BMW M140i stolen off driveway - Cheltenham

[lyonspride]

Graveworm said:

lyonspride said:

Car thieves leave car and wait to see if it has a tracker, at what point are they likely to get caught?
It's been known for years that trackers are a PR stunt at best, the Police don't go after them because most of the time they don't get to catch the crims, and THAT screws up the crime stats.

How does it screw up the crime stats?

Because it's Police time which doesn't result in a crime being solved (ie crims caught and prosecuted).
Don't blame the Police though, blame the idiots setting the targets.

[BVP]

lyonspride said:

Graveworm said:

lyonspride said:

Car thieves leave car and wait to see if it has a tracker, at what point are they likely to get caught?
It's been known for years that trackers are a PR stunt at best, the Police don't go after them because most of the time they don't get to catch the crims, and THAT screws up the crime stats.

How does it screw up the crime stats?

Because it's Police time which doesn't result in a crime being solved (ie crims caught and prosecuted).
Don't blame the Police though, blame the idiots setting the targets.

Well, I can only talk from my experience:

Probably some trackers are PR stunts. In the nearly 3 years that I have been using the BMW connected drive app, however, never once was the car located more than 10 meters away from what the app said, so I trusted it and tried really hard to explain this to the operator, who answered my first call. He told me the trackers were quite inaccurate, that's why they don't go after them. Probably what he actually was trying to tell me was 'Why don't you go and collect your car, it's probably just stashed there to check whether it's tracked, but we won't be able to catch the thieves, so not interested''? That would have been a fair answer - I would have gone and even been there before the car stopped responding. As I said, I wasn't too lazy to go, because later I did anyway. I only thought the police could be there much, much faster. And I had a break in and stolen valuables to deal with (my family was still away).
So what they did was waste their chance to catch the criminals by being so slow and waste police time anyway, because they still went after 5 hours.

I understand how stretched the police forces are but applying the same rule to every situation is just wrong. Wouldn't it be more common sense to check the location on google satellite maps first and then decide whether it's worth going asap or not? Shopping centre car parks and leafy residential streets - not high priority. Secret garages (no street signs, no registered body repair business at this address) with broken down vehicles lying around and a recovery truck at the ready - probably worth checking. And I pointed out what I had seen on google maps when I called.

I am not trying to tell the police how to do their job and I know of many cases when they have been brilliant, but I just did't receive the service I expected in this particular case.

Edited by BVP on Sunday 9th December 13:27

Edited by BVP on Sunday 9th December 13:29

[2Btoo]

BVP said:

The attitude of the person on the other end however was quite dismissive - the tracking apps are not really accurate, the police officers are really busy with more serious crimes, etc. I couldn't believe my ears - I thought I was serving them a criminal organisation on a platter and they didn't care!

I live in London. Expecting the police to do ANYTHING relating to property crime (in fact, pretty much any form of crime whatsoever) is sadly now a deeply fanciful notion.

BVP said:

I just did't receive the service I expected in this particular case.

Without getting to semantically picky, the police used to be a force, not a service. There is a big and fundamental difference. Poor service is one thing, lack of force to uphold the law is entirely different.

What you experienced was a failure of the police force, not just poor service. I'm sorry to hear that it led to you losing your car.

[Escort3500]

2Btoo said:

BVP said:

The attitude of the person on the other end however was quite dismissive - the tracking apps are not really accurate, the police officers are really busy with more serious crimes, etc. I couldn't believe my ears - I thought I was serving them a criminal organisation on a platter and they didn't care!

I live in London. Expecting the police to do ANYTHING relating to property crime (in fact, pretty much any form of crime whatsoever) is sadly now a deeply fanciful notion.

BVP said:

I just did't receive the service I expected in this particular case.

Without getting to semantically picky, the police used to be a force, not a service. There is a big and fundamental difference. Poor service is one thing, lack of force to uphold the law is entirely different.

What you experienced was a failure of the police force, not just poor service. I'm sorry to hear that it led to you losing your car.

[BVP]

2Btoo said:

Without getting to semantically picky, the police used to be a force, not a service. There is a big and fundamental difference. Poor service is one thing, lack of force to uphold the law is entirely different.

What you experienced was a failure of the police force, not just poor service. I'm sorry to hear that it led to you losing your car.

Fair point. However, if I wanted to make a complaint about how a particular case was handled, these are my options on www.met.police.uk (hence my poor choice of the word 'service'):

[creampuff]

2Btoo said:

I live in London. Expecting the police to do ANYTHING relating to property crime (in fact, pretty much any form of crime whatsoever) is sadly now a deeply fanciful notion.

Well there are a few historic sex abuse cases which need investigating, even when they are completely without merit. Plus some urgent investigations into people causing offence on social media.

[Al U]

BVP said:

Our BMW X5, 65 plate, was stolen almost three weeks ago in the same manner - patio door (double glazed) window smashed, keys taken from a drawer,
We were on holiday for a week

Am I the only one that makes sure that I don't leave keys for cars on the driveway in the house when I know I am going on holiday?

[768]

BVP said:

untakenname said:

I'd ask the police for that conversation (iirc you can use a subject access request under GDPR) as that's not on.

Thanks for the reply, but what will I achieve?

Potentially material to base a complaint on, public awareness. Nothing that will help you but perhaps the next person?

[Saleen836]

Al U said:

BVP said:

Our BMW X5, 65 plate, was stolen almost three weeks ago in the same manner - patio door (double glazed) window smashed, keys taken from a drawer,
We were on holiday for a week

Am I the only one that makes sure that I don't leave keys for cars on the driveway in the house when I know I am going on holiday?

Do you leave a note for the would be car thief informing them of such? if you are lucky they wont spend too long looking for them but if you live in a quiet area they might spend longer looking and just ransack your house looking for them

[Al U]

Saleen836 said:

Al U said:

BVP said:

Our BMW X5, 65 plate, was stolen almost three weeks ago in the same manner - patio door (double glazed) window smashed, keys taken from a drawer,
We were on holiday for a week

Am I the only one that makes sure that I don't leave keys for cars on the driveway in the house when I know I am going on holiday?

Do you leave a note for the would be car thief informing them of such? if you are lucky they wont spend too long looking for them but if you live in a quiet area they might spend longer looking and just ransack your house looking for them

I understand that but the guy said in the rest of the post that his house was ransacked anyway and they took jewellery and watches. The difference would be that they wouldn't be driving the cars away with the keys. Then again who knows, even if you did take the keys with you they may just come and have another go when you are back/in.

[BVP]

Al U said:

I understand that but the guy said in the rest of the post that his house was ransacked anyway

Not a guy.
Probably this is why the operator told me he wouldn't advise me to go and search for the vehicle myself (because, when bombarded with reasons why the police might not be able to respond, I did ask whether he was suggesting I do that).

[2Btoo]

BVP said:

Fair point. However, if I wanted to make a complaint about how a particular case was handled, these are my options on www.met.police.uk (hence my poor choice of the word 'service'):

The dig isn't at you, buddy - it's at the Police. The Met Police rebranding to 'service' shows it clearly; they are not interested in upholding the law (which is what the Police used to aim to do), they aim to 'serve'. You screenshots showing the list of complaints you can make shows it let more clearly. Sadly there isn't one entitled 'for being totally unfit for purpose'.