Not all thieves are stupid

the had a similar problem here at a REAL game in Salt Lake only instead of using a gps they used the car registration to find out where the people lived.

Get a PO Box and receive all your important documents there.

It is an extra trouble to get the mail, and extra cost. But, it is another layer of security for situation like this.

That can be some scary stuff. I have had my house broken into before as well. In my case it was a person who I believed was a friend. While in my house one day they unlocked one of the windows, and once I left for work they brought a truck over and cleaned me out. The only reason I discovered who it was is because someone else recognized my TV when they tried to stash it there.

We don't text, too old, maybe a good thing!!!

Type this into Google" A couple of weeks ago a friend told me that someone she knew had their car broken into while they were at a football game."

Snopes tells us the OP's post is only partly true.

But in any case the best way to set a home location is to chose a nearby intersection. If you can't find your way home from there no GPS will ever help you.

Makes me recall a similar but not GPS-related incident. A couple got him after work one day and found their house cleaned out. Neighbors had thought they were moving. But these were thieves who came with trucks in their absence (knowing their work schedule). The couple came to a totally empty home.

You have a bigger problem if you don't know how to go back home.

I don't trust everything I see in an email, text or other messaging services especially if it asks me for personal info (banking, social security, login name+password etc).

The OP's story has all the hallmarks of an Urban Legend in that nothing in the story can be verified. There are no dates, identifiable locations or anyway to verify the story isn't just that a story meant not to inform but to put fear, uncertainty and doubt (good ol' FUD) into peoples minds. While it does have some words of warning, the way it is presented isn't to inform more than it is meant to scare people. If you do a search of similar "warnings" you will probably find a dozen different variations of the same story.

Interesting, something to consider for sure.

I'm still waiting to hear back from the Nigerian prince, I plan on retiring from my day job any day now

A Nigerian Prince? I was working with a UN Undersecretary trying to transfer several million in unclaimed funds. Should be getting the check any day now!

It took me a minute to realize you were talking about soccer when you wrote REAL and were not making fun of football.

Always verify before giving out sensitive information, and trust no one, except Nigerian Princes.

It doesn't hurt to be careful.

You can't fix stupid. Although there are a lot of people out there that seem to think if they outlaw it, it will go away.

Thieves don't need my GPS to find out my home address. It is in my glove compartment on several documents (tire warranties, etc). All stuff that I am required to have in my car.

the suggestion, will change how I do things from now on!!

This has been spoofed in Mass Effect 2, along with a spam that offers female Shepard to enlarge an anatomy she doesn't have.

You too? I'm going to offer Prince Joe Eboh more money to beat yours. This is once in a lifetime deal and I'd like to be sure it doesn't go your way. You can kiss your retirement goodbye.. Hah!!!

I've also won a few UK lotteries, so I'm set for life

Wow!. Thanks for all that

and BE CAREFUL when filling your tank...there could be razor blades hidden on the pump handles!!!

Those are pretty high performance crooks.

A little hard to believe.

While there are a few things I'd consider food for thought, as mentioned, the OP is an Urban Legend.

That said, I have a friend who had his car stolen because he dropped the remote control key-fob in a parking lot of the store. I imagine the thief just walked around the lot pressing the lock/unlock button until they happened upon the right car.

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I'm sure that happens. But not often. The vast majority of keys found are turned in or otherwise returned somehow. Relatively few keys dropped in parking lots are found by crooks.

Never said it happens often, but I know someone personally that it did happen too, that's all I said.

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We never leave our GPS's in our cars so no information there.
Only my wifes car gets parked in the garage, she has a garage door opener on the sun visor.

The only document that has our address on it in the car is the insurance card. If a thief steals the car he now has our address & gargae opener.

She has two options, keep the garage opener in her pocketbook, or the insurance card. I sometimes drive her car so having the insurance card in her pocketbook would not be practical since I know I'll forget to ask for it. With my luck that's the day I have an accident and get summoned for no proof of insurance.

get a second copy of the proof of insurance and keep that with you - problem solved.

Common sense

My insurance cards do not have my address on them. You'd think all insurance companies would do this.

Even with the garage door opener, the thief has 35 seconds to figure out there is an alarm and silence it.

The problem here wasn't the things stated, it was leaving the GPS in the car, no matter if prominently mounted on the dashboard or "cleverly hidden" in the glove box or under the seat where "the thief would never look for it". Of course, as has been discussed many times, just the G.D. opener which is left in the car is likely enough, as there will be some piece of paperwork in most cars the give the home address (registration, insurance card, even a stray piece of mail) and a thief can just plug the address into his own GPS to find the house, bypassing Garmin lock or those who make their own life difficult by being "clever" and putting the home location miles away in a corn field. (Turning on the track log will also draw a blue route that can easily be used to find the house no matter where you lied about home being).

Anyone can be a victim of such a crime, but it was the GPS which had been prominently mounted on the dashboard and not taken out of the car that likely targeted this car. Once they broke in and found the g.d. opener, the thieves would have likely headed for the house no matter if the GPS was "locked" or if it lied about the home location. The true moral here is don't leave your GPS in the car, not to play silly games with the info in it as if that is in any way going to help you.

Even if it was hidden in the car, I wonder if there would have been a tell-tail circle on the windshield.

I always clean my windshield after using the GPS (and radar) to remove the circles. Have to get rid any indication that I have anything worth stealing. It is a pain, but easier than finding a window shop in an unfamiliar city.

How about using the bean bag dash top mount? No need to carry around Windex.

I haven't really considered it, I wouldn't be able to mount the GPS as low as I can with the windshield mount (GPS rests on the dash currently with the windshield mount). I also don't think the beanbag mount would stay in one place for long, depending on which roads I'm on and how quick I may take some curves. I think it would end up on the floor after a few turns

If I wiped the suction cup marks off my windshield that would be the only clean place on the windshield! Thieves would see a couple of suction cup size clear areas.
The home advice is good, I warned my brother to set his to the gas station on the corner by his house when he got one for Christmas last year.

Yea, the circle is an invite to break-in, even if you take the GPS (thieves may think you are one of those clever people who hide it under the seat). But I find that if you mount the suction cup high in the tinted section of the windshield that the circle can't be spotted from the outside (heck, it is even hard to spot the GPS from the front when it is there, although it is still clearly seen from the side windows). And it is closer to reach, easier to see (unless you're far-sighted) and doesn't block any important part of the view (unless you're being abducted by a UFO). And if you wrap the power cord once around the rear view mirror shaft it will protect the GPS if the suction cup does lose its grip,

I saw the news a while back and there has been a rash of crimes in the seattle area. While people are in the movies they break into the car and get the registration, they use it for the address and go rob the house cause they know how long they will be away from home.

If the track log is enabled there will be a lot of blue lines leading right to the house, and it should be obvious which house it is. If the track log is disabled then just enabling it will show the lines, the data is stored even if the log is not displayed. But is is so handy in several ways that I want mine enabled all of the time. And, as mentioned elsewhere, registration, insurance or any other paperwork or mail in the car can reveal the address, so a warning to play foolish games with the home setting is poor advice. You could have done better by just warning him to not leave the GPS in the car.

It folds for easy storage, and has an anti-skid base. It worked fine for a few years in my 4x4, driving on the difficult roads of Corsica... I have a new car now, and haven't been back to Corsica yet - but our daughter's got one too now, and she's one "nervous" lady at the wheel !

thanks for the info

I used the bean bag for years in both my car and dump truck, now if you want to talk about a bumpy ride, it's off road in the dump, bean bag never moved in my car and only once in a while in the dump.

I have since changed to using the suction cup on the disk which is Velcro'd to the dashboard in the dump.

Car registration will have home address, so gps misdirect won't help much. Obviously, leaving the address in the car with garage door opener makes it pretty easy...

We just got the Garmin Friction Mount beanbag from Aamazon and it works very well.

Mad a kind of a hard left turn and it barely moved. And we have a 2007 Civic with the weird dashboard that has almost no flat spaces anywhere.

Highly recommend the beanbag!

...last week.

for the Bad Guys out there that use the internet. Just my opinion.....but sometimes I see things that are meant to protect us that just help give the Bad Guys that are a little slow some extra ideas.

As I said.....Just my own observations and opinion.

Thanks

This was reported on the news a couple of years ago and how you should never set your home address to your home but some place close to your home.

Thanks for the reminder...

Glad I live in an apartment building. Tough to find my house when HOME brings you to an apartment complex with 6000 apartments but a stand alone home, yes, good advice!

Thanks!

So they come to my home when I'm not there? So what?

There is no one at home lots of times. Just look for cars in my driveway. Between my dogs and alarm system, let them try.

It's a crap shoot which burglars target houses anyway.