of miles and Tesla insurance is cheaper than Metromile would be for this car.)
        It uses a GPS dongle which plugs into the OBD port of the car and contains a cell modem to transmit data.

        • It gives me cheap insurance (about $50/month).

          That's what you call cheap for a vehicle you don't drive much? Your yearly cost is a few years for what I pay.

          This is another reason people are always broke. Paying through the nose for any kind of insurance whether they want it or not.

        • It gives me cheap insurance (about $50/month).

          Pfft, I pay about $40/mo (two lump sums a year) with Geico for a car I barely drive and they're not tracking me.

          • $30/mo for my '93 Ranger, same policy as my wife's DD (2021 Mazda) and my kids, so high medical coverage, etc. and $500 deductible.

          • by piojo ( 995934 )

            Ha, I still remember my experience with a Geico salesperson. She confidently asked me, "Do you want me to sign you up? You won't find a better rate anywhere else." The next company I called (one that didn't need skeezy ads) offered me insurance at something like half or a third of the Geico rate.

            Geico and Progressive are toy companies, not real ones. (Please do your own research and don't take this as fact; it's just my silly judgment.)

      • Don't sign up for it? Uh huh. Good luck when you attitude, isn't optional anymore. For anyone.

        Greed likes apathy. Corrupt Greed fucking loves it.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • Greed also loves empathy. By triggering empathy along selective directions and associations it provides a generic interface by which to manipulate other people's money into your pocket.

            Google spend over 26 billion dollars to simply be the default search engine on Apple devices. I'd say that's probably a touch more than they wrote off under the category of 'donations'.

            Greed may like empathy, but it clearly loves apathy. Consumers are that lazy now.

        • Don't sign up for it? Uh huh. Good luck when you attitude, isn't optional anymore. For anyone.

          Greed likes apathy. Corrupt Greed fucking loves it.

          Am I not supposed to sign up for anything just in case it becomes mandatory.

          I mean, I like to eat bacon sandwiches. Should I worry that if I continue to eat them, that will be all the food I'm allowed to eat?

          I agree that making stuff like this mandatory would be a problem. But I don't think that signing up for it is in any meaningful way going down that road.

    • Kind of like a pay by the hour (no tell) motel room?
  • by kmahan ( 80459 ) on Sunday October 29, 2023 @10:23AM (#63963420)

    The police want you to report it so they can take a report and tell you "We'll get right on it." And then they will do nothing.

    • Do you want your local police to prioritize auto thefts? Seriously? When your KIA is stolen by a kid with a USB power pack, do you honestly expect them to set up a grid search and go looking for it?

      • by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Sunday October 29, 2023 @10:54AM (#63963490)

        Absolutely yes I want them to get on it.

        There actually is a very strong case to be made for "broken windows policing", it's just the most prominent examples we have of it were implemented in a slightly racist and poor manner.

        There's a reason a contingent of people who advocate for police reform or abolition separate "cops" from "detectives" and actually want more police budgets to go to the latter. It makes sense that the historically low clearance rates we see on crimes, especially property crimes like auto theft and larceny would encourage some to turn to crime who may not otherwise if the chances are higher they get caught down the line.

        In my opinion I would much rather have more detectives than patrolmen. Cops "on the beat" very very rarely actually stop a crime in progress and fairly that's actually quite hard, a crime can be done in seconds and response times are in minutes.

        It's also a large part of why cops have a bad reputation, i think if you ask most people if their expectation is the cops are going to catch the guy who stole your car they would say no and many cops would just tell you the same. That's not good! I would much prefer the cops have the ability to put a guy on the case of the stolen KIA than buying more LARPy tactical gear or another gas guzzling faux-miltary vehicle they can go play pretend soldier in.

        • by PPH ( 736903 ) on Sunday October 29, 2023 @12:18PM (#63963634)

          There actually is a very strong case to be made for "broken windows policing"

          This. And that stolen KIA will most likely be used in a subsequent smash and grab burglary, drive-by shooting or home invasion robbery. Get the description and plate number on the BOLO list and there's a chance that the "car thief" can be apprehended before going on to commit more crime.

          • This. And that stolen KIA will most likely be used in a subsequent smash and grab burglary, drive-by shooting or home invasion robbery. Get the description and plate number on the BOLO list and there's a chance that the "car thief" can be apprehended before going on to commit more crime.

            I agree, but I think there's a conflict of interest within the police force. Do the police get better personal rewards for catching bigger criminals? To you and I it makes perfect sense, but within the monetized police forces, they'll likely get better bonuses for catching bigger crimes.

            It is a sad world.

        • The 'cops on the beat' are the people who make these cases known to the 'detectives'.
          • I am not saying on the beat cops have no place but they are not the "crime fighters" many would have us believe. What their role in is knowing their communities and the people in them and build trust, something that has actually gone by the wayside in recent decades.

            Making cases known to the detectives, taking reports is clerical work, they're acting as assistants, which i am not saying is not important work but the clearance rate for auto theft for most cities in the USA is under 20% and in some p

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Cops are the wrong tool to deal with "broken windows" type crime. You need to treat the symptoms, with medical and social intervention before they get to the point of a crime epidemic.

          The UK is a stark example of this. We were doing reasonably well until 2010, when we got rid of most of our youth centres and intervention schemes. Cut all social safety nets back, even ran healthcare into the ground. Now we have crime problems, and police unable to deal with it with.

          • Yup agree on that totally, to me that's where NYC lost their focus, they did all the law enforcement actions but didn't move the needle enough on the root causes. They're able to paper that over since they have the police force of a small countries army.

            Same issue with the homeless, you can do a hard crackdown on people living on the streets but you gotta have reasonable places for them to live when you do that otherwise you are just shuffling the problem around. Most shelters are temporary and the peopl

      • by kmahan ( 80459 )

        I realize they don't like the public to put themselves at risk. But if they are given a location of the vehicle they need to be willing to send a patrol over to take a look.

        The police have their hands tied - too much crime and not enough resources. Also community pushback when they enforce the law. The whole "give petty crime a pass" is crap. That just encourages theft. System needs to be reformed -- if you're stealing, even a $1 item, and the employees or citizens want to stop you then YOU shouldn't b

        • I realize they don't like the public to put themselves at risk. But if they are given a location of the vehicle they need to be willing to send a patrol over to take a look.

          The police have their hands tied - too much crime and not enough resources. Also community pushback when they enforce the law. The whole "give petty crime a pass" is crap. That just encourages theft. System needs to be reformed -- if you're stealing, even a $1 item, and the employees or citizens want to stop you then YOU shouldn't be allowed to sue them. And if you threaten anyone then if someone shoots you that someone shouldn't have to worry you could sue them. Once thieves realize they could lose their life when they steal they might go do something else.

          They don’t give a fk about human suffering or upholding the law. But if you walk in and shoot up the place killing several thieves it’s a ton of extra work for them over just sending someone to take back the car.

      • Umm yeah everyone wants police to do their jobs. What point do you think you are making?
      • Do you want your local police to prioritize auto thefts? Seriously?

        Yes. Seriously. People who commit crimes tend to commit more crimes. By letting these crimes go, they are encouraging more crimes. If nobody has an idea of where the car is and it would be a big waste of time that's one thing, but in the case where its location is known they should absolutely respond timely.

    • The police want you to report it so they can take a report and tell you "We'll get right on it." And then they will do nothing.

      Just tell them you are legally carrying an AR-10 and are going to get it yourself. I guarantee at least 5 cop cars in 5 minutes or less. Note: only try this if you pass for white.

    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      The police want you to report it so they can take a report and tell you "We'll get right on it." And then they will do nothing.

      The whole point is to create an evidence trail. Perhaps your car was used in a crime - your police report doesn't exonerate you from the crime, but hey, you reported it stolen so maybe there are other suspects.

      It's also useful for insurance purposes - perhaps not useful for a broken window, but maybe if you found the car torched or something. Reporting it stolen is generally the fir

      • It ain't about the $50 of stuff. It's about making sure that everyone knows that your ass is going to jail if you steal even $50 of stuff.

        And on the personal level, the poor people who are the targets of typical thieves are the ones who often don't have insurance, who may have trouble meeting a deductible if they have it, and who certainly can't replace it easily.

        I had a friend once tell me that it was insane that you could kill someone because they stole your sofa. I responded that if I can't stop someon
  • When the resident knows the best way to recover their car is to go get it themselves and just notify the understaffed PD they are getting it. Another figure the summary points out is pretty bad to. Basically a 1% chance a car will be stolen. But that 1% I think assumes every resident has a car, which I doubt is true in SF. So actual theft rate is likely to be 2-3%. That to me is a very high probability of getting your car stolen. I only know of one case of someone I directly know and oddly it was in SF from
  • So what? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by linebackn ( 131821 ) on Sunday October 29, 2023 @11:25AM (#63963566)

    Is this the first time someone used a GPS to find their car? Oh, is it the first time someone used a privacy violating "app" to find their car?

    Oh, look GPS tracking saved a baby! GPS tracking is good! Give up all your privacy to save more babies, or you are a bad person! And buy more cell phones!

    Sorry, a creepy insurance company tracking everything you do just to save a few buck is not a good thing. So it helped this guy find is car. Good for him. Let's not expect everyone else to be the same.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      A lot of chop chops use GPS jamming. In fact one of my current projects is a car mounted GPS jamming detector for the police. They want to drive around and identify jamming hot spots, for further investigation for car crime.

      Right now a lot of criminals don't think to block Bluetooth frequencies, but I'm sure that will change rapidly.

  • Why would you report a stolen car to San Francisco Police Department? They won't DO anything about it. If you know where it is, go there and take it back, and file the insurance claim.

    • by silentphate ( 1245152 ) on Sunday October 29, 2023 @12:40PM (#63963676)

      Why would you report a stolen car to San Francisco Police Department?

      Most insurance companies require you to file a police report.

    • Add to statistics, if anything else.

    • It literally says it here on in the snippet. You don't even have to click through to the full article. There is damage to the vehicle so he's going to make an insurance claim. That requires he files a police report.
    • by dohzer ( 867770 )

      Imagine reporting theft. That would allow police to report the *actual* crime rates. Governments hate this one trick.

    • by jaa101 ( 627731 )

      So that when the car is later used to commit some other crime you're not their prime suspect. Not that the police will necessarily rule you out as a suspect, but a prior report of the vehicle being stolen is a pretty useful defence.

  • Was a window? How did they start it without damaging it further? He leave his keys in it? From how it was found it doesn't quite sound like technologically sophisticated criminals.
    • Was a window? How did they start it without damaging it further? He leave his keys in it? From how it was found it doesn't quite sound like technologically sophisticated criminals.

      I learned this when my friends van was broken into. The stock stereo had given up the ghost so we took it out and left it on the seat to go and pick up the new one. Came back to a broken window and the only thing they stole was the broken stock radio. Best part was the doors were unlocked.

      • Dad always left his convertible unlocked so they wouldn't slash the top to steal the stereo back in the late '70s. They slashed the top anyway.

    • You are bewildered by how they could possibly start the car without further damage and think the only way is if he left a key in it. Apparently they are far more technologically sophisticated than you.
      • You are bewildered by how they could possibly start the car without further damage and think the only way is if he left a key in it. Apparently they are far more technologically sophisticated than you.

        Then why did the insurance company pay for it to be rekeyed?

  • "He said his driver's side window had been smashed"

    I've always wondered about the morons who break the driver's window...and then sit amidst the glass.

    • A good car thief always wears Kevlar underwear. I thought everyone knew this.
    • If you smash the driver's side window, it can look like you just decided to roll down the window (weather and whether you cleaned up the bottom edge). It's less obvious than a smashed rear or passenger side window.

      Also, automotive glass is made so that when it shatters it is unlikely to make sharp edges. It's a safety feature.

  • ... then go all vigilante justice on their [bonk] OW! [pow] OOF! [zip] Uh oh! Batman, NO!

  • If a vehicle owner locates their stolen vehicle prior to the police locating it, we highly recommend that they alert us to the vehicle's location and do not move the car prior to reporting it recovered

    Years ago this happened to a friend of mine - her car was stolen and we found it before the cops did (or even tried). The car wasn't seriously damaged, but they still insisted on impounding it, and then with the impound fees, she couldn't afford to get it back. If she had just used her extra key to retriev

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