Auto theft | heavy equipment theft | Transportation Theft
What is auto theft and the various methods used.
Heavy equipment theft is more complicated than auto theft. However it is easier to get away with. This is usually done by an individual who has a well-built fake identity. The other two things I’ve seen are they’ll buy a small transport company that’s going out of business or they’ll open an anonymous incorporation out of state.
These cons will use the fake identity to build out a transportation company or the corporation. Some will seek corporate credit and or I’ve even seen them impersonate companies that look good online (for purchasing power.) Once things look good they get onto forums and connect with dispatchers to pick up vehicles. Typically they’ll pounce on the higher end models. Once awarded the bid, they’ll go to the dealership or residence, pick up the vehicle and drive off. It is that simple. They come prequalified as they were found online through a reputable vendor and when they arrive they’ll have a nice tow truck.
This is nearly identical as to how heavy equipment is stolen
What happens once their fake identity or businesses looks good. The con will place an order for heavy equipment. They are relying on the over eager sales representative and their desire for a big commission. The sales rep will google the company and person and they’ll want to believe it’s real. They will then do what they can to push the deal through. The con will then go in person and deliver a check for the initial deposit. (The con artist knows it’ll take a few weeks for them to figure out the check is bad.) The heavy equipment company will punch the deal through and start shipping the equipment.
The con artists are even bold enough to use an address of a construction site or an actual company they’ve impersonated. They’ll show up for the load and once the transportation company arrives, they’ll meet and greet and have another diesel truck waiting. Once the transportation leaves, they’ll load the equipment onto the waiting truck. Once it’s on the second truck, it’s gone!
The simplest way to steal a car | Have the owner give it to you!
The simplest way I’ve seen cons steal cars is by asking the wealthy to give it to them! Over the years I’ve had to try and locate cars that were given away! Yes! I wish I were kidding. So the cons will troll online auto sales forums and magazines and they’ll approach the vehicle owners with the pitch of selling their cars for them and if they don’t sell them, they’ll rent them until the cars sell. Often times, these people are so rich that they don’t have the time to care to look into the situation. They simply want to clear out space in their garage for the newest and latest exotic.
After the initial calls the cons will shoot over a “contract.” {I’ve seen a handful of these contracts and every one of them look like a 12 year old wrote them.} You’d think they’d have picked up on the biggest clue that they were dealing with a con artist. The cons will then schedule a transportation company to pick up the car along with the keys and boom done. The cons will then give the transport company a bad address or an address that doesn’t come back to anyone involved. (What I mean by bad address is the cons will give a number that is in between houses or businesses. Though the address doesn’t exist google will still provide the driver the spot to deliver the vehicle.) The cons will be there for arrival and or the cons will have another tow truck pick up the car and take it elsewhere.
GUESS WHAT!
You’ve officially gave your car way and these jerks will simply drive it into the ground and or rent them to kids trying to stunt for their Instagram accounts. Even if you figure out who has your car, you can’t call it in stolen and the police won’t make contact because “It’s a civil issue.” It’s the perfect crime!
You’ve officially blew it and you better act super-fast and hope we can use our expert detective services to locate your car. If we are able to locate your car through background checks with the information you've provided us, you’ll need surveillance and when the car is accessible, we’ll have to get a driver to repossess it. See our page on private party repossession.
The likely outcomes:
The three likely outcomes are; You lick your wounds and walk away, we find the car and hopefully we get it back or you sue the fake company you gave your car to in hopes of using subpoenas to dig deeper and get the real persons behind all of this. The last outcome is to get your insurance to cover your loss as this was “Theft by deception.” If you choose to try the third option, you will need an attorney to negotiate this for you as the insurance company will do their best to wiggle out of accepting “theft by deception.”
The third way a thief will steal a car is from cloning a key. These thieves will go online to amazon and buy a 3K device to rekey the car and a handful of common key fobs. The thieves then go to the auto dealerships (the bigger or busier the better). The thieves will then spot a car they have the key fob for and check to see if it’s unlocked. 90% of the time the cars are unlocked because they don’t want to lose a sale by going back & forth for keys. The thief will then enter the car and plug in their tablet. The tablet will connect and then they’ll “make a duplicate key.” This process only takes 1 minute if you know what you’re doing (and I’m sure a lot of this has to do with brands they prefer to take). Before you know it, they start the car and drive off the lot. Its that simple. You can watch videos on how to do this on youtube. These cars are typically aren’t recovered. They are driven out of view ASAP and are likely sold to criminals or they are stripped for expensive parts. Lastly and depending on the demand for the car they’re put into a container and shipped out of country.
According to the Insurance Information Institute:
How to protect yourself against auto thieves and heavy equipment theft.
It doesn’t matter if you are an individual or an auto dealership. The only way to stop thieves is to have a secondary gps tracker on the vehicle or hidden in the heavy equipment. They can be placed in a hidden compartment. These trackers can last up to a month or more depending on the unit. Now if you are having a vehicle transported it doesn’t matter if you are a private party or auto dealership. Slap the tracker on in a well hidden spot. What is 100 dollars Vs. losing a Lamborghini or a 250K forklift? (I prefer double tape it behind the glove box! That’s right, squeeze the glove box and it will fall out. You then can double tape the tracker to the roof behind the glove box or behind the glovebox itself! This only takes 2 minutes!)
Second, take pictures of the driver’s identification, their vehicle license plates, and the DOT number on the side of the vehicle. Ask them for a business card and or a receipt. Most legit companies will have all of this at the ready and they shouldn’t blink an eye. If they do balk at these requests, cancel the order immediately.
Auto transportation companies | How to know if you’ve facilitated an auto theft.
How know if you’ve facilitated an auto theft! Ok, I get it you get a call for a basic vehicle pick up and deliver. It’s a nicer car to an exotic. The job starts out as no big deal. However, when you get to the location and you see that the delivery address is in a shit hole of an alleyway and or a parking lot. The client calls you and tells you to leave the keys on the front wheel and leave. C’mon man…. I’ve been in the industry for nearly 15 years and I’ve never once left a car in an alleyway with the keys on the tire.
The second method or example is when you show up to an address and it’s not an address on a house. For some reason it’s in between numbers yet you are on the right 100 block. You are met by the client who helps you offload the car. Boom, you just assisted in that car vanishing!
The third one is ON FIRE RIGHT NOW. When you get to your destination and You notice there is another transportation company waiting for you. You two connect and you then off load the car onto the street. They then load the vehicle onto their truck and drive off…. Hasta La By By…. That vehicle is officially gone.
This is the name of the game right now. Use fake transportation companies to scoop up deliveries and or use a second transport company to facilitate the theft for you.
The only way to protect yourself is to get copies of the drivers identification, a picture of a license plate, the DOT number on the side of the truck and be sure to ask for a receipt or business card. One or two of these things will be fake but not all of it. I’m sure you paid someone or got paid by someone and you’ll have that information. You have their phone number and address they delivered to and finally copies of someone’s ID. This is information we can work with. Sadly, most calls we get are people or dealerships who’ve handed a transport company the car and watched it go off into the sunset. In the end they have no information and disabled manufacturers GPS trackers.
YES a lot of these vehicles have trackers whoever, the thieves and con artists know how to disable the manufacturers GPS and their secondary GPS devices. Often times it’s as simple as removing the battery or the con will do some research and find out where the tracker is on line to then remove them. HOWEVER, they will not see you’re GPS hidden behind the glovebox and that’s HUGE. Now not only would we have information to work with we’ll have the location of the car!
What do you do if your vehicle is stolen?
You should call your local police and file a report immediately! Sadly, most police departments will talk you out of the case if you used a transportation company because they will say it’s a civil issue and not theft.
If you have a working tracker on the car or the car made it to an actual address, DO NOT WAIT and hire a PI to get out there and get eyes on the situation as soon as humanly possible. Hopefully, the PI can spot the vehicle, get information on the home owner or renter and their vehicle plates.
If you are lucky, you can negotiate getting your car from them or if you have the police report you call the local PD immediately in hopes a detective will come out and assist you with your stolen vehicle.
As you can see, this isn’t as cut and dry as you’d hope. This is why this is the hottest thing today. The thieves know how hard it is to get discovered, let alone charged with a crime. Third thing that incentivizes them into stealing the car is the fact that the dealerships often times won’t call the car in stolen in fear of the vehicle dropping 30-50% in resale value.
