15 ms·

I know this is useful (for something), but I'm stuck on the plot holes in the motivating story... Why didn't they replace the battery when the app complained?

by jmull 2y ago

I know this is useful (for something), but I'm stuck on the plot holes in the motivating story... Why didn't they replace the battery when the app complained? How long would a thief really keep the AirTag anyway? If the thief did keep the AirTag and you tracked them down, then what? A confrontation has a fairly high chance to have a worse result than losing some equipment. You could try to get the police to do it, but that's going to take more time, during which the thief is even more likely to ditch the AirTag. Anyway, you're really swimming upstream trying to think of aigtags as an antitheft device. They're really for something lost, not stolen. Generally, they are specifically designed to not work well in adversarial situations.

cute_boi 2y ago
i wish police do honey trap more often like put expensive equipment. That will definitely reduce lot of crimes.
- roland35 2y ago
  Didn't that work well with car theft? I believe reading something like that
  - colechristensen 2y ago
    https://mndaily.com/190563/uncategorized/minneapolis-police-catch-thieves-bait-vehicle-program/ https://mndaily.com/190563/uncategorized/minneapolis-police-... It's a thing in Minneapolis, though the Kia Boys thing was still very real here, I don't know how much they've kept it up.
    - throwaway48476 2y ago
      Well they're blaming the cars for being too easy to steal and not the thieves, so it's not going well
      - mrguyorama 2y ago
        The cars are objectively too easy to steal. Kia made several outright stupid design choices and decided not to spend $100 on BoM to use a tried and tested immobilizer that genuinely helps prevent car theft. They also put the key barrel switches in a location very easy to access, rather than deep in the guts of the steering wheel shaft like most manufacturers. Kia tried to save itself a few bucks by drastically reducing their product's security. The fact that other cars aren't being stolen at nearly the same rate is itself good evidence that the thieves are just opportunists.
        throwaway48476 2y ago
        Some people leave their keys in the sun shade. They don't complain it's too easy to steal. At some point you have to admit it's a social problem.
Osyris 2y ago
I've been wanting exactly this for so long. I want to bury an AirTag in my luggage, backpack, etc. and never think about it again. In those scenarios, it doesn't _need_ to be tiny. I'd rather trade compactness for longevity. However, an AirTag attached to my keys _should_ be small and it's easily accessible so I don't mind swapping the battery as needed.
- whycome 2y ago
  I fully expect Apple to release the airTag in different form factors. They can then also sell a whole bunch of new accessories. A 'pen' form factor with replaceable AAAA battery might be perfect for myself.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    They've licensed the technology, so you can get an airtag in, eg, the form factor of a credit card.
    - whycome 2y ago
      These options exist?? That seems like a better option for wallets.
  - gorgoiler 2y ago
    Another useful form factor would be the battery itself. Replace one of your AAAs with an AAAirTag, albeit at the expense of some mAh.
    - aembleton 2y ago
      Great idea. You could probably use a lithium battery to give you similar mAh.
    - dieortin 2y ago
      You would lose on voltage, and your item would probably stop working
encoderer 2y ago
There exists a small percentage of men who will go absolutely savage on somebody for stealing from them, and the existence of those people is probably a bigger crime deterrent than the police. So I say, shine on you crazy air tag tracking vigilante diamonds.
- crazydoggers 2y ago
  This is called an evolutionary stable strategy. (my favorite type of Nash equilibrium) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionarily_stable_strategy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionarily_stable_strate...
  - encoderer 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - theteapot 2y ago
    [flagged]
- kstrauser 2y ago
  I don't want someone to put razor wire on their catalytic converters so that it slices thieves' fingers off. I do, however, wish to leave the impression with thieves that perhaps my catalytic converter is protected by insanity armor.
  - 0_____0 2y ago
    When I lived in California I wrapped a bunch of chain around the cat on my truck. Wasn't actually that secure but thieves see a ton of chain and padlocks and go "ehhhh keep moving."
    - kstrauser 2y ago
      I believe that. A big part of security isn't making your property theftproof, but making it more work than your neighbor's.
unsnap_biceps 2y ago
It only complains once that the battery is low and never again, I've run into a dead battery when searching for an AirTag multiple times.
- 0898 2y ago
  I read somewhere that the AirTag doesn’t actually know whether it’s low on battery or not. The alert is just triggered after a preprogrammed time.
  - selcuka 2y ago
    This is easy to test. Just remove the battery after the warning, then put it back and check if it complains rightaway.
  - maratc 2y ago
    In my experience with different kinds of batteries, from the cheapest to the more expensive ones, the AirTag holds between 3 and 9 months until it starts warning about battery, so what you’ve read does not line up with my experience.
- jakespencer 2y ago
  This has not been my experience. I’ve had multiple AirTags notify me multiple times over a period of months that I needed to change the batteries.
  - unsnap_biceps 2y ago
    So last week my keys AirTag was dead, and I checked my notifications and I only received one notification in October that it had a low battery, but to be fair, I don't know exactly when it died between October and last week. Maybe my batteries die completely before the second notification triggers.
    - hnlmorg 2y ago
      How do you check historic notifications?
tonymet 2y ago
order results from consequences. it's ok if you want to be timid, but don't shame others for helping restore order.
- criddell 2y ago
  Is fear of punishment the main reason you aren't out there stealing the things you want and killing those who get in your way?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - mihaic 2y ago
    For many people, especially from some terrible cultures I've personally met, the odds of being punished are really the only deterrent.
  - tonymet 2y ago
    I'm a decent person, so no. But most crime is committed by a minority of scumbags who require consequences.
  - wyager 2y ago
    The question isn't enlightening, because the modal HN commenter isn't anything like the modal criminal
    - tonymet 2y ago
      i like your use of modal. if more people understood that criminality follows power law distribution, we would have better policy.
  - knowitnone 2y ago
    Yes
    - dylan604 2y ago
joshuahaglund 2y ago
I've retrieved stolen bikes, one because of an airtag. Showed up with a couple friends standing by but not trying to be intimidating. It's mostly about staying calm and telling the person this is mine, I'm taking it. They always say "no it's my friend's, you're gonna piss him off" or "I just bought this" or something. Maybe you offer some fraction of a "reward" to smooth it along and cut your losses. Don't try to start a fight and it generally goes OK. Also, try not to accuse them of stealing, they'll just get defensive. "It's someone else who is screwing us both, but this is mine sorry."
- nostromo 2y ago
  If it’s left anywhere in the open at anytime, you can repossess it legally as well. This happens with auto repossessions all the time. You don’t owe anyone an explanation as it’s yours - just take it if you can do so safely.
  - mikeortman 2y ago
    Just be careful! In SOME jurisdictions, you can get in trouble for 'stealing' if you take back something that was stolen. Possession vs Ownership are 2 different things. For instance, the thief may have stolen something, sold it to someone who bought it in good-faith, and you take it back from that person, it's technically theft! File a police report, go through the right channels. If you know its yours, call the police department non-emergency and explain the situation
    - neilv 2y ago
      This is the most useful advice: call the police non-emergency number, explain concisely, and ask them what to do. A bunch of the other suggestions, here on HN Streetwise ProTips, can get self and/or friends beaten, stabbed, and/or arrested.
      - TylerE 2y ago
        No, THE most useful advice is not to take legal advice from cops.
wyager 2y ago
"Altruistic punishment in humans" - https://www.nature.com/articles/415137a https://www.nature.com/articles/415137a It's good for society, and (in the evolutionary equilibrium) results in massively reduced defection, if people are willing to take on high risk to aggressively punish defectors.
elzbardico 2y ago
A lot of those thiefs are not hardened criminals, because the payoff for this kind of crime is usually a small fraction of the actual value of the things stolen. Most of time it is the average wimpy addict and the reason he resort to this kind of criminal activity is preciselly because he is not ready for the violent potential of more profitable criminal activities. If you relativelly fit, and have some experience with actual fights or training in martial arts, it is not that stupid to try to recover your stuff. If you don't feel confortable with the prospect of any kind of violent confrontation or don't have the street smarts to evaluate the risk potential of saidconfrontation, you'd still have the hope that the police would do something anyway if you have the location of your goods. Really, at some time we need to stop glorifying cowardice and reclaim a little bit of dignity.
- jmull 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mardifoufs 2y ago
    What does dignity and cowardice have to do with manhood? That's a weird projection of toxic masculinity. Not wanting to get your stuff stolen helplessly isn't about manhood at all, it's more about dignity, which is a basic human right.
  - unclad5968 2y ago
    "if you don't let people steal your stuff you're not a real man!" That was awfully presumptuous and condescending. I think the people advocating we let thieves take our things are the ones who need some updates. Ad hominem attacks aside, you're presenting a false dichotomy. There is nothing mutually exclusive about analysis and violence.
    - jmull 2y ago
      You made up a fake quote to respond to. What's the point of that? > There is nothing mutually exclusive about analysis and violence. Of course not. That's just the hypothetical presented here, though. The post I replied to argued that it is better to be both stupid and violent rather than smart when it comes to protecting dignity. Of course there are cases where it's smart to be violent (and stupid to use analysis, for that matter).
reaperducer 2y ago
You could try to get the police to do it, but that's going to take more time, during which the thief is even more likely to ditch the AirTag. During the most recent American election I saw at least three news stories on television about campaign sign thieves being tracked down through the use of AirTags put in one of the signs. To my surprise, in each case the police were right there, and in two of the cases, the signs were still loaded in the thieves' cars. So it does seem to work. Anyway, you're really swimming upstream trying to think of aigtags as an antitheft device. They aren't anti-theft devices as in padlocks. But the more often that thieves start wondering if the thing they're taking might have an AirTag in it, they might start reconsidering some of the petty thefts. It's like a surveillance camera. A camera, itself, can't stop a crime. But the possibility that someone's watching can act as a mild deterrent.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  Aren't the news stories subject to survivorship bias though? They wouldn't be as likely to report a boring "sign stolen, thief unknown" story.
  - reaperducer 2y ago
    Aren't the news stories subject to survivorship bias though? They wouldn't be as likely to report a boring "sign stolen, thief unknown" story. Not really. "Survivorship bias" is just the HN cliché of the quarter, and doesn't apply in nearly as many situations as posters on this forum would like. There were plenty of other stories of campaign signs being stolen, both in the most recent election, and in previous ones. I'd call it more "perception bias." You only know about the AirTag campaign signs stories because you're viewing it through the lens of HN, and not a broader view of media coverage of the issue.
runjake 2y ago
> They're really for something lost, not stolen. Generally, they are specifically designed to not work well in adversarial situations. In practice, AirTags tell you where it is, which is useful for lost or stolen items. What you do with that information is a whole other topic outside this scope. I've recovered or helped recover several stolen items located with an AirTag and I'll keep on buying them as long as they're good for both. So far in the cases I've been involved, the thief wasn't aware of the AirTag. In some cases, they had iPhones on them. I'm not sure why they did not get an "AirTag is following you" notification, or why they ignored it.
NoPicklez 2y ago
In all seriousness, if I put an Airtag on my $6k bike and it was stolen and it showed where it was. I'd be getting that bike back and not worrying too much about a confrontation. Worst case scenario I report it to police directly and it tells them exactly where it is. If something is stolen, if I don't know where it is that makes the problem 10x worse. At the very least the airtag shows where that item is (unless it has been found and thrown away).
- theteapot 2y ago
  > Worst case scenario I report it to police directly and it tells them exactly where it is. Yes, and then wait 6 months for the police to get around to picking it up ...
  - NoPicklez 2y ago
    Well I'd rather be able to file a report with a location and proof of purchase than filing a report without having a single clue where it is
    - weakfish 2y ago
      That doesn’t mean the system shouldn’t be improved, though?
      - NoPicklez 2y ago
        I never said it shouldn't be improved, in fact I didn't have any problems with it to begin with. That was the commenter above me.
  - wahnfrieden 2y ago
    They will never get around to it. They don't even pursue stolen cars.
    - NoPicklez 2y ago
fsckboy 2y ago
>stuck on the plot holes in the motivating story... How long would a thief really keep the AirTag anyway? you discover something has been stolen (or lost), and not knowing exactly when it happened but curious about that too, you immediately try to look up where it was last seen and if it's still tracking. What's the problem with that scenario, sounds perfectly reasonable. he wants the long battery not because the thief is going to carry it around for 10 years, but simply so that it will more likely to be charged and location tracking at the time it is stolen from the owner.
- bhaney 2y ago
  > so that it will more likely to be charged and location tracking at the time it is stolen Unless you're ignoring/suppressing the low battery notifications for months, that's already overwhelmingly likely.
  - fsckboy 2y ago
    i don't like changing the batteries in my smoke detectors. it's too frequent. they remind me, it doesn't go unnoticed, it's not that they are inadvertently running out, i don't like doing it, every time is too frequently in the story the guy told, his batteries were dead; he wishes they weren't. People are allowed to have different preferences, it's not a plot hole in the story.
phil21 2y ago
> A confrontation has a fairly high chance to have a worse result than losing some equipment. Maybe. I agree it's a risk I'd ask myself more than a few times if I'm willing to take these days, but in my youth and when I was less economically secure I never had a problem taking matters like these into my own hands. Every time I've tracked down a stolen item (phones were the most common with early tracking apps, but before that I've gone after stolen bikes, Discmans, etc.) the thief simply gave up the item without so much as a verbal altercation. The surprise that someone was crazy enough to call them on their bullshit was enough to shock them into just complying. Perhaps some shame as well, I'm not certain. This has been true since my early teen days when I worked for a small retail store where the owner was way crazier than I ever have been. He took me along on some "repo" trips where folks had written bad checks against expensive items. These were generally in bad neighborhoods and I was certain he was going to get shot - but he never did. Some yelling was the most I witnessed and every time we got the items in question back safe and sound - usually with the person in question helping to load them into the truck. I'd probably still track an item down and knock on someone's door if I was confident it was the correct location. These days it's basically your only recourse, and despite the relatively minor economic loss vs. my income at this point in my life I think it's important for societal reasons. When everyone simply gives up and lets the criminals and petty thieves "win" without so much as challenging on them, society rapidly crumbles. Relying on law enforcement is a last resort, even though the modern day take is they are the front line response. We see how well that is going. Poorly. If I owned a retail shop I'd also confront any shoplifters and back up any of my staff who decided to do the same themselves. I understand this might end up costing me more money and make insurance difficult. Punishing such behavior for "liability" reasons is utterly asinine. It should be rewarded, but not encouraged or forced on employees by ownership. When I stopped shoplifters in the 90's at the shops I worked at, it wasn't because I thought my low pay was worth the personal risk. I did it because it was the right thing to do and I knew the owners had my back if anything bad happened. Firing clerks for giving a damn about society is one of my huge pet peeves of modern life. And yes, I am well aware of the risk and horrible outcomes that rarely happen in such situations. So tldr; I see it as a duty to society to make an attempt at challenging these things for myself and friends that ask for help. Yes, that does incur some personal risk to my safety that cannot be squared with the economic reward. It's a tradeoff I, and others, have calculated for ourselves. It's utterly corrosive to actual hard working folks doing the right thing to be forced to watch some asshole professional thief push out a cart full of power tools from Home Depot. Knowing full well that they would be fired if they so much got in the way of the cart. It's ridiculous we've normalized such things and justified it with the liability fairy. The executive class has entirely failed society on this point. If someone wants to take on the personal risk, the response should be high praise - not punishment. You get more of what you incentivize.
physhster 2y ago
I've had AirTags in my luggage that seemed ok, but the batteries died mid-trip which was somewhat suboptimal. Longer battery life seems like a good selling point vs. replacing those annoying CR2032 before every trip.
bobthepanda 2y ago
In fact IIRC the first thing that happened when AirTags were announced were a bunch of concerns that surreptitious AirTags were usable as stalking devices and this seems to bring that concern up again.
kwar13 2y ago
Come to latam and you'll see some intense confrontation when something gets stolen. I was in a hostel when someone broke into lockers and they tracked him to the a bus station and got all their stuff back + dude in handcuffs to police station.
- a12k 2y ago
  I searched Google maps for Latam but could only find an airline. Where is this?
  - telotortium 2y ago
    Latin America
herval 2y ago
> If the thief did keep the AirTag and you tracked them down, then what? We recently recovered a laptop simply because it was tracked. Took the location to the police and they did the rest. It’s most definitely an anti-theft device in my case
windexh8er 2y ago
I'll explain why I want this. I don't use the Apple ecosystem as my primary, but I do have a bunch of tags I use in different cases for different items. Some of my items are things like motorsports vehicles or trailers and other things that are around but often out of sight. If something were to go missing I may not notice immediately. It also seems the batteries in AirTags die faster in areas where climate control isn't the norm. Changing these out every year is a pain because some are hidden in areas that aren't easy to get to. I hope these work well. And I was pleasantly surprised by the price point. Already ordered! Also... I already own ElevationLabs Surface Mounts that I use and they are well made products. I love finding brands like this because it's not the norm on outlets like Amazon anymore. So when I find a good product I'm more than happy to keep buying their products, the premium is worth it.
stogot 2y ago
I’ve had home sensors warn me of dead batteries for two years and I’m too lazy to replace them. I’d kick myself if something happened
bagels 2y ago
I have an AirTag, and no iphone. I used my wife's tablet to set it up. I don't think I will get timely battery alerts from it because I'm not bought in to the apple ecosystem fully.
mschuster91 2y ago
> Why didn't they replace the battery when the app complained? Many people routinely clear out all notifications due to the noise, and Find My notifications are part of that.
KaiserPro 2y ago
> Why didn't they replace the battery when the app complained? because life gets in the way. You have a bunch of batteries and forget where you put them, or you walk inside and get distracted. I have a tag in my suitcase, which is/has run out of battery. I dont use it that often, so I should really replace it. but I have forgotten.
unreal37 2y ago
This "just let people steal your stuff, it's not worth pursuing" logic is fine for some, not fine for others. Also, thieves are dumb. Don't expect them to find all the tracking devices in minutes.
eek2121 2y ago
You’d be surprised how dumb people are, many don’t even know what they are or look like. Air Tags are also concealable, and on my backpack I have one inside the strap. You can’t tell it is there.
tobyjsullivan 2y ago
Re: changing batteries. - To change a battery, you need to not only see the notification but also be physically proximal to the device and have a fresh battery available. It can take some time to meet all these conditions and sometimes you simply forget. - A single air tag only needs the battery replaced roughly every six months. However, the rate of replacements increases as you are managing more air tags. It's easy to be replacing a battery every few weeks. - Replacement fatigue is a thing. At some point, we just get lazy. I keep my BBQ on my front patio, directly in front of my battery-powered Ring camera. The battery on that camera needs to be recharged and replaced every two months. I try to get to it as quickly as I can - ideally during the low-battery state and before the battery dies completely. One time, however, I got lazy/forgot. Two days after the battery died, my BBQ was stolen. Re: antitheft device You're right. Apple markets AirTags for recovering lost items, not stolen ones. Nevertheless, they can be very effective for recovering stolen items. My local police department will aid in recovering stolen property. If the item has an AirTag that pings a location, an officer will investigate. In the case of my BBQ, the officer was willing to look for it same-day but, alas, I did not have an AirTag on it. This product actually helps as it effectively hides the air tag. This makes it less likely that a thief would find and discard the airtag. They'd only be looking for it if their iPhone notifies them and, even then, they may not be able to discriminate which item contains the tag. Best case scenario: they discard the entire stolen unit, keeping the air tag with it.
- shortstuffsushi 2y ago
  > physically proximal to the device and have a fresh battery available I think it's also worth saying, these batteries aren't the standard AA batteries most people on hand, they're 2032 (I believe? or 2025) "quarter batteries" which isn't something a lot of people just keep around. So in addition to being physically proximal, once they've figured out how to open it up and being surprised by the "weird battery," they've also got to remember which it was when presented with a wall of similar looking "quarter batteries" at the store (see: my lack of assurity even having previously replaced these).
  - 0xffff2 2y ago
awwstn 2y ago
without commenting on the rest of it, i can share anecdotally that i currently have 3 dead airtags that i have been procrastinating updating the batteries on
wpearse 2y ago
We put AirTags in road cases/Pelican flight cases packed with AV/IT equipment. Pelican makes a stick-on AirTag holder that works well. We’ve found the AirTags work just as well as LTE/4G GPS trackers —- with no-ongoing costs, better battery life (we get 6-9 months on the AirTags, 4-6 weeks on the GPS trackers), and AirTags are 1/5 the cost of an LTE tracker. This product would work well for us.
yreg 2y ago
I've _lost_ several AirTags, because I couldn't be bothered to manage their battery life and I no longer have any idea where they are…

mattmaroon 2y ago

You'd think so, but America is the most armed country in the world and most of us have had something stolen. I think the overall sentiment is "I'm like 99% going to get away with this and pawn it for money" and they're right.

comradesmith 2y ago
Not all AirTags exist within the US :)
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  There are other places? Really I just assumed he meant here because he mentioned people getting unnecessarily violent.
  - aksss 2y ago
    The US has a monopoly on people getting unnecessarily violent? That seems like a trope - projecting the stats of a few zip codes onto a very large and diverse nation.
happyopossum 2y ago
“and most of us have had something stolen” I’m not sure that’s accurate. It may be true in large cities, but most people don’t live in NY or SF. Yeah - the closest stat I can find works out to fewer than 2% of people per year are theft victims. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/191247/reported-larceny-theft-rate-in-the-us-since-1990/#:~:text=In%202023%2C%20the%20nationwide%20larceny,per%20100%2C000%20of%20the%20population https://www.statista.com/statistics/191247/reported-larceny-....
- nox101 2y ago
  Given the average lifespan is ~80yrs then the average chance you've had something stolen over over say 40 years is much higher than 2%. It's 2% per year so ~45% for 30yrs and 55% for 40yrs?
  - valleyer 2y ago
    You're assuming independence, almost certainly incorrectly.
    - nox101 2y ago
      meaning? My point isn't that those number are exact. My point is 2% chance per year expands to a larger number over many years. So saying "most people have experienced theft" many not be that far off. 2% is 1 in 50 but 55% is more than 1 in 2. My personal experience is would be 10 or 11 in 55yrs depending on whether an attempt counts bike, bike, bike, car radio, car radio, car radio, car, car radio, bike, camera/dashcam/kindle, attempt (broke window to check for loot but didn't find anything). Still cost $$$ to replace window so you could say my window was stolen. Also I didn't just multiply by the number of years. The probably for 100yrs is 86% (not 100% and not 200%).
      - bagels 2y ago
        The events are not independent. Maybe the first time you leave your bike outside you learn that it will be stolen, and then you don't do that anymore, reducing your future risk.
        nox101 2y ago
        yes, and that 2% per year average figure takes that into account. The percent for your life is higher. You got robbed, do something to make it go down, it gets lower. Over the course of the average life, it ends up at 2% per year. It's probably highest around 15 to 25yrs old (have possessions, get robbed, learn to do differently) and lower at the end (except for getting robbed by scams which often target the elderly)
      - valleyer 2y ago
        For most people, the chance they are a victim of theft (VOT) in year 1 is correlated to the chance they are a VOT in year 2. So the probability that they are a VOT at least once in those two years is NOT simply (1 - (1 - 2%)^2). That formula only works when the two events are independent, like two coin flips. As an obviously extreme example, imagine a world where 98% the people live in zero-crime areas, and the rest live in places where they are robbed annually. In such a world, the percentage of people who were a VOT in a single year would be 2%, and it would not rise as you broadened to multiple years. (The same 2% of people would be targeted over and over.) This is all just a roundabout way of stating the unfortunate fact that some people live in bad areas. I'm sorry to hear about your experience.
newZWhoDis 2y ago
[flagged]
- calf 2y ago
  I've had multiple belongings stolen while a grad student on an Ivy League campus, presumably that is not a shit hole but one of the wealthiest areas of America.
  - wffurr 2y ago
    Wealthiest area might also be one of the most unequal, and thus be theft prone.
- bagels 2y ago
  Where do you live that has no crime?
- wffurr 2y ago
  New York and California are not even in the top 10 of thefts per 100k residents: https://www.statista.com/statistics/232583/larceny-theft-rate-in-the-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/232583/larceny-theft-rat...
dboreham 2y ago
Single data point but I moved from the UK to the US 30 years ago and the prevalence of stuff being stolen is two orders of magnitude lower.

neilv 2y ago
How do you think the police will give bad advice, if you call them up and ask what to do?
- Kinrany 2y ago
  Depends on how well they do their job, it's not hard to imagine them saying "file a report" and then ignoring it.
- extra88 2y ago
  There are countless examples of police not knowing the law. If you talk to them in person, it should be to get an idea of what they'll do, which may or may not have something to do with what's legal. If you want legal advice, ask a lawyer with experience in the relevant area.
  - neilv 2y ago
    You don't want legal advice. You know where your stolen bike is, so you call the police. I think that's the usual process. Probably they will verify that the bike is yours, and retrieve it, or they will say that they don't have the resources. Are people imagining that the police will say that you can go take the bike, but then turn around and arrest you for theft? Of course, if the police tell you "finders keepers; it's in the Constitution", then you can seek legal advice.
    - sneak 2y ago
      No. The police will offer you the option to come to the police station and fill out a report so you can get a police report number for your insurance claim. Nothing else will happen. Police don’t usually investigate petty crimes.
    - michaelt 2y ago
      > Are people imagining that the police will say that you can go take the bike, but then turn around and arrest you for theft? People are imagining the police will tell you that you can't steal it back, when legally you can. After all, it's the police's job to keep the peace. And things are more peaceful if I'm not busting up thieves' hideouts all guns blazing like Rambo.
      - wat10000 2y ago
        I’m also imagining the police telling you that you can do something that is actually illegal, and then you get prosecuted for it. “The cops said it was ok” may not be an adequate defense.
        TomatoCo 2y ago
        A cop telling you it's okay to do something, and then getting arrested for it, might be one of the only times you can correctly claim entrapment.
        fragmede 2y ago
        So all Jessie Pinkman's got to do is ask the under cover police if it's okay to sell them meth and then they can't be arrested for it? Entrapment is reserved for the police going above and beyond, eg "sell me meth or I'll kill your dog" where it can be argued that the entrapped normally would not do the crime.
        wat10000 2y ago
        Apparently there is “entrapment by estoppel” in which a government official tells you an act is legal when it isn’t. They have to be acting as a representative of the government, though; undercover cops wouldn’t count. I still wouldn’t be very excited to try this defense in court.
        Dylan16807 2y ago
        > So all Jessie Pinkman's got to do is ask the under cover police if it's okay to sell them meth and then they can't be arrested for it? No, this is about on duty police in uniform saying it's okay.
        fragmede 2y ago
        Don't you know the other rule of drug dealing? If you ask an undercover cop if they're an undercover cop, they have to tell you the truth? it's against the rules for them to lie about it.
  - outworlder 2y ago
    They aren't even required to know the law.
- ldoughty 2y ago
  Ages ago when I tried calling the police... "We cannot answer legal questions, please seek a lawyer for advise." I don't do anything terribly interesting, so this was almost certainly not an issue actually worth paying $200 for a lawyer to answer.
- chii 2y ago
  > How do you think the police will give bad advice the police will give you any advice, good or bad. They're not legally responsible for anything they said to you, as long as they're not telling you to commit a crime (in which case, if they did they will deny it). You can still call 'em up of course - but don't 100% just trust their words blindly.
  - toss1 2y ago
    At this point in the US, it seems we are far better off asking ChatGPT or Claude than the average police station.

joshuahaglund 2y ago

IDK where you live but where I am, unless it's an actively life threatening emergency, the Police will say they're busy. I watched a drunk driver try to drive away after smashing into a parked car, ripping a wheel off the parked car. The drunk driver kept trying to start his car to get away. People called the police but they said they're busy. Fortunately his car was totaled and wouldn't start either. Over an hour later someone picked him up. If they can't even bother to deal with an active drunk driver, they aren't gonna help retrieve a bike. Not saying confronting thieves is for everyone. But it's not necessarily as physical as you think.

happyopossum 2y ago
Sounds like you live in a crappy big city like SF, Oakland, Santa Clara, etc. For the vast majority of people who live in reasonable cities, calling the police for something like that will get a timely response.
- weakfish 2y ago
  Didn’t happen in the small North Carolina town that my parents live in, with a very similar situation as the parent. So truly, YMMV. Not all places can be generalized.
- saagarjha 2y ago
  Santa Clara, population 110,000, is a big city to you?
- bagels 2y ago
  Please tell us the magical place you live in that has friendly, helpful police with time to investigate every crime.
  - Alupis 2y ago
    Suburbs. We get 84 squad cars showing up for noise complaints... Many larger cities don't have the budget to provide adequate police coverage. So you get this sort of "best effort" response. This is made worse with recent years of "defund the police" policies creeping into some of our larger cities. It just reinforces the Pro 2A community's saying - when seconds matter, help is just minutes away.
    - bagels 2y ago
      I live in "Suburbs" I have never seen 84 police cars respond to anything, even school shootings.
      - Alupis 2y ago
        Maybe try living in actual suburbs, not "Suburbs"?
chmod775 2y ago
> IDK where you live but where I am, unless it's an actively life threatening emergency, the Police will say they're busy. Where I live the basic law/constitution establishes a protection duty of its citizens by the state (this includes their property). The police is one of the ways the state takes care of this duty. If the state is grossly negligent in this or even does nothing at all, the state may very well be on the hook to make the injured party whole. This responsibility is passed down and carried by individual police officers, and there have been cases of police officers being personally convicted of causing bodily harm for not dispatching a unit after a request for aid (despite them not personally swinging any punches)[1]. Generally you'll have police show up for near anything if they can. [1] https://www.wz.de/panorama/nach-notruf-keine-streife-geschickt-polizist-verurteilt_aid-27317315 https://www.wz.de/panorama/nach-notruf-keine-streife-geschic...
- wat10000 2y ago
  In the US, it’s been established by the Supreme Court that the police have no duty to protect anyone. They can it they want to, and individual departments can make it a policy and fire officers who fail at it, but it’s not a fundamental requirement.
true_religion 2y ago
I live in Arlington, VA where I once saw a purse snatcher being chased by 5 cops. Only to have 3 more show up after the guy was on the ground. They all had their own cars too. During COVID, I called the non emergency line police for a break in on my car parked on the street and the police showed up in minutes then searched the area frantically to see if the guy was still around. I don’t know if they are over funded or just bored.

nostromo 2y ago

I’d be curious what jurisdiction that is true. In my jurisdiction in the US it doesn’t matter if someone purchased the stolen goods or not, the goods still belong to the owner. This is sometimes called the "nemo dat" rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemo_dat_quod_non_habet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemo_dat_quod_non_habet The person buying the stolen goods would need to file a claim against the thief to recover their money, but the goods still belong to the original owner. And this is how it should be, since it’s added reason not to buy goods you suspect are stolen. And yes, you should always try and work with the police first and foremost.

jorvi 2y ago
That is probably mostly a common law thing, and as the article notes > however, in many cases, more than one innocent party is involved, making judgment difficult for courts and leading to numerous exceptions to the general rule that aim to give a degree of protection to bona fide purchasers and original owners > The person buying the stolen goods would need to file a claim against the thief to recover their money Generally as long as the purchase is made in good faith, you are wrong. It is the original owner that needs to file a claim against the thief. Obviously, what constitutes a sale in "good faith" is a rather imprecise science, although one steady element is the sales price: it needs to have been appropriate for the item. So for example a mint bicycle or antique coin should sell near sticker price.
- nsomaru 2y ago
  The key element for a bona fide sale at common law is the buyer’s absence of knowledge of the defective title of the seller. Not sure how US courts have interpreted this requirement but that’s the onus and I believe it rests on the third party buyer (to show absence of knowledge through evidence). In that case the claim is against the thief only.
- graemep 2y ago
  > in many cases, more than one innocent party is involved, making judgment difficult for courts and leading to numerous exceptions to the general rule that aim to give a degree of protection to bona fide purchasers and original owners The next sentence is: > The possession of the good of title will be with the original owner. So you seem to be wrong there. The innocent buyer needs to file a claim against the thief, the original owner retails their title. It is explained in more detail later on.
  - jorvi 2y ago
    No, I know our legal system quite well. You are wrong. The reason for this is so that if you buy a bicycle at, say, a bicycle fair and for a reasonable price, you shouldn’t have to worry about it being yoinked from under you later on. Lawmakers have clarified this is choosing between two evils, there is no winning proposition here. So, in conclusion: the original owner needs to file the claim, not the third party.
    - hcurtiss 2y ago
      To the degree lawmakers have weighed in, as you say, can you point me to a citation protecting the subsequent purchaser? I don't practice in this area, but that is definitely not my understanding of the law.
      - liber8 2y ago
        This guy is wrong, which is why he isn't citing any legal authority. As anyone who has gone to law school will tell you, you can only acquire the title that the seller has. If seller stole the goods, he doesn't have any title, so he can't transfer title to a subsequent buyer. See, e.g. UCC § 2-403 There are exceptions when it comes to those who have voidable title (thieves do not have voidable title). There are also cases where courts have more or less created exceptions close to those OP has described. For example, if Best Buy receives some stolen merchandise and sells it to good faith purchasers, courts have held that the victim needs to pursue the thief/Best Buy, not the end purchaser. But generally, OP is wrong: if you buy a stolen bike at a flea market, you don't get title and the owner can get the bike back. Think of the policy implications if the rule was as OP claims. All thieves would have to do is immediately sell stolen goods and the owners could never get them back. That would be absurd.
        jorvi 2y ago
        > This guy is wrong, which is why he isn't citing any legal authority. You never asked. https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0005291/2024-05-01 https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0005291/2024-05-01 article 83 onward > As anyone who has gone to law school will tell you Sounds like you wasted $300 000 just to be wrong :) > But generally, OP is wrong: if you buy a stolen bike at a flea market, you don't get title and the owner can get the bike back. I said bike fair, not flea market. I will reiterate: the sale needs to have been in good faith. All the conditions for that need to have been met.
ostacke 2y ago
Sweden is one such jurisdiction[1]. You can only retake what has been stolen from you if it is done shortly after the theft. [1] https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sj%C3%A4lvt%C3%A4kt https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sj%C3%A4lvt%C3%A4kt
- randallsquared 2y ago
  ...as appropriate for a culture of Viking raids, one would suppose!
  - lazide 2y ago
    Possession truly is 9/10ths of the law in this case I guess?
randunel 2y ago
Another jurisdiction example would be Romania. Even if the thief themselves are in possession of the property you own, you can be charged with theft if you steal it back. The law clearly delimits possession from ownership.
easyThrowaway 2y ago
How would they even prove that if it's in the open? "Stolen? No idea, I've always had that bike, I just forgot where I left it last time. Went and got it back. By the way, here's the receipt."
Xmd5a 2y ago
This happened to me. I bought a pair of headphones (Nuraphones) on ebay, only to have them bricked by the company remotely. IIRC, they had a security hole on their payment page: they forgot to implement SCA (strong customer authentification, aka 2FA for payments). Had they done this, the liability would have shifted onto the bank/card issuer. For some reason they decided to go after the customers in vain resentment, were acquired and their product was discontinued. https://www.reddit.com/r/Nuraphone/comments/8iw3he/beware_only_buy_from_nuraphone/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Nuraphone/comments/8iw3he/beware_on...

srockets 2y ago

The police won’t help you. It’s not their job.

wahnfrieden 2y ago
They will at best waste your time, and at worst they will cause you and your family harm for involving them. In Toronto even a stolen car is not enough to get their attention if you are not a high-profile business owner.
- bagels 2y ago
  At best they will help you with stolen property, but that is rare.
  - wahnfrieden 2y ago
    Mythically rare. They're more likely to steal from you.
happyopossum 2y ago
Move, or elect better local politicians. Your city is broken.
- sneak 2y ago
  Different local politicians won’t change the legal fact that the police have no obligation whatsoever to investigate or prevent crime. It’s simply not in the job description.
  - 9dev 2y ago
    Err… what is their job, then, if not investigating and preventing crime? That pet theory with the slave patrols of yours, by the way, isn’t it; that’s a hoax. The modern police in the USA and other countries stems from the British police, which did exactly what they are supposed to do, since ages.
    - sneak 2y ago
      The police are the enforcement arm of the ownership class. They apply the law as required to enforce the the socioeconomic order. This is why when people who aren’t custodians of land or cash flows ask them to investigate or solve crimes they rarely do. The selective application of the law is how the current prerogatives of the ownership class are implemented in society. This is why it’s illegal to do cocaine at work if you’re a poor person flipping burgers, but not if you’re an investment banker.
- serf 2y ago
  we can't all live in Bedford Falls, and the police aren't there for the benefit of the every-person no matter where you live. it's a nice bit of propaganda that they're there for us, but I urge anyone with that idea to seek out and research the history and origins of the modern police. hint : in the US they first emerged as 'slave patrols', and then later modernized into 'industrial labor controls', and things weren't all that much better across the ocean in London with Sir Robert Peel and his version of the 'police service'.
  - gottorf 2y ago
    > the history and origins of the modern police > in the US they first emerged as 'slave patrols' > Sir Robert Peel and his version of the 'police service' I assume that prior to the "modern" police, policing was still necessary, since there were lawbreakers and troublemakers since time immemorial. What do you regard as the substantive difference between the pre-modern police force and the modern? Did the former somehow serve "all of us" better than the latter?
    - lazide 2y ago
      Typically law enforcement was DIY, done by a mob, or done at the behest/in the interest of a local strongman (king or lord). That led to extremely selective enforcement at the best of times. The idea of a professional, independent force that served the public and preferred formal laws was the innovation. Previously you’d need to either deal with it yourself, or track down a local patron and hope they cared enough to assign some muscle to deal with it on your behalf - and didn’t favor the perp more. Think ‘Godfather’. In those cases, written law was rarely a priority either.
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  Better to get rid of the police and let people get actual justice themselves.
  - DaSHacka 2y ago
    I'm sure that would end wonderfully.
    - throwaway48476 2y ago
      It worked for thousands of years.
- dennis_jeeves2 2y ago
  We need humans 2.0 for that to happen.
GeekyBear 2y ago
It depends on the city. > Police to give out free air tag tracking devices to combat rise in stolen vehicles https://www.princewilliamtimes.com/news/police-to-give-out-free-air-tag-tracking-devices-to-combat-rise-in-stolen-vehicles/article_88963a38-84d5-11ef-bf0a-87adfb3409d6.html https://www.princewilliamtimes.com/news/police-to-give-out-f...
FabHK 2y ago
I was in Singapore in 2013 and there was a big sign on a street saying: Crime Alert THEFT OF BICYCLE AT THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD ON 20 MARCH 2013 @ 7 AM Witnesses, please call Tanglin Police Division (phone number redacted)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

victorbjorklund 2y ago

Not everywhere. In Sweden that would be a crime (a little bit depending on what you mean left in the open).

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
kleton 2y ago
What kind of anarcho-tyranny is that?
- selfmodruntime 2y ago
  European countries sometimes have a rather repulsive legal system that provides far too much protection to perpetrators.
  - unreal37 2y ago
    There is no concept in American Law of "acquiring stolen stuff legally". If you buy something that was stolen, the original owner has the right to get it back without compensation to you.
    - rullopat 2y ago
      I don't know somewhere else but, in Italy, buying / getting stolen stuff from somebody else is a specific kind of crime as well. You need to give a solid explanation why you have a stolen good.
      - balls187 2y ago
        Similar, in the US "knowingly" receiving stolen property is a crime.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Ray20 2y ago
    Protection from what? No actions are taken against perpetrators' interests.
- wjnc 2y ago
  The logic is that the current possessor might have acquired the product bona fide and is not necessarily the thief. In order to assess this, you cannot repurpose the product yourself, but need the cops and court involved. It's the oppossite of anarcho-tyranny, it's a law favoring orderly and non-violent solutions of real world capitalist conundrums. Private repossession of stolen property in a 'bear arms' society... are accidents waiting to happen. In reality things are not so stiff. My dads bag was stolen from the train. The thief was apprehended on the station. He got his bag back from the cops because it had identifiable information in it. Perhaps a bit light on evidence that the thief was not the owner, but it's not always overly complicated. I think the thief got the right nudge.
  - j1elo 2y ago
    > the current possessor might have acquired the product bona fide and is not necessarily the thief. In order to assess this, you cannot repurpose the product yourself, but need the cops and court involved. A fun thought experiment is that in the time you might have left your car parked in the street, it might be stolen, sold bona fide, then (by happenstance) parked in the same area, so one day you just go back to it and drive it away. I guess in a more practical sense, you could claim that's (more or less) what happened after recovering your possessions after having them stolen... what would happen in that edge case?
  - Ray20 2y ago
    >acquired the product bona fide Does not change anything. I mean poor guy, became a victim of a fraudster, but what does my bike have to do with it? >you cannot repurpose the product yourself This is not repurposing, this is its prevention. >solutions of real world capitalist conundrums There is no conundrums, it is pure tyranny.
- transcriptase 2y ago
  Wait until you hear about Canada. The crown will ruin your life by dragging you through the courts for years for something like that, then drop the charges when it’s obvious they’re going to lose as to not set any precedent to be used against them in the future.
  - Slava_Propanei 2y ago
    [dead]
- afavour 2y ago
  It makes sense to me... mostly. The person currently in possession might have purchased it from the thief so taking it from them leaves them in a hole, not the thief. More broadly I think it does make a certain sort of sense that a theft should be resolved by the police. Find your item and want it back? Get the police involved. It's just that these days we're all so used the police being completely ineffectual that taking matters into your own hands is the only "sensible" solution.
t0mas88 2y ago
In the Netherlands buying stolen goods is a crime. If you knew or could reasonably have known it was stolen (e.g. a bike with a broken lock, no keys and a low price) you risk a serious fine. If you didn't know it was stolen you just loose the goods. Technically you then have a claim on the seller, but of course you're not going to get anything. So stealing your own thing back without the police involved may technically be illegal, but practically if the airtag tells you where your stolen bike is and you have the keys, skip the police and take it. Nothing will happen. The thief or their client is not going to call the police since that gets them arrested or fined. Of course you can't go into the thief's house to retrieve your things. Then you do need to call the police first. But the one case I know about someone doing that for a stolen iPhone based on Find My app location, the police showed up quickly and arrested the thief + found lots of other stolen things in their possession.

citizenpaul 2y ago

>stop glorifying cowardice I mostly agree. I don't think its cowardice most of the time though. Its that laws now favor criminals if you attempt to do anything yourself. Its become public policy that "rich" people buying things can simply absorb the loss and the police don't even have to do anything because no one bothers to report it. The police win because crime stats go down, thiefs win because they get the goods, the victim absorbs all the cost and if they try to do anything the victim goes to jail for whatever charges that made the police have to get up and work.

netsharc 2y ago
> Its that laws now favor criminals if you attempt to do anything yourself. That just reads like a general "this is why I'm a coward" excuse. Also what you want is spelled "It's".
- spacebanana7 2y ago
  It’s a good excuse because it’s a fair description of why cowardice is rational in many western legal contexts.
- sieabahlpark 2y ago
  [dead]
weakfish 2y ago
Can I get a source on any of these claims? Tbf, I am generally anti-police in the sense that they’re pretty institutionally bad at preventing or deterring crime in the current model, but I don’t really understand the argument you’re making here
- zonkerdonker 2y ago
  Not a source (and I'm also not GP), but 'duty to retreat' laws exist even in many states in the US. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_retreat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_retreat Just google property crime + [any largeish US city] + reddit and youll find dozens of anecdotal stories from citizens. Property crime seems to have essentially become a problem dealt with exclusively by citizens. Hell, SPD wouldnt even do anything to help when my car was stolen a few years ago. I got a call from the bar where it was abandoned and had to have it towed myself. I think the argument GP was making was that of incentives. Police department have essentially zero incentive to devote time+manpower to petty theft or property crime, so the easiest solution is to simply encourage citizens to not 'resist' so to speak. If you get mugged, its a lot easier to deal with as a police officer if you simply hand them your wallet, vs starting a fist/knife/gun fight in the streets.
- michaelt 2y ago
  I don't agree with citizenpaul But I do know if you're a homeless drug addict and you commit a crime that makes the cops throw you in jail - that's three meals a day, somewhere warm to sleep, and no lost income because you didn't have any income. Whereas if you're a member of the middle class and you commit the same crime and get thrown in the same jail? Mucho lost income, you can't pay your mortgage, you get fired for not showing up at work, and as a convict your employment prospects become much, much worse. So a "rational" member of the middle class might opt not to fight a homeless drug addict over $500 simply because they've got a lot more to lose.
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    >that's three meals a day, somewhere warm to sleep I don't know why people always parrot this like a fact. Plenty of prisons serve only two woefully inadequate meals a day (like, Fyre festival sandwich levels of inadequate) and prisons generally have atrocious climate control. In the southern states, they don't have air conditioning and it gets genuinely dangerous for the prisoners. Some jurisdictions give the Warden a budget for feeding the prisoners, and any dollar they don't spend, they get to KEEP. This predictably results in malnourished prisoners, but Americans do not have the empathy to care most of the time.
    - MikeRichardson 2y ago
      > any dollar they don't spend, they get to KEEP I'd love a source on that.
      - webninja 2y ago
        I’ll give you a too-big-to-be-illegal example. Geogroup, now named CoreCivic. It’s the largest owner of private prisons and jails in the US. They, along with other private prison corporations, engage in far more corruption than just pocketing the extra change though. They actively lobby legislators for mandatory minimum sentences and other law changes so that America can continue to be a world leader in the highest percentage of prisoners per capita. Their 2024 revenue was $2B.