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Car-sharing service HiGear shuts down due to theft of 4 cars worth $400,000

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Re: Car-sharing service HiGear shuts down due to theft of 4 cars worth $400,000

#21

Post by dennisgorelik »

slug wrote: post #7
DevX101 wrote: post #3

I briefly thought about starting a business like this a couple years ago. During this thought exercise I came to the conclusion that an embedded GPS would be essential to maintain security. Another idea would be making your social network your security system, by only allowing rentals to people within two degrees of separation on a social networking site.

GPS would be useless for a determined thief, be it by simply jamming the GPS/cell signal or a RF sniffer to locate the (cellphone/whatnot) transmitter in the car and destroy it. From what I see, your social network sanction would be the only feasible option.

You probably meant "expert thief". Somebody who had 10000+ hours of expertise. Somebody who risked to get caught while gaining that expertise.

There are not so many real expert thieves. That's why extended security measures do work: less experienced majority of thieves is caught outright, and more experienced minority of thieves is eventually caught due to unforeseen circumstances (unexpected witness, unexpected new security measure, etc.).

For example, GPS transmitter can stay silent until it gets "You are stolen" signal.

There could be more than one transmitter in a car. It may get activated only when on the move (and not in a garage) etc.

Re: Car-sharing service HiGear shuts down due to theft of 4 cars worth $400,000

#22

Post by [deleted] »

m0nastic wrote: post #17
smhinsey wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you joking about the matching contributions to a retirement account part? If not I would be really curious to see how that works in that context. Not that I'm expecting a textbook on the subject or anything.

No, I'm dead serious. Colin (the aforementioned kid I grew up with) figured it was easier to attract good talent and keep them happy if he treated his operation like a professional job. So, he employs his team through an auto-repair shop, where they're full-time employees with full benefits and he sets them up with a 401k (that he matches up to some percentage of, I don't know the number). That's pretty much unheard…

[deleted]

Re: Car-sharing service HiGear shuts down due to theft of 4 cars worth $400,000

#23

Post by m0nastic »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #13
m0nastic wrote: post #5

That's sad to hear, but I think he's right to realize that it's going to be really hard to deal with losses when the auto theft community gets wind of their business. I am always amazed by the efficiency and technological prowess that the kids I grew up with who steal cars apply to their trade (even if I wish they were involved in a better trade). One kid I grew up with now has a ring of six guys working for him, pay…

The problem with running criminal business is that as soon as he tries to scale, he would inevitably and very seriously piss off lots of people. That would put extra pressure on law enforcement to catch the thieves and they would eventually be caught. Next step is several years in jail and close monitoring of the future crime activities. End result - the only expertise that he would gain over the years (in stealing)…

So, there are artificial constraints to the scalability of an operation like his.

For starters, all territory is split up among the different crews who run them. That they do this democratically and unanimously without anyone muscling in on surrounding territory is something I've never quite figured out; but it's been working for forty years.

That limitation on potential territory makes you maximize your resources in the geographic areas you control. You get to the point where you know the best neighborhoods for your guys to work based on time-of-day, holidays, local sports schedules, which neighborhoods are composed of people who primarily have others over for the holidays, vs. which neighborhoods primarily go somewhere else to celebrate, etc.

So there is a pretty small limit to how large an operation like that gets, but he's able to pay for his house, send his kids all to private school, and ensure they all can go to any college they want.

It's a decent "lifestyle business", minus the fact that it's a terrible thing to do to people, and unbelievably dangerous.

Re: Car-sharing service HiGear shuts down due to theft of 4 cars worth $400,000

#24

Post by kinkora »

m0nastic wrote: post #5

That's sad to hear, but I think he's right to realize that it's going to be really hard to deal with losses when the auto theft community gets wind of their business. I am always amazed by the efficiency and technological prowess that the kids I grew up with who steal cars apply to their trade (even if I wish they were involved in a better trade). One kid I grew up with now has a ring of six guys working for him, pay…

I apologise for being a lil off topic but I do have a question for you. Before I ask that question, let me tell you a story.

When I was growing up, I knew this girl who works part time at a cinema. Her job is basically to clean up the place after everyone has left once the movie has ended. While cleaning up the place, 7 out of 10 times, she will find something someone has left behind and out of that 7 times, probably 2 items will be valuable (wallet, mobile phones, jewellery, etc). Instead of returning it to their respective owners, she ALWAYS pocket anything that is valuable with the excuse of finders keepers.

When I found out about what she does, I had a moral dilemma. I knew she probably did it because she (to make a long story short), had a very unfortunate and underprivileged life so she just found a quick and easy (albeit illegal) way to supplement her pay. Yet at the same time, I knew what she was doing was wrong and I contemplated telling the authorities about her but couldn't bring myself to do it because she trusted me enough (i've always helped her in dire times) to tell me about it.

Now, here is my question. Do you ever feel that you should report your friend knowing he is breaking the law? Do you find yourself in a moral dilemma knowing that you know a person committing a crime but you have not (i assumed) turn him in?

Re: Car-sharing service HiGear shuts down due to theft of 4 cars worth $400,000

#25

Post by protomyth »

zacharytamas wrote: post #10
po wrote: post #8

How can Techcrunch say "the group stole four cars totaling $400,000" and then immediately print a letter from the company saying "The total value of these cars was around $300,000"? Even though in this case it's ok if you read the letter, it is the kind of thing that makes me feel like I shouldn't rely on Techcrunch's reporting. It's really not a big deal but how did that happen? Why are the numbers different?

I've noticed this too. There have been several cases in the past few months where when reading TechCrunch I was like "Wait, what?".

The Red vs Arri lawsuit story they ran felt that way. It looked like it was cribbed off the Reuters report. It struck me like the author didn't actually read the papers filed in the lawsuit. The biggest issue was the lack of reporting on the accusation that Arri sabotaged a Red One on the set of a movie. The original report was written before court papers were available (I think), but the TechCrunch story was posted well after court papers were available. It just seems like they are getting sloppy nd not checking things.

Re: Car-sharing service HiGear shuts down due to theft of 4 cars worth $400,000

#27

Post by dennisgorelik »

m0nastic wrote: post #17
smhinsey wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you joking about the matching contributions to a retirement account part? If not I would be really curious to see how that works in that context. Not that I'm expecting a textbook on the subject or anything.

No, I'm dead serious. Colin (the aforementioned kid I grew up with) figured it was easier to attract good talent and keep them happy if he treated his operation like a professional job. So, he employs his team through an auto-repair shop, where they're full-time employees with full benefits and he sets them up with a 401k (that he matches up to some percentage of, I don't know the number). That's pretty much unheard…

If you know about Colin, then probably some other people know about him too. So when his business would start to scale (greed is inevitable) and would cause serious problems to society, somebody would sell Colin out.

401k's of mechanics could be used to pay off victim's compensation (so the mechanics could stay out of jail).

Re: Car-sharing service HiGear shuts down due to theft of 4 cars worth $400,000

#28

Post by nostromo »

m0nastic wrote: post #5

That's sad to hear, but I think he's right to realize that it's going to be really hard to deal with losses when the auto theft community gets wind of their business. I am always amazed by the efficiency and technological prowess that the kids I grew up with who steal cars apply to their trade (even if I wish they were involved in a better trade). One kid I grew up with now has a ring of six guys working for him, pay…

Not to be overly prudish, but as someone that has had a car stolen -- not recently, but when I was right out of high school, completely broke and using it to get to work (where there wasn't any public transportation option) -- I'd really encourage you to turn in your friend. You may think it's not your problem, but you're complicit in those crimes and acting very unethically.

Re: Car-sharing service HiGear shuts down due to theft of 4 cars worth $400,000

#29

Post by rdouble »

bane wrote: post #26

A surprisingly fragile business model. I've wondered how Zipcar et al. haven't been killed by this? Or have they just done a better job at figuring theft into their model as a cost?

Not many car thieves want to steal a Scion xB with a giant ZipCar logo on the side.

Re: Car-sharing service HiGear shuts down due to theft of 4 cars worth $400,000

#30

Post by m0nastic »

kinkora wrote: post #24
m0nastic wrote: post #5

That's sad to hear, but I think he's right to realize that it's going to be really hard to deal with losses when the auto theft community gets wind of their business. I am always amazed by the efficiency and technological prowess that the kids I grew up with who steal cars apply to their trade (even if I wish they were involved in a better trade). One kid I grew up with now has a ring of six guys working for him, pay…

I apologise for being a lil off topic but I do have a question for you. Before I ask that question, let me tell you a story. When I was growing up, I knew this girl who works part time at a cinema. Her job is basically to clean up the place after everyone has left once the movie has ended. While cleaning up the place, 7 out of 10 times, she will find something someone has left behind and out of that 7 times, probably…

So, where I grew up, everybody was a criminal. I don't mean that hyperbolically either. Everyone in my family (mostly bottom-of-the-barrel criminals, but a few actual bad-ass criminals), every other kid who lived in my neighborhood. All criminals.

My older brother ran away from home when he was 15, partially to get away from all of that. I stayed until I was 17, but left for much the same reason.

If I felt obliged to report everyone in my history who has broken the law (or made it a habit of breaking the law), I would have quite possibly spent thousands of dollars on phone calls to the police.

I removed myself from the moral dilemma by going far away from all of that and not going back. I've been a boring nerd for the past twelve years.

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