{"id":1184,"date":"2013-02-21T16:34:08","date_gmt":"2013-02-21T16:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/02\/21\/crime-doesnt-pay-it-certainly-costs\/"},"modified":"2013-02-21T16:34:08","modified_gmt":"2013-02-21T16:34:08","slug":"crime-doesnt-pay-it-certainly-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/02\/21\/crime-doesnt-pay-it-certainly-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"Crime Doesn’t Pay? It Certainly Costs"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been unfortunate enough to be the victim of crime three times over the last year<\/p>\n

Car Damage<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last year someone took a car without the owners permission and drove at speed down the street opposite my house. They didn\u2019t stop at the junction and ploughed into the back of my car that was parked on the driveway. It was hit with such force my car was pushed into my house, damaging the front door. <\/p>\n

\"479144_10150859448780039_25451209_o\"<\/a>\"582675_10150859298165039_1263519516_n\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was woken to the sound of my car alarm going off. I ran downstairs to investigate and when I opened the door it took a few seconds for my half asleep brain to figure out what had actually happened. <\/p>\n

After a police investigation the person involved did actually own up and they went to court, had to pay a fine and had several points added to their license (or will have when she actually takes her driving test!) <\/p>\n

Card Fraud<\/strong><\/p>\n

I noticed a transaction on our bank statement I didn\u2019t recognise. It was for around \u00a350 and for an insurance company I\u2019d never heard of. When I called them they didn\u2019t know who I was and had no record of trying to charge me for anything. My card was cancelled and I did eventually get the money back from the bank. A few weeks later Bryony and I were out doing some shopping and I was unable to take any cash out. This was a bit odd as there should have been money in the account. When we got home a check on the account showed it had happened again. On Bryony\u2019s card this time for a much larger amount. We were actually fortunate we\u2019d tried to take money out that day as this was a couple of days before Christmas and we\u2019d got a large food shopping order due to arrive. Christmas dinner would have been very different if the money hadn\u2019t been available. Bryony\u2019s cards were cancelled and we thankfully got the money back. I\u2019m still not entirely sure how it happened.<\/p>\n

Burglary<\/strong><\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago I was in our living room playing my Xbox. Bryony had gone to bed and the children were fast asleep. We\u2019d been having some work done in our house so our bathroom was out of commission so when I\u2019d had enough for the evening I went upstairs to get changed, put my phone on charge with the intention of coming back downstairs to brush my teeth, go to the toilet and make sure everything was switched off and locked up. <\/p>\n

I was sat on the bed checking out the match reports for the football that had been going on that evening when I heard what I thought to be footsteps near the house. This is common though as our street has quite a bit of through traffic. A couple of minutes later I thought I\u2019d heard something else but couldn\u2019t quite make it out. When I heard the third noise I was pretty sure it was coming from inside the house. I went down the stairs to investigate and as I was stood behind the door to the living room I could hear movement. I had a split second to decide what to do. I didn\u2019t know how many people were there, what they were capable of or what they were prepared to do when disturbed. <\/p>\n

Either way they weren\u2019t welcome so hoping to use the element of surprise I shoved the door open and shouted as loud as I could (I won\u2019t repeat exactly what I said..this is a safe for work blog!) <\/p>\n

Thankfully this worked and they turned and ran. I gave chase and ended up half way down the street, barefoot in the snow, hardly wearing anything (thankfully it wasn\u2019t summer..I\u2019d have been wearing a lot less). I had no intention of catching them for the same reasons I was a little apprehensive about confronting anyone in the house so I let them go and called the police. <\/p>\n

This is where I discovered what they\u2019d gotten away with <\/p>\n

A laptop, Kindle, two Xbox controllers, A Wii Remote, a purse (cards \u2013 no cash) and about \u00a315 in cash. <\/p>\n

Not a bad haul for a couple of minutes work? <\/p>\n

All three of these incidents cost me and my family in one way or another. <\/p>\n

The money side of things is obvious. For the car incident there was the excess on my car and buildings insurance. I was quite lucky I\u2019d got an uninsured driver clause in my policy that meant my non-claims bonus stayed intact and I eventually got my excess back (several months later). The buildings excess had to be paid though. When the cards were defrauded we were without that money until it was all sorted with the bank. As mentioned already Christmas could have been very <\/strong>different. The stolen items can all be replaced by our insurance but again we\u2019ll need to cover the excess and it\u2019ll be highly likely the premiums will go up over the next couple of years. <\/p>\n

Having varying levels of inconvenience throw at us each time is a mild but noticeable irritant. If you\u2019ve ever dealt with insurance companies you\u2019ll feel my pain here.     <\/p>\n

That\u2019s not the main issue though. The invasive feeling each episode left behind has taken it\u2019s toll and with the burglary being the most recent I hate the fact we don\u2019t feel particularly safe in our own home any more. This will pass with time but doesn\u2019t help right now. <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve obviously learnt some lessons too but whilst we could have prevented the burglary by being a bit more strict about when doors are locked in our house the other two incidents were entirely beyond our control.<\/p>\n

The last few weeks have been difficult. I\u2019ve gone over the evenings events hundreds of times on how things could have played out differently and I\u2019ve been waking in the night and having very vivid dreams (the fact I remember dreams is massive in itself \u2013 I hardly every remember dreams)<\/p>\n

Having a deaf wife also amplifies feelings of uneasiness and vulnerability. Both of the incidents that happened at home involved being alerted by some sort of noise. Being away from home of an evening for any reason now brings additional anxieties and that\u2019s just for me!<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t really have an actual point\u2026I wrote most of this post in the days following the burglary as a way of getting it out of my head and didn\u2019t originally intend to actually post it. However, this morning while talking about the latest incident Bryony used the word \u201cclosure\u201d. So I\u2019m going to post it to help draw a line and move on. We\u2019ve changed some habits and added some additional security so for now we can\u2019t do much more and need to move on. <\/p>\n

If you do make it this far down the page take a second today to think about how easy it would be for someone to get into your house on a normal evening and how quickly they could take items of value. I\u2019m not talking about breaking in. Just some opportunist trying a door or window. It only takes a few seconds and it\u2019ll potentially save some headache in the future. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been unfortunate enough to be the victim of crime three times over the last year Car Damage Last year someone took a car without the owners permission and drove at speed down the street opposite my house. They didn\u2019t stop at the junction and ploughed into the back of my car that was parked<\/p>\n

<\/span>Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"yoast_head":"\nCrime Doesn’t Pay? 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It Certainly Costs - Andy's Techie Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-02-21T16:34:08+00:00","dateModified":"2013-02-21T16:34:08+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3534e8ac6b1bec765cd061feff56679d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/02\/21\/crime-doesnt-pay-it-certainly-costs\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/02\/21\/crime-doesnt-pay-it-certainly-costs\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/02\/21\/crime-doesnt-pay-it-certainly-costs\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Crime Doesn’t Pay? 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