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Story of the two thousand stolen Playdate handhelds

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Re: Story of the two thousand stolen Playdate handhelds

#51

Post by whazor »

gambiting wrote: post #13

The thing that surprised me the most about it is that FedEx didn't just pay them the 400k for lost shipment. They had all the proof that it was lost, all that Fedex had was a signature of someone who doesn't even work at their fulfilment centre. Even after their "higher ups" got involved all that FedEx could do was "huh, sucks to be you I guess?" Does freight shipment not have insurance? What's going on here?

Shipment insurance is normally an optional add-on. IMO, if the shipper doesn’t get it, it is on them.

It is nicer for the shipper to decide the value and pay the corresponding price for that. Because you need to know the replacement value of that lost item. This is dependent on all kinds of factors.

Re: Story of the two thousand stolen Playdate handhelds

#52

Post by Spooky23 »

jatins wrote: post #29

wait FedEx just delivers 400k worth of stuff without any KYC or OTP verification??

UPS pays their drivers very well. FedEx… does not.

I’ve had them “deliver” a bunch of PCs to a dumpster. Or drop off a laptop to a garbage can in a Manhattan office. How do I know? The courier took a picture to document the delivery.

Re: Story of the two thousand stolen Playdate handhelds

#53

Post by romanhn »

Interesting choice to go with a PI who's focused on recovery rather than criminal convinctions. Given the lack of sophistication in this operation, I suspect recovery would have happened either way, and the thieves might have faced some actual consequences. As is, they didn't lose anything other than the stolen items and will likely continue to capitalize on similar opportunities in the future.

Re: Story of the two thousand stolen Playdate handhelds

#54

Post by gambiting »

whazor wrote: post #51
gambiting wrote: post #13

The thing that surprised me the most about it is that FedEx didn't just pay them the 400k for lost shipment. They had all the proof that it was lost, all that Fedex had was a signature of someone who doesn't even work at their fulfilment centre. Even after their "higher ups" got involved all that FedEx could do was "huh, sucks to be you I guess?" Does freight shipment not have insurance? What's going on here?

Shipment insurance is normally an optional add-on. IMO, if the shipper doesn’t get it, it is on them. It is nicer for the shipper to decide the value and pay the corresponding price for that. Because you need to know the replacement value of that lost item. This is dependent on all kinds of factors.

Is there any scenario where someone would knowingly decide not to take insurance on a 400k shipment? What would be the reason for doing so?

In this case the shipper is the company behind the Playdate, so it seems weird to me they wouldn't insure their own stock. But maybe there's a good reason why this isn't done?

Re: Story of the two thousand stolen Playdate handhelds

#55

Post by aa-jv »

Toorkit wrote: post #46
supermatt wrote: post #22

I wanted to buy a playdate when they first came out, but unfortunately they weren't shipping to my country. Now they do, so I just placed an order 15 mins ago and my partner just received a call from the bank to verify that it wasn't a fraudulent transaction. She just asked me - what is this "play date" you just sent $300 to? Oh dear. :D

Then you say "it's a handheld gaming device" and the matter is settled.

Then you spend days on end winding the crank, endlessly ..

Re: Story of the two thousand stolen Playdate handhelds

#56

Post by markovs_gun »

actionfromafar wrote: post #50
markovs_gun wrote: post #33

Imagine being the thief in this case and getting stuck with an entire pallet of these weird indie handhelds that you can't fence because nobody knows what they are just hanging out on your garage.

It seemed it was a planned thing, so probably not a big surprise.

That's not the vibe I got. For me it seemed like FedEx showed up, said they had a pallet of electronics, and the guy signed for it as a crime of opportunity. Then someone else stole some later.

Re: Story of the two thousand stolen Playdate handhelds

#57

Post by beAbU »

supermatt wrote: post #22

I wanted to buy a playdate when they first came out, but unfortunately they weren't shipping to my country. Now they do, so I just placed an order 15 mins ago and my partner just received a call from the bank to verify that it wasn't a fraudulent transaction. She just asked me - what is this "play date" you just sent $300 to? Oh dear. :D

This comment fells too reddit esque for me, as if it's crafted to solicit upvotes or "facebook up, hit your lawyer and delete the gym" style comments.

- Why is your partner getting the call from the bank when you placed the order? - If it's a shared account, why would you not forewarn your partner about this transaction? If I'm about to buy pay for something big from our joint account, I sure as hell let my partner know about it ahead of time. - If none of the above applies, then a simple "it's a portable gaming console that I've been yearning after for ages that I finally ordered earlier today", and 9/10 times that should settle the matter.

Re: Story of the two thousand stolen Playdate handhelds

#58

Post by piqufoh »

saagarjha wrote: post #9
jna_sh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source for the arrest? I listened to this the other day and I don’t recall an arrest being mentioned. The podcast in fact covers that the police weren’t very much interested, which is why they got a PI involved, who got the thieves to “return” (dump in an adjacent car park) the devices simply by asking questions.

I’m guessing the AI hallucinated it.

Yeah - I don't have an hour to listen to the podcast or read the transcript. I got an AI to summarise the article and it saved me the time, I thought someone else might appreciate the summary (and it appears they did).

Perhaps next time I'll add TL;got-an-llm-to-do-it or something

Re: Story of the two thousand stolen Playdate handhelds

#59

Post by nkrisc »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #43
forrestthewoods wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is getting downvoted but I actually quite appreciated it. Story is interesting enough I'll listen to the whole podcast! I can't do that for every single podcast link that I come across. There's not enough time in the year much less the day.

It's AI generated, how do I know if it's accurate? It could be making up the whole thing.

If that concerns you, read the actual transcript. I honestly don’t care how accurate this is because beyond casual interest right now, I’m likely never going to think about this again.

Re: Story of the two thousand stolen Playdate handhelds

#60

Post by michaelt »

gambiting wrote: post #13

The thing that surprised me the most about it is that FedEx didn't just pay them the 400k for lost shipment. They had all the proof that it was lost, all that Fedex had was a signature of someone who doesn't even work at their fulfilment centre. Even after their "higher ups" got involved all that FedEx could do was "huh, sucks to be you I guess?" Does freight shipment not have insurance? What's going on here?

> all that Fedex had was a signature of someone who doesn't even work at their fulfilment centre. [...] What's going on here?

Basically a lot of global logistics runs on trust.

If a driver is delivering a pallet to the FooCorp warehouse, he doesn't get given a copy of the FooCorp org chart, or get an example signature to compare against the signature they're given, or get given a map or a secret password or anything like that.

He just pulls up to the building that says FooCorp on it, says "got a delivery for FooCorp", they let him in and he accepts any name and signature from whoever is near the door.

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