St Pete FL 24hr mats RED ALERT!!

[pete f]

got a smart one, I don't want to give out to much info on how done, but he picks washer with the most money in them and snaps out the coin box, in about 1 min. I had Greenwald box, not the high security, so my mistake. Even so, I think he would have plucked that. He will hit the machine that is out of the way. I posted his picture, a customer said he had been in the day before, just walked around and left. Good luck, empty the coin boxes frequently.

[William]

Does he leave any evidence or just pick the lock? If you didn't catch him on camera would you have known?

[pete f]

Does he leave any evidence or just pick the lock? If you didn't catch him on camera would you have known?

I would have known someone took my coin box!~ Actually a customer pointed it out when we arrived to service the store. The cams show who done it No pick a lock, this was mini crow bar affair.

[William]

Would a high security coin box have prevented this?

[pete f]

Would a high security coin box have prevented this?

MAYBE .........

[Anonymous]

I can only say one thing - what a low-life bastard.

[amartlock]

I had one of the locks on my Primus washer "fall apart" the other day. The nut on the back of the lock gets loose over time and must fell off in my unattended store. A customer put each piece of the lock (yes each washer, nut, etc. was accounted for) in a baggie and dropped it in my refund box. More impressively, they even put the $12 in quarters in the baggie as well! I was happy to see the honesty among this person. Of course it would have been nice had they called me as well because I'm not sure how long the lock was off and thus how many "free" washes people took advantage of. I do know that my till did seem a little low.

[pete f]

Because of this post I got a call from another owner, seems his machines had been hacked into. HE was lucky, ( if you call getting 1'000's of $ in damage lucky )as he had the guy arrested ( the luck ) and in custody. He called me with a detectives name to see if we had been hit by the same guy. The detective looks at the pictures, told me it was not the same guy, but he know the guy in my pictures, so i gave him more cam video and a list of damage and he was going to arrest the guy.


POST your problem here and warn everyone, maybe you will get the same results.

[pete f]

I got a call today from a detective, seems 2 more mats got hit recently, is an attended mat that closes at 10 pm. The guy hid in the bathroom and did his deed after closing. Be under cuation in St Pete right now, there is more than one, and maybe teaching others the tricks of the crowbar..

[pete f]

Ok, more crowbar action in the area, seems SQ's are the target. Easy pop the boxes, the big crowbar gets thru the top and into the vault.
Almost everyone has been hit around me, even an attended store ( the guy hid in the bathroom ) . If you have SQ, I suggest you get high security boxes, and drill and screw down the cover to the vault from the top of the washer, you need more than the 2 rivots the factory has..
These guys must be learning this in jail, like the salting years ago. It will spread to other parts of the state and country. Really sucks, makes cards look like a big win ( though the attended store was a card store)
I have talked with owners and detectives, but not much is done.
Empty often, get better boxes, 24 hrs is target store.

[geo]

Ok, more crowbar action in the area, seems SQ's are the target. Easy pop the boxes, the big crowbar gets thru the top and into the vault.
Almost everyone has been hit around me, even an attended store ( the guy hid in the bathroom ) . If you have SQ, I suggest you get high security boxes, and drill and screw down the cover to the vault from the top of the washer, you need more than the 2 rivots the factory has..
These guys must be learning this in jail, like the salting years ago. It will spread to other parts of the state and country. Really sucks, makes cards look like a big win ( though the attended store was a card store)
I have talked with owners and detectives, but not much is done.
Empty often, get better boxes, 24 hrs is target store.

I got guy than took a whole top of SQ washer off. So if they want it they will take it. may be less because it will taking space in their car.

Geo