Plumber’s GPS ,1 / Thieves, 0

JohnNY

So, a couple of my employees parked an 8-year old work van in a not-historically-great area of Brooklyn just a few doors down from a building we’re involved in renovating.



An hour or so later they went out to get some materials and the van was gone.

Figuring it had been towed for any number of reasons (it’s like that in New York City), they called the office so we could start the process of getting it back in our possession.

My office manager then logged onto our Fleetmatics vehicle tracking home page and saw the van moving into a deeper area of Brooklyn, away from the job.

Now this has happened before. Our fleet of 6 service trucks racks up, on average, about 30 parking tickets every month and keeping on top of them is often a difficult task. Of these tickets, about 24-26 are routinely dismissed as things like double parking and street-cleaning rules do not apply to commercial vehicles the way they do to passenger cars according to vehicle traffic law.

The difference this time was that the vehicle’s motor was shown to be running (yes, the system does that).

My office called the police to alert them of what certainly seemed to be auto theft and after several phone calls and much debate about who should respond; the precinct in which the vehicle was stolen or the precinct in which the vehicle was in at that moment (OMG!), they sent a police car to catch up with the moving van.



Our tracking system showed the van leaving the job and stopping for 20 minutes at a scrap yard. Police tried to catch up with it there but were too late. The van was on the go before they arrived.

About 15 minutes later the van stopped at a used car sales lot and stayed for a longer period of time, then went about 3 blocks and stopped and that’s where police caught up to it.

The van was empty. The back door hinges were cut off by a welder’s torch and thousands of dollars worth of tools and crates of materials were all gone. Even the 8-year-old, stock Ford van AM/FM radio was gone from the dashboard.



Police at that precinct were unwilling to follow up on pursuing the businesses that obviously received the stolen van, but a call to the NYPD Auto Larceny Unit sent NY’s Finest into action.

They immediately went to the businesses and questioned the owners and staff on premises. They, in turn, immediately gave up the guys who stole the van and led police to a huge room full of plumbers and electricians tools and materials.

We got most of our stuff back. Other contractors are getting theirs as well.



According to police, the information our Fleetmatics Vehicle Tracking System provided led to the arrest of several thieves and the breakup of a significant auto theft ring.



Pretty cool, huh?

NRT_Rob

wow

that's a hell of a story. nice work!!

DanHolohan

And, John,

I can just see the smile on your face. Good one, well told!

David Sutton_6

Great news !!

 A few years back , i was living in springfield Ma. my van parked on the side of the road, 12:30 at night i was on my front glassed in porch, noticed the van door open , walked up real hush hush hold my favorite softball bat and tapped the kid on the sholder , man the look was priceless as did he tryout for the land speed record !!, i was just going to ask him if he wanted to play ball with me ;-)

Coany

great story

Our company has fleetmatics gps system too.

 its has so many features

 if the van exceeds 70MPH a little flag gets sent.

If it idles for more than 15 minutes another flag



 can't find the house?



 I can ask the office if I'm on the right street.



 Its a hugely powerful tool.

Paul Fredricks_3

John

I love the story. I love more that I don't work in the city. I can easily believe 30 parking tickets a month. But it would make this laid back guy insane to say the least. I give you a lot of credit for dealing with all that you have to deal with.

JohnNY

Thanks, Paul.

Keep in mind that most parking tickets in Manhattan start at $115. That's right. One hundred and fifteen US dollars.

TonyS

Dont run out and buy GPS trackers

The new jammers from china are under 50 bucks and the latest units are programmable that you can make yourself look like your anywhere in the world. They come in handy when you take your rented car on a few back roads or for you guys that work for companies that are trying to take away your coffee breaks. GPS is a weak signal even weaker than AM radio.

http://gadget.brando.com/car-cigarette-anti-gps-system_p00963c024d001.html

DanHolohan

Tony,

I suspect that if one of John's trucks suddenly fell of the radar because of one of these, the employee would follow shortly thereafter. :-)

Ron Jr._3

Great story John

How'd they get it to run ? Hotwire or something more sophisticated ?  I'm glad you got most of the equipment back . I can imagine the dollar amount ......

Constantin

Fantastic story and turn of events

I once read that it's not the punishment that deters criminals as much as the certainty of getting caught. Good on you to keep pursuing the miscreants rather than writing off the episode as a business expense like the local precinct wanted you to. 

Ted_4

You don't need GPS with stupid criminals

GPS?  You don't need GPS when a stick shift will do:

[url=http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20100108_Fed-Ex_truck_carjacked_in_Center_City.html]http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20100108_Fed-Ex_truck_carjacked_in_Center_City.html

JohnNY

Hot wire?

I guess they hot wired the van. The steering column was torn apart. The reality is the van is totalled as far as insurance is concerned. Didn't have much value to it at that age, anyway. And I'm not glad it happened, but I do wear a grin of satisfaction when I tell the story.



Dan is right. If there's a problem in the signal from my trucks to me, I'll assume my guys are selling crack to children and they can use their Chinese jammers to pay their mortgages.

DanHolohan

I love it.

And said with a New York accent. :-)

JK_3

Thank you

Thank you for the story and for your recomendation of Fleetmatics to me many months ago. I am also in NYC and deal with the same types of issues. Using Fleetmatics has also help to catch the theives within the comany. I don't know if you are aware of the NYC fleet program which discounts double parking and expired meter tickets to $15  and you get billed weekly. I write 1 check a month for all the tickets. Let me know if you want the info for the program and thank you again .

JohnNY

JK

Thanks, we're a part of the fleet program, but it's actually been cheaper for us to have a service handle the tickets as we receive them. It comes out to about $250/mo.

It's all a racket no matter which way you slice it.