Stuff acquired from work
Discussion
In the 1970s the liner Vistafjord was built on the River Tyne. One of her exterior lights scheduled for the promenade deck is still providing service above a front door porch of a friend'so former house.
The same house may have a home office whose furnishings bear a distinct resemblance to those fitted in officers' accommodation in 1980's warships.
The same house may have a home office whose furnishings bear a distinct resemblance to those fitted in officers' accommodation in 1980's warships.
duckwhistle said:
...One from years back, made the papers then- large Shipping Co. done lots of business with British Rail, Paid by cheque to BR YORK. Smart bloke opens account at bank in name of B..R.... York. Got caught eventually but meantime had spent several £10000's...
I once was listening in to Radio 5 late at night when they were covering the day's action in Parliament. At one of the committee meetings some big wig from HMRC was up before the panel to answer the charge that they'd sent out a million pound cheque to the London Borough of Harringey in the normal post and with the cheque payable to "LBOH". Unsurprisingly someone had intercepted the cheque between the HMRC print room and the Council official inbox and paid it into a newly opened bank account which was now empty. duckwhistle said:
One from years back, made the papers then- large Shipping Co. done lots of business with British Rail, Paid by cheque to BR YORK. Smart bloke opens account at bank in name of B..R.... York. Got caught eventually but meantime had spent several £10000's
Similarly, 20 odd years ago it was discovered 5-6 million had been nicked by postmen who had opened accounts in names like 'Inlandi Revini' and banked doctored stolen cheques. My favourite story of this kind is of this guy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Neil_Schneider
Long story short: bloke wants to open his own telephone equipment company but lacks the means to do so. Being a computer whizz, he hacks into Pacific Bell's stock computer system and orders items, to be delivered to certain points for "installation". He then uses his own vans to pick up the items and installs them, then hacks into the system again and erases the transactions. Eventually got caught because the stupid idiot refused an employee a pay rise, and said employee tipped off the cops.
Schneider later did very well as a computer security consultant - poacher turned gamekeeper.
Long story short: bloke wants to open his own telephone equipment company but lacks the means to do so. Being a computer whizz, he hacks into Pacific Bell's stock computer system and orders items, to be delivered to certain points for "installation". He then uses his own vans to pick up the items and installs them, then hacks into the system again and erases the transactions. Eventually got caught because the stupid idiot refused an employee a pay rise, and said employee tipped off the cops.
Schneider later did very well as a computer security consultant - poacher turned gamekeeper.
Justayellowbadge said:
duckwhistle said:
One from years back, made the papers then- large Shipping Co. done lots of business with British Rail, Paid by cheque to BR YORK. Smart bloke opens account at bank in name of B..R.... York. Got caught eventually but meantime had spent several £10000's
Similarly, 20 odd years ago it was discovered 5-6 million had been nicked by postmen who had opened accounts in names like 'Inlandi Revini' and banked doctored stolen cheques. glasgowrob said:
plenty over the years. nothing thats getting mentioned though
talking of theft from work, where do you think have the cheap genuine parts on eBay come from?
main dealer mechanics have a nasty habit of servicing a car with nothing more than oil from the overhead lines and the full service kit goes into the toolbox, particularly rife with a certain dealer group thats prevalent in Scotland
I can 100% believe this happens after a friend bought a 1 owner FBMWSH 330 (i think) a few years ago, took it to her local mechanic friend, who asked why she didn't ask him to look at it first as it looked like it had never been serviced, apparently the oil filter was so rusty it snapped when he tied to take it off.talking of theft from work, where do you think have the cheap genuine parts on eBay come from?
main dealer mechanics have a nasty habit of servicing a car with nothing more than oil from the overhead lines and the full service kit goes into the toolbox, particularly rife with a certain dealer group thats prevalent in Scotland
wildcat45 said:
Bloke I know owned a factory where he allowed this. It was a metal fabrication works that made stuff for industry. A lot of his staff were young lads with Scooby type cars and he'd happily let them use the gear at weekends to make stuff. It was all OK so long as he knew.
Seems a very sensible way to keep the staff happy and have people on site when the place would normally be locked-up and empty
On a similar vain when i rear ended someone in my car, the garage said it would be a right off via insurancem but i i wanted to bring it down on saturday the guy's in the garage all do private jobs on a Saturday so would be able to do it much cheaper with used parts if i wanted. Thought this was brilliantSeems a very sensible way to keep the staff happy and have people on site when the place would normally be locked-up and empty
I know an old boy who kept a part of a control panel from an old power station as a sort of souvenir whilst he was decommissioning it. It was otherwise destined for the skip, so nobody objected to him hanging on to it. Years later, he happened to be working in the control room of a nuclear power station and overheard their engineer bemoaning a piece of kit that was beyond repair and no spare was available. The old boy in question wandered over, had a look, and declared that he had one in his garage! Problem solved.
Electrical engineers seem to be hoarders by nature; we have a habit of rescuing old gear that the management don't consider worth keeping in "official" stores, squirreling it away in cupboards/storerooms/garages and waiting until it's needed. Which it invariably is, usually several years later when the manufacturer no longer exists...
Electrical engineers seem to be hoarders by nature; we have a habit of rescuing old gear that the management don't consider worth keeping in "official" stores, squirreling it away in cupboards/storerooms/garages and waiting until it's needed. Which it invariably is, usually several years later when the manufacturer no longer exists...
markmullen said:
All that theft really did well for the Clyde didn't it 
Dead right, the problem was rife, home jobs, materials etc often nothing large but collectively must have amounted to millions. Everyone was in on it to such an extent and for so long that it just became normal at all levels. From a lad nicking of with a couple of hinges to the top management 'borrowing' a couple of joiners for a bit of work in their house, nobody bothered. One squad once actually managed to nick a railway bridge one weekend on a closed service line.
Jonny_ said:
I know an old boy who kept a part of a control panel from an old power station as a sort of souvenir whilst he was decommissioning it. It was otherwise destined for the skip, so nobody objected to him hanging on to it. Years later, he happened to be working in the control room of a nuclear power station and overheard their engineer bemoaning a piece of kit that was beyond repair and no spare was available. The old boy in question wandered over, had a look, and declared that he had one in his garage! Problem solved.
Electrical engineers seem to be hoarders by nature; we have a habit of rescuing old gear that the management don't consider worth keeping in "official" stores, squirreling it away in cupboards/storerooms/garages and waiting until it's needed. Which it invariably is, usually several years later when the manufacturer no longer exists...
I heard a v interesting play on R4 based on the story behind the "Black Buck" bombing raids on Port Stanley airfield during the Falklands war - the aircraft engineers had to scour scrapyards and all possible hidey holes for old parts for the Vulcans, reinstall air-air refuelling systems etc. Expect that the same sort of thing happened as in the post above.Electrical engineers seem to be hoarders by nature; we have a habit of rescuing old gear that the management don't consider worth keeping in "official" stores, squirreling it away in cupboards/storerooms/garages and waiting until it's needed. Which it invariably is, usually several years later when the manufacturer no longer exists...
ETA - the play is well worth a listen if it is available again on iplayer (not at the moment).
Edited by Revisitph on Tuesday 1st December 18:43
A guy I work with is allowed free fuel for company miles, which he takes direct from the tank and is supposed to write down and log so it can be accounted for. We think over the last few years he's paid himself about £16,000 in fuel and never written a litre of it down anywhere. Takes the piss when he's on a week off, will pull in with a horsebox on the back, and fill up before he goes away all weekend.
Wants shopping really.
Wants shopping really.
Jimboka said:
Back in the day a work colleague was swiping scrap copper cable & selling to local scrapyard. He got 6 months I recall!
At our place one guy in the analytical lab had a nice sideline in 'scrapped' platinum crucibles which he then 'recycled' via the local scrappy.Unfortunately for him, whilst this enterprise was nicely underway the Brinks Mat heist happened and BiB suddenly got very interested in precious metal transactions going through scrap metal dealers. Oh dear ......
The day the Queen came.
Ugly place a shipyard,full of nasty looking kit and old scruffy buildings. One such was the dock toilet block, a large square lump of a place filthy grey with a flat roof surrounded by a brick parapet. It was decided that this was too much for the royal eyes, gazing as they would from the gleaming Britannia so it was disguised as a flower garden. Covered in red white & blue cloth it was to be filled on top with flowers. The parapet being at least 4 foot high should have allowed lots of space for the assembled mass of flower filled pots. The hapless garden blokes on climbing up on to the roof found the entire area filled nearly 3 feet deep in copper scrap. It was someone's swag dump all ready for collection probably during the night shift.
A Royal Loo had been specially constructed and there was much jockeying for position in order to nick off with the throne graced by the Royal posterior on removal of said Loo. Unfortunately the pristine facility remained unused so lacking the expected lustre it was dismantled and nicked anyway.
Ugly place a shipyard,full of nasty looking kit and old scruffy buildings. One such was the dock toilet block, a large square lump of a place filthy grey with a flat roof surrounded by a brick parapet. It was decided that this was too much for the royal eyes, gazing as they would from the gleaming Britannia so it was disguised as a flower garden. Covered in red white & blue cloth it was to be filled on top with flowers. The parapet being at least 4 foot high should have allowed lots of space for the assembled mass of flower filled pots. The hapless garden blokes on climbing up on to the roof found the entire area filled nearly 3 feet deep in copper scrap. It was someone's swag dump all ready for collection probably during the night shift.
A Royal Loo had been specially constructed and there was much jockeying for position in order to nick off with the throne graced by the Royal posterior on removal of said Loo. Unfortunately the pristine facility remained unused so lacking the expected lustre it was dismantled and nicked anyway.
I'm not in the office much anymore but popped in for period end a couple of weeks ago and realised the office manager still had a lot of her jobs to finish. So I thought I'd be nice and help out with the mundane stuff like reconciling petty cash and doing the paper invoicing. The petty cash tin was nearly 200 quid light! I stopped doing the reconciliation and just left as if nothing had happened. Back into petty cash after her pay day and it was back to being balanced. So now I've got to wonder if someone is helping themselves to mid monthlies or realised they had been rumbled "acquiring" some cash from work and just paid it back. Which now means going through months and months of receipts add adding everything up to check it tallies :angry:
I haven't been offered anything "off the back of a truck " for years .
Are we getting more honest or is it just too difficult to aquire stuff these days ?
Until the 80s every where had scams going .
The security company I worked for in the 80s had loads of investigations going and uncovered loads of scams extra to those we were looking for .
The main one I stumbled on was found by looking through the fuel logs one night when I was bored .
The fuel consumption on 3 of the 6 trucks was gallons to the mile !
It was obvious that fuel was being siphoned so the trucks in question were followed what we found was far worse than anticipated .
The trucks were on contract from BRS (one of the leaders in the field back in the day ).
They fueled up in the customers yard then went around the corner to a van with 50gal tanks in the back and pumped out the fuel they then went to the BRS yard a couple of miles away and filled up again and went off around the country doing deliveries and on return any remaining fuel was siphoned off .
This happened twice per week even on short journeys which is what I picked up on ,25 gallons to do 90miles !
Are we getting more honest or is it just too difficult to aquire stuff these days ?
Until the 80s every where had scams going .
The security company I worked for in the 80s had loads of investigations going and uncovered loads of scams extra to those we were looking for .
The main one I stumbled on was found by looking through the fuel logs one night when I was bored .
The fuel consumption on 3 of the 6 trucks was gallons to the mile !
It was obvious that fuel was being siphoned so the trucks in question were followed what we found was far worse than anticipated .
The trucks were on contract from BRS (one of the leaders in the field back in the day ).
They fueled up in the customers yard then went around the corner to a van with 50gal tanks in the back and pumped out the fuel they then went to the BRS yard a couple of miles away and filled up again and went off around the country doing deliveries and on return any remaining fuel was siphoned off .
This happened twice per week even on short journeys which is what I picked up on ,25 gallons to do 90miles !
Hughies folly.
In a now disused office wee Hughie spotted an old safe. Black glossy paint with gold and red lines surrounding it's gold badge declaring it a Patented Ratner Drillproof Safe 1889. Hugh lusted after this beauty,what a tool store that would make. So a plan was hatched, with a helper he would nick the safe and spirit it away to his den.
The bold boys levered up the safe and on rollers successfully got it to the loading bay where the Morris Minor pick up awaited with the wheelman in place. Now a minor snag arose, the bay was about 6 feet higher than the wee Morry. Much head scratching ensued but with no lifting gear and time pressing they decided to tip the safe over the edge and let it slide on to the Morry.
Now those with an appreciation of Physics will understand immediately that a two ton safe falling several feet will possess considerable energy and the wee Morry being of 8 CWT capacity may not have been the best choice of landing place. The Morris was somewhat modified by the impact,the wheelman legged it as did his partner in crime.
Despite his lack of appreciation of the finer points of the effects of gravity,Hugh was never the less a resourceful rascal, when the heavies arrived alerted by the crash,Hughie shouted ''two of them ,went that way '' and promptly vanished. Apparently the wheel man new nought of how his Morry got there, having been fast asleep at home.
Hughie further realised that he should have researched the whereabouts of the safe key before planning the venture.
In a now disused office wee Hughie spotted an old safe. Black glossy paint with gold and red lines surrounding it's gold badge declaring it a Patented Ratner Drillproof Safe 1889. Hugh lusted after this beauty,what a tool store that would make. So a plan was hatched, with a helper he would nick the safe and spirit it away to his den.
The bold boys levered up the safe and on rollers successfully got it to the loading bay where the Morris Minor pick up awaited with the wheelman in place. Now a minor snag arose, the bay was about 6 feet higher than the wee Morry. Much head scratching ensued but with no lifting gear and time pressing they decided to tip the safe over the edge and let it slide on to the Morry.
Now those with an appreciation of Physics will understand immediately that a two ton safe falling several feet will possess considerable energy and the wee Morry being of 8 CWT capacity may not have been the best choice of landing place. The Morris was somewhat modified by the impact,the wheelman legged it as did his partner in crime.
Despite his lack of appreciation of the finer points of the effects of gravity,Hugh was never the less a resourceful rascal, when the heavies arrived alerted by the crash,Hughie shouted ''two of them ,went that way '' and promptly vanished. Apparently the wheel man new nought of how his Morry got there, having been fast asleep at home.
Hughie further realised that he should have researched the whereabouts of the safe key before planning the venture.
I was told of a similar incident. Again, it was an office being cleared out, everything was scrap, it had to go. Again, it appeard that a safe had been overlooked. Except this office was about 15 floors up! Yes, you can see it coming ! It was levered onto a 4 wheeled trolly, and propelled as fast as 4 guys could push it towards a rather flimsy out panelled wall. Through it it went successfully, and disappeared from view. The 4 guys, upon arriving outside, found the safe buried about six feet into the lawn!!! Never mind, it was empty as it happened.
3am and a little quiet in work i decided to look behind a brick thing in the corner. It had been filled over the years with crisp packets coke bottles and other crap. At the bottom were 2 broken sheets of perspex covered in grease and dust with some scratches.I bagged them and took them home. I used a template and managed to get 4 good cuts and now they are windows on my brothers boat 
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