Help! Stolen iPad 2 in school!

[Acorn]

I had a girl try pull my wallet out of my back pocket before. they are just as bad as the guys when it comes to theft. I read your blog and I realize going through all that trouble talking to the campus police and everything might make you feel better but the reality is they cant do anything. even if the girl was in the hallway using it so many people have ipads what could they even say. hey is that yours. they cant do anything really. even if you ran into her again and said hey thats her she stole my stuff they still couldnt do anything.

 

[Night Spring]

I had a girl try pull my wallet out of my back pocket before. they are just as bad as the guys when it comes to theft. I read your blog and I realize going through all that trouble talking to the campus police and everything might make you feel better but the reality is they cant do anything. even if the girl was in the hallway using it so many people have ipads what could they even say. hey is that yours. they cant do anything really. even if you ran into her again and said hey thats her she stole my stuff they still couldnt do anything.

Surely they could stop her, on the basis of OP identifying her as the one who took his iPad, and if she does have an iPad, check the serial #?

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

The problem is the person "nearby" was the thief!

you mean trust a complete stranger to watch your stuff. riiiiight...genius. 🙄

This is a university setting. Thieves don't like to be "marked," especially college-educated ones. If you ask someone to watch your stuff and that person is gone along with your stuff when you return, it's much too obvious who did it. Getting "marked" is actually a great deterrent to stealing and I bet if the OP had asked the "nearby" thief to watch his stuff, it'd end up not getting stolen. It's not like they have the option of escaping to a different college.

I've asked several people to watch my stuff while in college and vice versa, to no ill effect. Of course I wouldn't do this out in the street.

 

[WilliamG]

I don't think Apple can do anything about it, and I'm sorry for your loss, despite the hyperbole of your tale.

Also, this part makes no sense:

"The iPad struck the balance perfectly between the two.

And so did the thief who stole it."

The thief struck the perfect balance between an iPhone and a MacBook Pro? 😕

Ohhh, nevermind. Just being obsessive. 🙂

 

[jplusc]

Perhaps I am mean but I feel the OP is just trying to drive traffic to his blog since he just registered and is telling people to go to his blog with advertising.

 

[Jimbo47]

Perhaps I am mean but I feel the OP is just trying to drive traffic to his blog since he just registered and is telling people to go to his blog with advertising.

No, thats what I thought too, but I was keeping my mouth shut. But now that somebody else said it, I don't feel bad.

 

[bufffilm]

methinks you're entirely overestimating the deterrent value of getting marked, more imagined than real, i think. besides, being marked only matters if the thief is caught and his identity widely publicized. it might matter in a very small school. in any mid to large sized campus with thousands of students, the news blows over pretty quickly (petty theft is a common occurence) and assuming the culprit is not expelled from the school, he/she can easily fade into the student populace.

if you read the OP's account, he has even more evidence than most - he has an eyewitness account of the person who returned the bag (who is actually the thief), computer records of the thief's login into the university network, and the OP himself could pick the person out of a lineup. and yet the thief is still at large.

i think most people are generally honest, but asking a complete stranger to watch your stuff while you walk away is just foolish and blind trust. the fact that you've haven't been burned yet only means you haven't done it often enough for it to statistically matter. also, what kind of 'stuff' matters. a bag stuffed full of textbooks and a t-shirt gets passed over. a bag with an ipad, ipod, etc are attractive to opportunistic theft. let someone see you using an ipad and put yourself in a secluded area and then ask someone to watch your stuff then. good luck with that!

This is a university setting. Thieves don't like to be "marked," especially college-educated ones. If you ask someone to watch your stuff and that person is gone along with your stuff when you return, it's much too obvious who did it. Getting "marked" is actually a great deterrent to stealing and I bet if the OP had asked the "nearby" thief to watch his stuff, it'd end up not getting stolen. It's not like they have the option of escaping to a different college.

I've asked several people to watch my stuff while in college and vice versa, to no ill effect. Of course I wouldn't do this out in the street.

 

[Katotech]

Stolen property registry

Some used Mac equipment resellers keep a database of stolen equipment serial numbers. Powermax of Seattle, WA is one example - you can report your number to them online. If your iPad ever shows up in their hands, they promise to grab it, contact the authorities and notify you.

Perhaps we could start a follow-up thread to collect the names of business-operated stolen equipment registries for situations such as these.

One thing you can do is notify all of the local pawn shops. Many of them are well aware of the importance of integrity in their operations since thieves often try to fence the loot through them. If you can provide the pawn operators with sufficient detail that they can make an unequivocal identification, (serial number is required!), they will put it on a watch list. (Some states require pawn shops to record all transactions with a camera; anyone trying to fence your iPad to one of them will be photographed.

The earlier advice to watch Craig's list is good - somebody caught a thief in our area by this method not so long ago.

 

[Mdifilm]

I did use Find My iPhone, but the thief was quick enough to wipe it before I could put a lock on it. 🙁

How often did u tried find my iPad? I notice sometime mine take a few tries to get it to find my iPads...

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

i think most people are generally honest, but asking a complete stranger to watch your stuff while you walk away is just foolish and blind trust. the fact that you've haven't been burned yet only means you haven't done it often enough for it to statistically matter. also, what kind of 'stuff' matters. a bag stuffed full of textbooks and a t-shirt gets passed over. a bag with an ipad, ipod, etc are attractive to opportunistic theft. let someone see you using an ipad and put yourself in a secluded area and then ask someone to watch your stuff then. good luck with that!

It was done quite often when I was in college, as laptops were bulkier and more cumbersome to carry back then. Just look for someone next to you in the library who's really busy studying and you can likely trust him or her. I'd still argue that a would-be thief would just move to an easier target than make it too obvious that it was him/her doing the stealing.

I don't know why the OP didn't just take the iPad with him, as it's relatively easy to carry. Chalk that one up to stupidity.

 

[Thetonyk123]

just put it in your pocket...... if you have huge pockets

 

[toiday]

You can report it to apple but they will not help you track it and find it. However they will log it into their system and if someone ever takes this device to the genius bar they will know its stolen and you will be notified. However, they will never track the device for you even though they are fully capable of doing so.

LOL - Apple can't even recover their own device...

 

[xcvista]

Just keep your close to you. I'm university student too and I never let my devices, include a MacBook Pro (plus it's modified), an HTC HD7 phone and an iPad, out of my reach.