Is This Rip Off Eric Week?

Eric Patterson

Moderator
Staff member
My week is going something like this:

1. Purchased Dewalt DW610 router on ebay and paid for it and should have had it this week. Router not received and seller not responding.
2. Purchased second Dewalt router (I wanted a second DW610 so as not to have to swap the collet from 1/4" to 1/2". With two I can just grab the router that matches the bit's shank) from FB Marketplace. Sent Postal Money Order, have not received the router, and now seller will not respond to my inquiries.
3. Removed six doors from duck blind Sunday afternoon and took them to my shop for repair. These are metal doors made by Osceola Machine in Arkansas that I add a plywood skin and grass rails to attach camo. I placed the rotting doors outside by the shop garage door. Last night I go over to the shop to make repairs and all the doors are gone. Someone took a rotting pile of plywood doors for Christ's sake.

For item 3 I had success finding out who thanks to a neighbor and should have the doors back tonight. Items 1 and 2 I'm going down the normal paths to try and recover my money, which will be a pain with low probability for success.

I've documented numerous thefts of my stuff here over the years so a lot of you will remember my Yamaha outboard stolen a year ago, my Benelli shotgun stolen a few years back, and some other items as well. I spoke to a policeman last night who basically said the courts are not concerned with petty theft and I'd get more satisfaction hiring a few thugs to beat the shit out of the thieves if I could find them. True story!

I'm simply fed up with thieves and low life criminals who take full advantage of a failed legal system. Life is better when you can trust strangers and that people aren't out to rip you off. But given all that has happened I guess it's time to stop trusting and adopt personal policies that keep me from being taken advantage of, even when inconvenient or prohibitive.

Please do me and every honest citizen a favor, if you happen to catch a thief push hard for the legal system to do it's job, even if it is an inconvenience or comes with a cost. I figure that when someone gets caught they've probably ripped off a lot more people so it's better to insist the courts dish out all the punishment they can for the good folks who never caught the perpetrator. I had a coworker go to extremes to get the legal system to make a low-life pay him back and he finally prevailed by getting the loser's wages garnished. It wasn't easy and the low-life was shocked someone stuck with it but in the end he had to make restitution. Most people would have let him get away due to the headaches involved. My friend made certain justice was upheld. That my friends is a good citizen.

Eric
 
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Eric,

It seems this attitude with the justice system is every where. Last summer we had an attempted break-in of our home. Local police officer told my wife the best solutions were to buy a security system or move! The perp was lucky they couldn't get in. My wife was watching one of our grandsons who was taking a nap. Mimi-griz would have used all means necessary to protect our grandson.

I'm glad you got Item @ checked off the right way.

Tom
 
Sorry to hear about your woes.....

It's not really that the courts aren't concerned with petty theft, it's that they're overworked. People probably don't know it but at least here in FL, if your house gets broken into and the intruder leaves DNA behind, if all they did was break into the house and steal something, then DNA tests won't be run. The only cases that are run in Biology are violent crimes. It isn't because they don't care.....they just don't have the manpower, money and extra equipment needed to run tests for all levels of crimes. Plus here in FL there are time limits on how long a case can sit before being worked, so unfortunately cases get pushed aside in favor of cases that have state required time limits. Same with the courts. There is only so much funding available, so only so many people can be hired, so only so many attorneys to prosecute all of the crimes that occur. So yeah, if you have something "petty" happen to you, you have to be the squeaky wheel to see that justice is served sometimes. It definitely sucks if you are the victim of a petty crime and it isn't right but unless more people scream and complain about the injustice of that, that is the way things will stay. Sadly, mostly it seems to come down to money and manpower. Not saying someone who has stuff stolen from them don't deserve restitution in some form, but getting violent offenders off the street is more important to the state if the state has to make a choice between the two and where to focus their energies.

It still sucks greatly though.
 
About two months ago there was a livewell in front of a mans house that looked like he put it out as ?free?. I walked down his long driveway he was cutting brush in front of the house I asked him if it indeed was free and that I could have it. He looked perplexed but told me yeah sure and said did you really just walk 200 yards to ask me that? I said I?d rather be anything then a thief. He laughed and I got a keep alive livewell from Cabelas for free. Police officers think this way because you build a case against a person then based on the judge and motivations of the prosecutors office they take your charges downgrade them offer Pretrial interventions probation ankle monitors you name it and the defendants spend less time locked up then the cop did on paperwork.
 
Eric~


Sorry to hear of your travails.


I do, though, fully support your multi-router strategy. I have one in my router table plus 2 others - each with different most commonly-used bits. (I like my Milwaukee with the molded-in hand grip best.)



All the best,


SJS

 
Good reason for cameras around property! Eric, this is a really good reason to support your local hardware stores rather than buying CACA via the net from some characters you do NOT know. Problems, just take stuff back with receipt. BINGO.
As for stuff being taken from the yard, well, THANK HEAVEN for an observant neighbor. If the sob doesn't bring the stuff back asap, prosecute his arse!!!
 
Spoke to a security guy at the gun show about security cameras around the house. Truly Sad. I'm hesitant about buying ebay and craigslist.
 
Update:

Doors were at my shop when I went by last night. Initially I called the minister of the church next door to my shop and spoke to him about the missing doors. He made a call and called me back and said I'd have my doors back, and now I do. On the routers I'm still waiting on one, since the seller finally responded to me. On the other router I have filed a complaint with Ebay and opened a dispute with the seller through Visa. Oh, and I left negative feedback on his account. That was mildly satisfying.

If only I could get a lead on the sorry low lifes that stole my Yamaha outboard and Benelli...
 
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It's good that your getting resolutions to some of your "people" problems. Hopefully the other problems will be resolved as well. Once trust is gone, it's very tough to restore.


Best regards
Vince
 
Eric, I feel your pain. The local mayor and DA are so corrupt its ridiculous.
My ex girlfriend was a child abuse therapist. When she interviewed locally they said sorry for the confusion, but they weren't hiring as by order of DA they were no longer prosecuting child abuse crimes
 
D. Hinton said:
Eric, I feel your pain. The local mayor and DA are so corrupt its ridiculous.
My ex girlfriend was a child abuse therapist. When she interviewed locally they said sorry for the confusion, but they weren't hiring as by order of DA they were no longer prosecuting child abuse crimes

That's terrible. I would have been tempted to call my local child advocacy center and run that info by them.
 
D. Hinton said:
Eric, I feel your pain. The local mayor and DA are so corrupt its ridiculous.
My ex girlfriend was a child abuse therapist. When she interviewed locally they said sorry for the confusion, but they weren't hiring as by order of DA they were no longer prosecuting child abuse crimes

That may be the worst thing I've ever heard about law enforcement. On a more positive note, while driving yesterday I heard a great interview on public radio about a new initiative with the local Sheriff and the local women's shelter on domestic violence. The interviewer asked the sheriff, "This seems personal to you. Is it?" "Yes. I grew up in a home with domestic violence, and it's why I entered law enforcement." He actually broke down and teared up.

Made me feel really good about voting for him and even signing his nomination papers when he knocked on my door last year.

He's also clamped down on two opioid dealers and put his officers on my rural road to catch the idiots who like to drive it at 65 mph. His predecessor didn't do that despite multiple requests from my neighbors with kids and dogs who are often walking the road.

I know this is off topic, but it seemed like a day we all could use good news.
 
Dani said:
Sorry to hear about your woes.....

It's not really that the courts aren't concerned with petty theft, it's that they're overworked. People probably don't know it but at least here in FL, if your house gets broken into and the intruder leaves DNA behind, if all they did was break into the house and steal something, then DNA tests won't be run. The only cases that are run in Biology are violent crimes. It isn't because they don't care.....they just don't have the manpower, money and extra equipment needed to run tests for all levels of crimes. Plus here in FL there are time limits on how long a case can sit before being worked, so unfortunately cases get pushed aside in favor of cases that have state required time limits. Same with the courts. There is only so much funding available, so only so many people can be hired, so only so many attorneys to prosecute all of the crimes that occur. So yeah, if you have something "petty" happen to you, you have to be the squeaky wheel to see that justice is served sometimes. It definitely sucks if you are the victim of a petty crime and it isn't right but unless more people scream and complain about the injustice of that, that is the way things will stay. Sadly, mostly it seems to come down to money and manpower. Not saying someone who has stuff stolen from them don't deserve restitution in some form, but getting violent offenders off the street is more important to the state if the state has to make a choice between the two and where to focus their energies.

It still sucks greatly though.

Although I bet there is plenty of money for the stuff that shouldn't be funded at all. I'll not mention them since the discussion would get political quickly.

I also bet if you shot that intruder/burgler/scumbag there there would be plenty of money to come after you for protecting yourself.

Mark
 
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