Home Depot has been struggling with "organized retail crime," raiding its stores across the country and stealing millions of dollars worth of power tools. Thieves steal Milwaukee, DeWalt, and Bosche, among other power tools, and turn them around for quick cash on the street, pawnshops, or an online ad on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist.
-John Deaux
*****
I didn't realize power tools were a problem. I went down to Ace Hardware the other day to replace my cheap-ass and ancient Walmart drill that I can't get batteries for anymore, and all the power tools were already locked up. Same thing with power tools in my local Tractor Supply.
They’re a problem. Pawn shops are resplendent with power tools.
ReplyDeleteResplendent with overpriced power tools...beat up USED tools only a couple dollars less than full retail here. I think it's mostly seasonal contractors selling off at the end of work season and buying them back each spring. Don't see any run of the mill stuff Home Depot junk, it's all high end Milwaukee, Rigid, and DeWalt, and gas powered saws are almost universally Stihl and Husqvarna.
Deletethe illegals need their own tools to works, so they steal, also, as mention pawn shops buy anything that comes in their door. Americans who don't work just steal them because Pelosi said its ok to.
ReplyDeleteAnd what happens when the damn thing glitches and won't start- and it's 2-3 years old, and I don't have a receipt anymore? IF this is one-and-done, no do-overs, fine. If there is ANY RISK AT ALL that I may lose access to the tool, I simply won't buy it.
ReplyDeleteWhat? You're saying that you are not willing to experience a little inconvenience and financial risk to compensate for the criminality of Pelosi's illegals?!!!
DeleteNeither am I.
Shit. I used a brace and bit along with a stanly yankee driil until my early 20's.
ReplyDeleteMillennials are fucking lightweights.
I have two brace/bit drills with several half inch to inch drill bits and a small crank drill for small holes in my garage, for just in case. I wouldn't want to have to use them on metal, but they work fine on wood.
DeleteNemo
Millennials fought and died in the longest war in America's history. And we're bringing back hand tool woodworking, blacksmithing, homeschooling, and homesteading. We didn't and don't slaughter our children in the womb, and we give a damn about leaving something for our children and grandchildren. We're going to rebuild from the ashes of the civilization you and your spoiled brat "tough" generational cohort systematically destroyed.
DeletePS: I love my bitbraces and restored (by me) Russell Jennings pattern auger bits. And my disston handsaws, my backsaws, my plough plane, etc, etc.
You're not bringing that stuff back, you're just continuing what our generations taught you just as we did with our preceding generations. I will give you the homeschooling though - it wasn't that common with us, but then again, our teachers weren't as left wing as your generations are. And I hate to say it but your generation slaughters more children in the womb as any other.
DeleteAlso, you might want to rethink your ideas about the society that our generation destroyed. Your generation brought us the Occupy and Antifa movements, not to mention the Clintons, Bush I & II, and Obama.
Now after all that, I'm not saying our generation was any better than yours, I'm just pointing out that every generation as its fuck-ups and every generation has a few outstanding people that pass on skills and good family values to the next one.
1998, Frederick, MD, when I did a year at HD part time...average $5K a week went out the door in Dewalt alone. Under rolls of insulation, over the fence in the garden section, in the bottom of 2 nested trashcans. We were told DO NOT SAY A WORD, LET THEM GO. They build that loss into their budget as 'shrink'. We locked the tools up, chained them, sensormatic tags, didn't matter. I started taking the tags, palming them, walk up the guy you know is stealing tools and put the hand on their shoulder...sticking the tag. It didn't stop them from stealing, but it did get them noticed when they looked up as the alarms went off. Theft is huge and easy.
ReplyDeleteWe have a cordless one-inch drive electric impact at the shop. If you take it across the yard, it won't work and the boss gets an automatic email. The thing is worth $1200.
ReplyDeleteTools like these get put in a safe. Seriously, a safe is for more than just guns and gold. In the least, even a security cabinet would require a lot of noise making and draw attention if anyone lives near the shop.
Delete-arc
Worked at a Home Depot for a year. People walking out the door with power tools, table saws, jackhammers and stuff all the time.
ReplyDeleteI've already got about $500 in Ryobi batteries. I used to have 2 sets of the usual suspects - drill motor, recip saw, circular saw. You know. A neighbor had his stolen just before Christmas a couple years ago. Fuckers took his tools, but not the batteries and chargers. So now I have one set.
ReplyDeleteIt's going to be interesting when a hot tool gets sold at a pawn shop. Damn thing won't work and good luck getting your money back from Beg Borrow and Steal
ReplyDeleteJD
You never try it before you buy it?
DeleteTMK, pawn shops have to keep detailed records of stuff coming through their stores. Pawn hot goods and a visit from the enforcers is probable.
DeletePower equipment is around a 1 in 4 chance to recover TMK, as long as serial numbers are registered.
-arc
When I was living in California, if your tools got ripped off, you went to a flea market to recover them.
DeleteGood to hear this, the HD that I go to has a major theft problem. And it’s mostly DeWalt tools. And yes the pawn shops are as guilty as the thief.
ReplyDeleteMost theft comes from within the store through employees. Several were bounced out of my local store, no prosecution. Sad
ReplyDeleteVictor
I don't think that's true. I know a LOT of shoplifting, especially of higher end items, is professionals, mostly heroin addicts in their thirties (because it takes about that long to become a true drop-dead heroin addict, according to an article on the practice I read.)
DeleteYeah, employee shrinkage happens, but few of them will clean the whole section out and be back to do it again in three to six months.
If the shoplifters got a big can of whoopass when they were caught, instead of the catch and release treatment, it would cut down on that shit in no time. When I was a kid (50:years ago) a dumbass tried to rob a pizza shop in NYC..Bad move! The Italian owner and his employees beat the crap out of him, and I don’t think they ever called the cops. Back then it was not rayciss n’ sheeeeit to pummel a robber.
ReplyDeleteOr as the burglar said to the homeowner when the homeowner racked the slide on his shotty, "Aren't you gonna call the cops?"
DeleteThe homeowner replied, "Why? You and I are the only ones that know you're here."
Maybe the Italian pizza shop owners should let the word get out they're actually "Sicilian".
Wish there was a "like" button.
DeleteLIKE!
Nephew worked at the depot while in school. A favorite would be to take a new power tool in the box back to lighting put said tool in lighting box, light goes into power tool box. Light would be some cheap 20 dollar thing.
ReplyDeletethen go to check out and hope the clerk didn't look.
His store was actually giving out bonuses for employees catching fraud like this
Those employees these days will be prosecuted for insurrection.
DeleteSeveral years ago, the HD in Homestead, FL burned down because someone wanted to steal a pressure washer. They set a fire in the back of the store and when the employees ran to see if they could put the fire out, the thief just walked out the front door with a very expensive tool.
ReplyDeleteI hate Home Depot. Every experience I've had with them in the past has been bad and they treat all their customers like they are criminals . Nasty place.
ReplyDeleteAnd how long before and enterprising computer guy figures out how to get around it? Over/under has to be about a day.
ReplyDeleteFunny thing about Big Box stores, I have very little sympathy for them; especially Lowes.
ReplyDeleteBy a coincidence, yesterday I was at a Lowes to get some driveway patch, picked up a couple more minor items I saw and headed for checkout. There was one checkout lane with a cashier, the other six were "self-service". There was one very bored elderly employee 'watching' the customers move through (Not).
I hate the idea of self-service, invitation to thief, I'm working for free, they are generally slower than whale shit and when I was in HS I worked at a paint and hardware store, first regular weekly job. Some kid that needs it isn't getting that first job he needs.
Rant over about that.
In the aisle ahead of me a woman dumped her basket on the counter; many little screws, nuts and assorted brick-a-brack from the screws and nuts aisle. Nothing was labeled, she hadn't placed anything in the little plastic bags they have there, nor had she written anything down. No prices, no part number, not even the row and bin. After a while I left my cart in the lane and went to find the head. Finished my business (no water in the sink, no towels either, good thing I usually piss without getting it on my hands) and returned. They were still sorting it out, three employees now. With the parts books out, matching each piece one by one.
No. They didn't open up any of the other four closed registers.
If I hadn't promised to fix my girlfriends driveway problem I'd have left the cart right there. Finally she finished, complaining about how long they were taking sorting out her mess all the time. Goodbye Karen. I checked out without saying one unnecessary work.
Later that day we went to Walgreens for a prescription... for the cat. There we got in the drive-through line in behind a BMW with New York plates. And waited. And waited. etc.
Cars came in behind us and we were to far in to pull out. So we waited.. almost half an hour.
Got to the window and then we found out that they were doing Covid testing, at the drive through window... wait for results. No sign anywhere warning us that the drive through lane was being used for that. With five cars in behind us, well I doubt the last guy in line was going to wait for three hours.
Again I said nothing, but my lady-friend vented her anger and frustration at the pharmacist in full voice and volume. I was in the drivers seat... some hearing is coming back in that ear this morning.
Customer service and common sense is dead in this country. American business hides behind their voice menus, and online web sites from which all contact information is stripped. Only the menus with the responses they want you to click on are left. Call the 800 number and talk to India if you feel like it.
I'm stealing your last paragraph for use!
DeleteEach month, we need to kidnap the heads of the five biggest US companies. In a warehouse, each is given a phone and told to call his company's 800 number. After the head goes through the menu, he is asked if he approved that procedure. Each head is then taken to another room and shot in the back of the head and his/her body placed in a pre-dug body hole and cemented over. Take a couple days off and go get the next five.
DeleteI was in Lowe's around 4 years ago, when an African American gentleman with a Carhartt jacket on walked out of the front door, with his coat held shut with his hands. An alarm went off, and he started to jog towards the far end of the parking lot. I was within an arm length distance of grabbing distance of grabbing him, but no way was I getting involved with that mess. A couple of employees started to give chase but a manager stopped them.
ReplyDeleteHe jogged to the back of the lot, and got into an old work truck with a painted business sign on the side of it, advertising a handyman service and a phone number. The driver was some decrepit looking white guy, around 40, who looked like he was your neighborhood meth dealer, who used more than he sold.
I would not be bothered so much by these guys trying to make a living, except for the fact that they and their ilk are part of the reason that I have to pay so much for a damn drill bit when I go to a Lowe's.
Its a MASSIVE issue thats only becoming worse as states increase the $$amount required to prosecute. And while yes, some do try to sneak merchandise out between trashcans or the like, a growing number of them just don't care. I've watched them load generators, pressure washers, and other large items into carts and just walk out the door with them. They know the cashiers aren't allowed to do anything, and that their chances of running into a cop on the way out are non-existent.
ReplyDeleteSo what happens when an OTA (Over The Air) update bricks all of the power tools of deplorables? Smells like another method of control that is being proposed in a way the masses will accept it before its true colors are revealed. Those who play PC games know how "activations" went.
ReplyDeleteA power tool is a power tool, it runs on electricity. Chip switches will add cost to the product while criminals simply remove them after the fact or design an activator; tech savy lawful owners will remove the chip when it becomes a fail point.
No really, a removal guide will likely be on theft and cracking forums in short order.
-arc
It's all a feature not a bug
ReplyDelete