blog post Live on CBC Radio 3 w/ Grant Lawrence: Montreal - The World Theft Capital Of Rock n Roll?

I feel like I have had some particularly bad luck getting ripped off over the past few years....

I had my car (2003 Toyota Matrix) stolen from the underground parking garage where I used to live...  Ok, so it wasn't Toronto's greatest neighbourhood.... but still, you'd think a parking garage would add some degree of security!  I was kinda glad to get the car replaced, cause I had driven the snot out of it, but it SUCKED to lose my personal belongings in the car... including some CDs... THANK GOD my whole CD collection (approx 300 cds in one of those binder-holder things) was NOT in the car at the time.  I would still be crying 3 years later if that had gone!

I have also been Bank Card frauded 3 times - which my bank repaid...  and Mastercard thefted just before Christmas this year. 

Apparently I am a sucker.

That is some bad misfortune for sure!  What happens with the Bank Card fraud?  Like, how did it happen?  I'm curious!

Er, I should say, though, that I likely *will* play a gig in Montreal because, if we don't play gigs in Montreal, the terrorists (or somebody...) win, right?

I'm so used to the bank card fraud now, it's like a routine for me when it happens!

It goes like this: thieves put card readers on debit / ATM machines - and then set up cameras to spy on and steal your pin.... then, they take your card and try to withdraw some large amount / the typical max amount ($500 in the cases I have seen).... 

Then, the bank investigates it - and ends up replacing my money... but I'm sure I take a hit later with fees / insurance or something!

The lesson seems to be "Cover your pin like it's some secret 007 mission!"

At the age of 6 I had a pretty sweet silver coloured, large wheeled scooter.  I was the head peacock, racing around town on that thing; that is, until it was stolen!  I found it 3 months later while swimming in the river.  It was at the bottom.  By this time it was completely rusted through and useless.  What kind of monster does that???  At least enjoy my sweet ride if you're going to lift it!  Sheesh!

Thanks Sue, that's good advice, and good to know how it happens!

I wouldn’t call it the ‘worst’ theft, but it still kind of bothers me. It was my third summer living in Ottawa when my bike was stolen.

From my backyard.

Out of the shed.

During the day.

While I was home.

Pretty brazen, but considering the neighbourhood I live in (ahem Vanier) it is to be expected. To this day when I see a blue and silver schwinn mountain bike cruise by I look to see if it is mine.

The most we've experienced is a series of 2 or 3 car break-ins.

*knock on wood*

Not technically break-in's as they were nights we forgot to lock the car which is absurd that if you don't lock something, people actually think that it's somehow okay.

I blame the internet. Seriously. See music vs P2P.

At any rate I had all our spare change lifted as well as CD covers (my small victory is that the CDs they took, all of them were in the CD changer so they only got covers). But other than that, we got away pretty easy.

But I'll tell you, it took a few days of that dirty feeling seeing a rummaged through car and our daughter's ultrasound pic on the floor from the visor where we kept it special, to go away.

Always happens on garbage night.

Locking the car happens 2 and 3 times and night and always when whomever sets the alarm for the house for the night.

I can't imagine how it must feel when you get something of real significance stolen from you. Don't want to know.

Luckily insurance has covered it each time but having musical instruments stolen is a heart wrenching experience.  After break-ins at my apartments when I was a kid the police actually managed to recover my Charvel Model 2 guitar and Dean Markley amp and distortion pedal.  But my beautiful black BC Rich Mockingbird never was recovered and it still hurts.  I loved that thing more than any other possession I've owned.  

I've thought about replacing it over the years but it just doesn't seem right unless it's that exact guitar and then I'd be worried about it getting stolen again.  But my roommate and I did spend an evening at the local pub recently cruising EBAY and Craigslist and there were a couple pretty close to mine.  If anyone sees one for sale, Black, NJ Series neck-thru with a hard tail and the old headstock with BC horizontal and RICH vertical lemme know.  Might have to buy one.

Like This but in black, not pink.

just a few months ago i had some a few hundred comic books stolen out of the storage just down the hall from my loft down here in Atlanta (i'm an ex-pat currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Georgia Tech). i think it may have been an "inside job" (ie. someone else that lives in the building) because to get into our building, you need to swipe a card at two separate locations to get access to the living areas, then you need a key to get into the storage room (one of several in the building), and the storage area itself had a padlock on it, which was circumvented by simply forcefully bending the latch. the comics were even at the very back of the storage unit, behind other valuable materials, and yet they were all that was taken. i can't help but feel like i was specifically targeted, which actually made it that much more upsetting.

the comic books that were stolen were not of obscene value (though they certainly weren't cheap to obtain!), but they were back issues that i hadn't yet had a chance to read, but was really looking forward to! they were the grant morrison "doom patrol" run and a large chunk of the mid-80's "teen titans" books, for those who know comics.

on the up side, there were a lot of other irreplacable items in there that thankfully weren't stolen, and i did get to see a police officer dust for prints, which was certainly an interesting experience.

Having my heart stolen, stomped on, treated poorly...then returned needing much recuperation.

I did have my basement suite in Victoria broke into twice!  First time they stole my rent money! That hurt.  The second time they were breaking in as I was walking around the corner to my door.  They took my feeling of safety.

For me, it would have to be a couple of cd's (but thanksfully they were ones that I would now be embarassed to own), and gold ring that my mom bought me when I was 16 was stolen twice by the same person but I was able to get it back both times and I still wear it, my first digital camera, and one of many disc-mans that I owned. This was all during high school.

In residence in university it would have to be bread, left-overs from supper one night, cutlery, and a couple of cups, and a container of Rolo Dibs from the freezer when I was gone one weekend.

See this post

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=13949892&blogId=487671106

 Adorable little Pony Up's  most recent album STAY GOLD was lifted and put on the Net even before they released it! What kind of schmuck would do that to bunch of cute starving artists?!

Good point, you have to assume if you're buying a bike from a shifty character for a lot cheaper than it's probably worth, it's stolen...  tackling could occur!

As I was at work one winter, my hockey equipment was stolen from the back seat of my truck... who steals used hockey equipment!? It stank all to hell... and my $600 skates were in there!

After a police report & asking all the used sports stores around... nothing... 

Yay new hockey equipment... boo to spending shitloads unnecessarily!

Worst I've seen is a pair of cars sitting in a river.  This was in Eastern Ontario and they were there for probably at least 4 years.  Something tells me that's not getting solved ;)

When I was like 12 someone stole my bike which sucked cause I didn't get it replaced for like 4 years.

While I was borrowing a friend's car it was broken into in a parking garage in Vancouver. No idea why they bothered, who sees an old Chevy Caviler with the stock stereo and no bags inside and says "Man, I gotta break into this!". Guess I was lucky he/she just popped the lock and didn't do any damage.

I've been pretty lucky as far as theft goes. One of the first house parties I ever atteneded though I brought a CD Sleeve that had all of the CD's I owned at the time in that. They got yoinked..It sucked at the time as everything was not archived digitally, but the things that I wanted to be replaced have been (several times over for some CD's) since then, like the Smashing Pumpkins first 3 albums (4 including Pisces Iscariot), Dookie by Green Day, Smash by Offspring and the first self titled album by Foo Fighters. Oh yeah, and frogstomp by Silverchair...the bands that I talk about whenever the 14 forever segment comes up.

re:Montreal being gear theft capital...yikes, that's alot of bands getting hosed there..beats Vancouver forsure, although we've had a few unfortunate incidents in 2009. The big one i'm remembering is Library Voices losing over $10,000 worth of gear, but I know there were others. Perhaps a Guardian Angels type group (but just for watching touring bands vans) is in order. I'll take the first watch.

what with how  minor the thefts have been to me over all the places I've lived and traveled.  Here are some that impacted me:

The first real theft I had was all of my Detroit Tigers baseball cards were stolen by a former classmate from sixth grade.  That killed my baseball card collecting, so that collection, minus all of my Detroit cards, ends in 1964.  However, I still have them all.

While in college, was visiting the San Francisco area and came down to ride the new Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART).  My car, a 1971 Datsun 1200, was broken into in the parking lot, and the thief took a cassette recorder, a small box of tapes (mainly of radio station airchecks), an old camera that was older than I am, and most significantly, my heavy coat.  However, even though I had my entire music collection with me, they didn't seem to have interest in a large case box of LPs.  Maybe the fact that it weighed so much had something to do with it.

When my ex wife and I separated the first time, in the first week, our car, the one she took, was swiped out of the parking lot of her apartment.  It was found four days later, but required about $2000 worth of repairs, including the vandalism to the interior.

After we divorced, my daughter went out to drive her car to school, only to find that the front wheels had been stolen off of her Toyota Celica.  Our guess is that the wheels were targeted because they were preminum Toyota wheels.  The car was left sitting up on two Honda jacks, with the lug nuts on the ground. 

The last thing I had stolen, had to do with the fishing float tube here on my profile.  When I'm up camping at my fishing spot at Mill Creek Falls (the mcf in my screen name), we inflate the tubes in camp and carry them on our backs up the mile to the lake, but leave them up at the lake for the duration of our visit.  We have a "secret hidden hiding spot" off of the trail that we have stored them in for years, but one time I decided to just put a cable and lock through them all, and just chain them to a tree at lakeside.  A bunch of (wild) local kids went up to the lake at dawn, and I had a bad feeling.  I went up to find that the storage pockets on the float tubes had been gone through - and all of our files in the storage boxes had been stolen.  But at least they didn't knife the tubes destroying them.

I'll have to think more about what may have been lifted from me over the years.

Lee

Had my bike stolen from Montreal Metro last year. My wifes bike stolen in same 24hrs from front of apartment. Loads of my mtl friends have stolen bike stories. Google it and there are tonnes of Mtl bike theift bleeding heart stories. Word on the street is that they're resold in Toronto.

reading about your guitar getting stolen is hurting my heart..

There is a hockey rink in London notorious for theft. Inside and outside. Every team usually brings their own padlocks for the dressing rooms. Out team even went so far as bringing a valuables bag, that we bought out to the bench with us even though the door was padlocked.

This all because, one time while a team played on the ice, the ENTIRE contents of the dressing room went missing. They had to go home in their gear!

I've lost $60 out of my pockets there while I played a game.

One of these bands got their start using stolen gear.  I can't remember which one....anyone know?  All I know is that they had all this stolen gear and couldnt sell it so they decided to start a band...I have a feeling it was the Ramones...but I'm not sure anymore.

I had an incident when someone stole my art! (which I am very precious about) It was at an Art Centre that I worked at and I happened to be working at the time. The building was very quiet during the day and I was able to deduce who the culprit might be. I did some sleuthing and called said individual and politely asked her to bring it back. Of course she claimed to know nothing about it but a couple of days later my art piece "mysteriously" was returned to the place from where it was taken.

A friend of mine had his guitar stolen.  He had insurance on it and had the check in his pocket.  He went into a pawn shop to check out some stuff.. low and behold his guitar was there.  He was tempted to cash the cheque and buy the guitar at their discounted price, but really wanted the individuals who stole it to get hit for it so he call the cops and gave this cheque back to insurance company.  I guess one of the guys who worked in the pawn shop was in on the deal (he knew he was purchasing stolen property) and both got charged.

We had someone TRY and break into our 1992 Ford Probe (sweet ride) on the passenger side door - screwed the lock up big time trying to hack it with a screw driver.  If they hadn't have given up they would have noticed that the drivers side lock was broken and unlocked....Goofballs.

Also TB3 (15) Living in London as well we've had a few cases of rummaging through our car and do the same routine of multiple locking before going to bed.

good detectiving!

We once had our Chevy Nova stolen from outside our appartment building.  We didn't care too much about the car, but Neil's mechanics tools were under a blanket in the back as he had been doing some back yard work on my brothers car.  That was a pretty devistating feeling.  (We're talking a lot of money to replace.)

The car was recovered with a the trani completely wreaked (I believe they followed the trail of fluid to find the car).

Unbelievably, the tools were untouched in the back seat.  I don't think the theives even looked back there.  Lucky, lucky, Lucky.

Winnipeg has been know for our child car theives in the past.  I think (I hope) that's now under control.

Yes. We are very lucky to be comiserating about these trivial (in context) matters. Something even harder to think about is I was just reading this about Haiti the other day. It's been such a basket case of a country for so long it was really surprising but heartening to read things were somewhat progressing. Then this latest clustefuck hits what has to be the unluckiest contry in America's...

I had 800 CDs stolen at one point from my Toronto Apartment, about 15 years ago. I had a database of all of them including the number of CDs in collections, so the insurance settlement was reasonable. They did liberate some good collectors stuff though: the black cover edition of Sarah McLachlan's Touch was something I was proud of having bought when it was new.

Funnily enough now I have almost no CDs, having gone digital streaming (and donated a bunch of classical stuff to the Vancouver School Board.)

Have you really been blogging since 1999? Wow! That's so cool. Your most recent post has to do with unintended consequences. I know that I'll enjoy going through your archives today/tonight forsure

Several years ago, I was a member of a downtown heath club - the one where Arnold works out at here in Sacramento.  Easily the best (and most expensive) in town.  Really nice place.  Well, after a workout, I came back to find my locker ajar - something unexpected since I put my own padlock on the locker.  Turns out some guy came in on a guest pass, and left mysteriously after 15 minutes.  Apparently, inside his grip was a bolt cutter, and four locks were cut off.  I lost my wallet and money clip.  Within one hour, he'd charged $150 at Tower Records, and filled up two vehicles, faster than I could cancel the cards.  However, I'm lucky, I guess, in that no evidence of identity theft occurred.

The other theft - and its a bike theft - happenend when I was out on the side of my own house, cutting the lawn (I lived on a corner at the time).  Someone driving by said that someone just ran into my garage and stole my son's  bike, leaving the junk bike he was riding behind.  (Talk about brazen!)   After driving around, we saw the kid on the bike.  I skidded to a stop and ordered him off the bike.  He jumped off and ran.  But his brain dead buddy (stoners) stood there - holding my son's bike helmet.  After that, I never left my garage door open any longer than I had to.

Lee 

Last summer someone broke into my car and stole some CDs and change, not a big deal. But what really hurt was my dashboard Yoda was stolen, too. I still miss his words of wisdom that were just a button push away.

Been in Old South for about 10 years straight. 

We've had one attempted break-in (with that sweet Ford Probe)

2 Times where we forgot to lock the car door.  Only thing they got was a car wash ticket!

And any number of attempts we don't even know about. All of our neighbours (we've moved 4 times within old south) always have stories about break-ins as well.  These are all cars, never known a home break-in yet.

There are these scutters that have tricycles with baskets, they ride around at night pilferring blue boxes and I think its them that will just try car door handles that look promising.

I was thinking the same thing. That is a serious string of bad luck for Shane. He says he knows who the culprit was who robbed his house but he can't prove it!

I'm doing some searching for transit related materials and looky what popped up at the top of my search results..BART! Made me think of you down there in Cali and smile...

Hello band name!

It's usually someone the musician knows.

Or knows of.

But always hard to prove like in Shane's and my brother's case… 

all these stories of theft are depressing!  It's making me think really badly of us as a people...  What do we do?  How do some people grow up thinking it's ok to steal other peoples things?  I don't think harsher punishment is the answer (look at how that's working out for the USA, with 1% of their population currently residing in jail!), but there has to be something...

I wonder how countries with really good social systems fair in the crime statistics. 

I don't want to bash BART, as I use them when I'm the Bay Area when not driving.  But San Francisco is a place where I'm always concerned where I drive and park.  And since I drive minivan, there isn't much to conceal in there.  However, because its all open, maybe they see there isn't anything in there to steal.

Lee

Thanks, it's all due to yourself though! I just started using it when talking to you, but it just has naturally filtered out to interactions with others. I still use the @ too, but I like being able to mix it up. And others are doing so too!

good for you, you should be extra proud of that. perhaps we'll be able to see this piece?

that's fair of you to point out!

Being fair is my usual fare.

well done!

so, is that link you sent photoshop or makeup?

yep, I'm thinking along those lines.  Looking at some of the only stats I've been able to dig up, the US has the highest prisoners per capita ratio (715 per 100,000 or .715%), while Canada is tied for 73 with 116/100 000, or .0116%).  Norway (voted best country in the world to live in 2009 by the UN) has 64/100 000, or .0064%. 

So we're not perfect, we're somewhere in the middle.  I have to think that social programs have something to do with this, but I don't have the data to see if there's any correlation. 

Definitely some fodder for a blog post?  :)

.. tuning in late again, work keeps getting in the way:

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but the problem, particularily with band gear and tools is somewhat self-sustaining.  People who can least afford to replace gear end up having to get stuff at pawn shops, craigslist, eBay, flea markets rather than replace with new.  Not always stolen, but often I'm sure, based on what I've seen here in Vancouver.  It's tough to pass up a bargain, but I'd hate to buy something that supports the "thieving" industry by purchasing gear that's obviously stolen from someone else.

and just a friendly reminder; correlation equals causation..

but yep, my 'gut' is in agreement with you. I'm not sure if i've ever pointed you in his direction, but if not I think you'd really like Matt Yglesias's stuff...he's probably got some stuff in the past few days about socio-economic conditions in the dread socialist countries of Europe!

Ok, maybe not the worst theft ever, given what he stole, but in retrospect it was pretty scary. I was home alone in my residence townhouse. I live with 3 other people, and at the beginning of last semester we didn't really lock our door when someone was home. My one roommate had gone home for the weekend and the other two had just left to go meet some friends. Our townhouse is three floors and I live on the top, so it's a little difficult to hear things downstairs. I thought I heard a noise (luckily I didn't have music on) and since no one called up the stairs to say they were home, I went down to the second floor landing. Where I found a strange man in the house. It looked like he'd just come out of my roommates room, and he was holding something in front of him (a backpack, I think). I was pretty stunned, but I thought maybe he knew one of my roommates. He made some lame excuse about being there (which I semi-believed at the time) and started moving towards the stairs. I followed him downstairs, where he opened the door and went out. Before he closed the door, I could see a girl outside (probably a lookout). I locked the door, and upon realizing what had happened, looked to see that nothing was gone from downstairs (we have an xbox and my camera was on the table). It was only later that we discovered he had stolen my roommate's laptop which, ironically, is the crappiest one in the house and needs the power chord to work (he didn't take that). The only thing she was annoyed about was that all her music was on it.

We made a police report, but nothing ever came of it (of course). Needless to say, we always lock our door now.

when i was younger we scored a canoe at a ridiculously cheap price (it was legit, i swear!). we kept it out at our cottage, hidden under a pile of brush. the road to our cottage is fairly obscure & out of the way. the last time it got used, my uncle was a bit lazy with covering it up. next time we went down, it was gone.. we were fairly heart broken as replacing it was just nowhere near our budget.

my uncle got to take my cousin and i on one canoe trip, we had exciting plans to go on many more...

we also had clothes stolen off our line. my uncle lived next door to us, with no fence between his place and ours. looking out his back door, he saw a girl standing near the clothes line in our back yard, but from his distance, it looked like my best friend so paid no attention. a little bit later mom came out & realized her pants had been stolen.

i had my kitbag stolen from the laundromat. it was the day before school was to start, & i was washing it. i know it was the neighbor. that family was well known for trouble, and it was almost a daily occurrence for the police to show up at their house.

i also had my prescription sunglasses stolen. i even know who stole them. the sister of a friend of mine. this lady has eyes so bad her glasses look like the bottom of a pop bottle!! my eyes were barely bad enough to warrant glasses. i never saw the lady again.

all of these thefts came when we were at our poorest. replacing things, even a couple of pairs of pants or a kitbag, was difficult.

Yes, very depressing indeed. 

Especially when you come from Charlottowne, and are surprised that someone in Winnipeg has to use an antitheft divise on the steering wheel of their car!

Someone stole my barbeque once.

It was sort of dangerous. I was thinking of replacing it as flame kept splurting out the bottom where the hose attaches to the propane tank.

While I would not wish anyone any harm, I wouldn't feel completely bad if whoever stole my BBQ blew up.

I use an anti-theft device on my car every single day I drive it anywhere! (little secret... I lost the key to it about ten years ago... visual deterrent only)

Someone broke into my car, and stole about $5.00 worth of loose change, threw all my cds around but the only one they took was Danny Michel's Feather, Fur, & Fin. I caught the theif in the act, called the police but they didn't bother to come. I guess my Timmie's money and Danny Michel cd weren't all that valuable in their eyes.

OK, having stuff stolen sucks - and I firmly believe you should be able to beat someone soundly if you catch them in the act, but I have a silver lining story.  After finishing university I was essentially so broke I couldn't even get out of London.  I was working part time in a bar, verging on homelessness, and generally wollowing in misery.  I couldn't afford to put gas in my car, so it generally just sat behind my house.  One day, I woke up and it had been broken into - they got the stereo, my buddies old golf clubs and some CDs.  They popped the door lock and wripped out the back seat to gete at the trunk.  All in all, between items and damage, it was about $1000.  I took it as the opportunity I needed - I took the cheque, loaded the crap I had left in a makeshift trailer and used the money to drive to Vancouver.  I picked up hitchikers along the way who share gas and arrived in Van with $150 (gas was cheaper then).  Got a job within a week and the rebound was on.

I often wonder what would have happened if someone hadnt been kind enough to break into my POS car and take my crappy stuff.  

haha... that was amusing.

bhahahahah! Yeah, or a bunch of kids lead by a trailer park boy.

Flipside of comedy. Haiti was mentioned earlier and I've just been reading some depressing things about it. Like Pat Robertson blaming the Haitians themselves for turning against god and bringing the earthquake upon themselves. And then asking for people to donate to him so that he can then help. So yeah. I've always assumed that the Red Cross is the 'best' place to donate any aid dollars to; is that just some bias of mine showing through? Since the blog rules I imagine someone else has thought about this already...

If anyone wants their blood to boil like mine just did, here's a link. Benoit's xkcd link is much funnier. Go there afterwards.

It sounded like you were each obliquely referencing a pot blend or something. I was kinda lost too. But it was damn funny when you just asked that and then moved along. I'm not aware of any strain by that name..but it does have blend right in it so there's that. I imagine pirates have lots of blends. They're hardscrabble pirates..they have their own tobacco blends (which probably contain some marijuana) and their marijuana blends (which contain tobacco), plus rum blends (barrels freed from various looted holds)...I'm sure they have plenty more blends I haven't yet imagined. What do you mean it's not the 17th century?

...here is also a hoot.

Then click "next". Also a hoot, if different.

Thanks for adding the necessary expletive at that vile man...

I'm rather fond of this one.  And I kind of like this one, too.

I'm afraid I don't recognize the name, but his Wikipedia page has been updated to say as much, but i'm not seeing where it's referenced from..

Seems confirmed.

Grant's looking out for you. Of course your Danny Michel CD is valuable. But use of police resource's valuable, maybe not...I'm not smart enough to make that judgement. Since stew's plus side story was so great, we can keep the ball rolling and say that in the end everyone listening to R3 today was able to hear this tune!

thanks for [128]. definitely stay on top of those potential text donation scams...rife for ripoffs..

if i believed in hell, i would say there was a special place there for people like that.

many apologies!

i've been into the spray glue. fumes a plenty.

Don't worry about the name mixup. it's a single letter

No Prob! I think you're right about the R3 blog rule book, and it's contents. I wonder what else is in it.