With so much security prevention, thieves are developing prevention-resistance!

Recently, an email from my client came through with something for everyone:

Be careful about how you park (with the passenger side doors facing away from the rest of the lot, etc.) and how thieves can now manage to break in without you noticing. (I'm not passing along the step-by-step on how they do that.) The point was that they took one small item but left the GPS system alone, which shocked a colleague: "Oh no, he said, they want the break-in to be so subtle that you don't even realize it."

What we got from this was they look at your GPS to see where "home" is. Now they know what you drive, go to your home, and if your vehicle isn't there they assume you aren't and break in your home." Another subtlety is to leave a purse or wallet and only take one or two credit cards, or checks from the middle section of a check book. By the time you realize there has been a theft, they may have already had a couple days or more to use them. This is another reason they want the break-in to go unnoticed.

The take-home message: remove from the GPS unit home address as "home." Put in a local Wal-Mart address or somewhere else. Park the vehicle in a highly visible place, and keep valuables with you. Most importantly, it may keep the thieves from showing up at home.

Oh, and it may help to periodically walk around your car and check for holes near the door handle. (You can also imagine a blue gas that envelopes the car and repels all harm-doers. That seemed to work for me in New Haven, Conn.--the car-theft capitol of the world.)

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Still more of the white stuff....

"Snow has become a four-letter word."
--Chattanooga, Tenn NPR radio station this morning.