“A Houston woman is warning Apple customers to be aware of thieves after she was recently robbed of her purchase,” Jeff McShan reports for KHOU-TV. “‘If they are going to spend money at Apple they need to watch their backs,’ said Gabrielle Alvarado.”
“Alvarado and Jacinda Boudreaux are starting a new business together and visited the Apple store in the Galleria to buy three Mac computers,” McShan reports. “When they left the store they said they were followed by people who were communicating using cell phones. The women did not notice them… ‘That’s the scariest part, I think is that we were followed [to] four or five different stores shopping and we were followed through the mall and never realized it,’ said Alvarado… The women put the computers in the trunk and left the Galleria. From there they headed to a restaurant a couple of miles away. Police said the women were followed there too because when they came back out to their car it had been broken into. Alvarado said she was shocked.”
MacDailyNews Take: So far, it seems pretty obvious and also somewhat humorous that Alvarado was shocked – three Macs paraded through the mall, then thrown in the truck to sit in a restaurant parking lot (the only thing missing was the “Steal me!” sign) – but it gets much less funny as we read on…
“Police said the women were lucky and that at least six Apple customers have been followed home and then held up at gun point,” McShan reports. “Detective Tony Guzman said a recent case involved a mother who was robbed in front of her children by a man who jumped out of a car. ‘Followed her into her driveway and pulled a gun. He didn’t demand her purse. He specifically asked for the Apple computer she recently purchased,’ said Guzman. Blewis Lawson confessed to the robbery, Guzman said.
McShan reports, “Two other men, Kenneth Williams and Brandon Jackson, helped with the surveillance and then put the stolen computer for sale on Craigslist, Guzman said. And the crime spree didn’t stop there, he said. ‘Once the sell was being conducted and they would meet with the buyer, they would rob the buyer,’ said Guzman.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Scary and sad, but – thinking of workable solutions – yet another reason to help support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by purchasing your Mac and other gear via any of our links to Apple Store Online. Let’s be careful out there!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “macmom42” for the heads up.]
That’s why, for major purchases, I order things online. I don’t bother to buy big ticket items in stores.
Agreed. In harder times like this, flaunting money you have makes it very likely to be robbed 🙁
Yes, support MDN by buying your Macs online. Much better and not to mention safer option. Plus you get all the normal Apple support that you get with Apple products.
Stay safe out there Macheads.
I think it’s possible that OSX Lion might help put an end to this sort of nonsense if they do indeed implement “find my Mac”. Once plugged in, the serial number could easily be tracked a relay a location to law enforcement agencies.
Oh, that sounds like a great option! Of course, it would have to be set up for the specific user.
Can already be done with the hardware.
yes, mac osx (from what I understand) already has “core location”, no one ever seems to use it though….
I happened to see a man following a lady who walked out of the Apple store and he tried to *give* her his Windoze computer.. but she wouldn’t take it
In some jurisdictions, such a felony is punishable by up to 30 years in maximum security prison.
in related news, ‘police sent out advise to prospective buyers to bring their old Dell packaging and ask store employees to repack their purchase in-store… Local apple employees are now thinking of providing this as a complimentary iDell-service’
If the purchases had been registered in-store, there would have been a method of tracking that product to the thieves den. Then SWAT could take over from there!
‘Ef SWAT!
SEAL TEAM 6, baby! But first, a little waterboarding to find the rest of the chronies!
Wait a minute. If the women did not notice the men following them, how did they know the men were communicating by cell phone?
That’s exactly what I was thinking.
Houston is a snake pit All the criminals from NOLA remained here after Katrina. Finer restaurants ask that you use valet parking to avoid being held up at gun point returning to your car. This story has nothing to do with Apple
Ate you positing that Houston had no crime before Katrina? Lived in Texas for a season before Katrina and know that to not be the case.
Use common sense. Obviously lacking in this case.
… they put them in their TRUNK. Put a computer in open view then leaving is certainly an invitation, but that isn’t what the quote claimed.
In dangerous locales, like Houston apparently, the Apple Store should offer free local delivery.
They do- it’s called Apple.com
Well, watch that back if you are cleaning a hotel room, never know when a frog pervert f**k who is going ti become President of France will rape you, then take your Mac.
The article said the women put the Macs in the “trunk,” not “truck” and if they were followed into the Apple Store, it had nothing to do with “parading” them through the mall.
This is predatory crime plain and simple, hardly obvious or humorous.
Keep producing, people! Millions of parasites are depending on you.
A cardboard box at the curb with the trash advertises the new product is here in this house. So, an Apple or HDTV box sitting along side your trash is also a problem. Be safe!
So, if you can find a Dell or HP box. Stick our Apple box in the Windows PC box and you are safe. Yes, it is inbarasing. But, when you have them over, they will see your Apple device and realize you are not an idiot.
Better to recycle the box with your other cardboard. Cut it up or fold it inside out so no product wording is visible.
What?? There are people who throw OUT their Apple boxes?
And yet the Gov’mint is worried about iPhones tracking you.
We are an Authorized Apple Specialist and we help our customers fight this 2 ways: we offer they keep the new Mac in the plain corrugated shipping container and we open the top so they can carry it out by the handle. Also, since we are street-level retail we offer to have customers get their car and drive up so we can hand it off to them.
Thank you for going the extra mile.
Yellow journalism at it’s finest. Thugs have been marking prey by where they shop, how they dress, or what they carry probably as long as there have been crooks.
Hit whores & such know that by specifying Apple in the HL or body moves it up on the scale.
This sounds like a story planted by Burson-Marsteller. The question is, who hired them? Microsoft, Google, or Facebook?
Can’t Apple and the customer set-up the Mac in the store with admin permissions. At least make it unusable for the perp.
When word gets around that the computer already has a username and password, maybe the desire to deal with the hassle of a Admin computer will lessen the desire to steal one?
If you have an install disk and physical access to the computer, you can reset admin password. This would also kill any “Where is my Mac” capability, unless Apple implemented a hardware based solution.
Sorry for the buyer. I hope you were insured.
This explains why you never see people leaving Microsoft stores with purchases…
Oh come on. I could buy a Windows box at a Microsoft store and wave a banner stating what I had just purchased and I’d be more likely to get looks of revulsion from crooks than any interest in robbing me. 😉
If one wanted to be snarky they could ask the question:
Since Tx is the state with the most liberal carry laws and is armed like a third world militia, why did this happen?
The gun crazies tell us that an armed citizenry is a safe citizenry.
Haven’t carried a firearm since I left the service, travelled widely and never had a problem
“… why did this happen?”
I read nothing in the article stating that any of the victims had concealed carry permits or were armed. Apparently that escaped your brilliant observation. Please continue to refrain from carrying (and I hope owning) any type of firearm. You are undeserving of that Constitutional right. But feel free to continue abusing your 1st Amendment right to free idiotic speech.
There’s a very silly advertisement locally where a family has their home robbed of everything but their old Windows box. So they go buy a newer Windows box out of shame, which of course makes me laugh and laugh!!!
The fact is that the crooks do NOT want Windows boxes, Windows slates, big-ass-tables (BATs), Windows phones or Zunes. They want Apple boxes, iPads, iPhones, iPods and Apple TVs. Crooks know they can get more money on the market for Apple gear than the Windows schlock. 😎
@RDF
It becomes a problem when they outlaw guns to citizens… its like an open invitation to criminals. You pretty much know the house wont have a gun there so your chances are good. Of course I wouldn’t obey the gun law if it passed.. and there would be many who still carry.
We had our office broken into. All iMacs stolen. Winduhz boxes & laptops left behind.
Take the Dells PLEASE!
Same thing happened to a mini-printer/graphics place near my studio, whose security is far less sophisticated than mine. Burglars took all the Macs. The few pc things were dumped in the bushes outside, likely when they realized what they were. The place now puts their Macs in a vault-like closet at night, but not their pcs.
Watch out for the monkeys! They’re everywhere now.