Office broken into!

[Cloo]

Came in this morning to find the bottom of the fire exit smashed in at the bottom and various things strewn around the office. Someone broke in last night and prised open a few petty cash boxes (amounting to no more than about £100), after searching through the occasional bag and drawer. They knew which corner was accounts, as they took that bit apart, but they didn’t take various portables that might have been of value. I don’t know if they did any other floors.

We reckon it was probably people after drugs money, as it seemed pretty amateur, and they couldn’t have been in for long.

Still, could have been worse – a place my mum worked had all their PCs stolen professionally and… no back-up. Had to recreate their database by hand. Nasty.

Anyone here had their work premises broken into? I wonder what people actually do in the case of mass theft of equipment etc…

 

[equationgirl]

My uni gets periodically done in in the various departments.

We've been targeted for unix machines (stolen to order, part of a big UK gang that had an insider in the shipping department), a security guard was stealing coffee money from different tea rooms, and every now and again someone will come onto campus, pretend to look like a student, and take advantage of any open offices.

Where I work we don't even have a till for the library fines (we've been after one for years but the day staff don't like it).

Many people just leave their office doors open with all their stuff lying around and then get all upset when something gets stolen.

 

[Cloo]

I hear schools and hospitals have a lot of trouble with equipment being stolen.

Apparently around the last Euro football tournament there were a spate of thefts of large screen projectors from schools from unscrupulous footie fans wanting to have the pub experience at home!

 

[rubbershoes]

our office was done a few years back. something very confidential was stolen from the safe. it subsequently made the papers in a big way.

it must have been an inside job as the place wasn't ransacked - AFAIK the only thing taken was from the safe. although the police were involved no charges were ever brought

about a month later some bungling amateurs came in again and did ransack it. fucking chaos it was . they didn't get any information of value though

 

[equationgirl]

There's always a big number of thefts at the start of the academic year - lots of new students, all moving into halls with nice new stuff (and a lot of it) - cd players, stereos, ipods, computers, tvs etc, and EVERY YEAR without fail, no matter how many times the students get told not to leave windows and doors unlocked, rooms get turned over.

There's always a large number of thefts from the uni library too - we have to do regular headcounts in case of a fire and whenever I go round, there's computers lying unattended, purses, wallets, mobile phones, bags, coats, the lot. The staff try to keep an eye on it where possible, but there's three of us for a four storey building, and even if we remind students about thefts, they just give us a glazed 'stop acting like my mum' look (or 'I was only gone for a minute' - THAT'S ALL IT TAKES YOU TWAT!), then come whinging to us when stuff gets nicked. Which it does. Often.

 

[Fuzzy]

where i used to work we got done 3 times within 6 months. nearly as soon as the computers were replaced they'd be in again. they used to smash a large floor to ceiling window in the entrance lobby. that ended up getting replaced with near bullet proof glass and then the doors into the offices had about 4 locks on them. didnt get done again though so i guess it worked.

 

[DRINK?]

We were done once a few years ago now, very professional, all the I think hard drives ( or the expensive bits ) taken from about 40 pcs in out dunno whether security were involved or just useless.

 

[pk]

Where I once worked someone pretending to be a builder casually walked out with a £30,000 TV camera, in front of all the crew having a cigarette break, then when they clocked us they legged it, with the camera, but jumped on a bus and got away with it!

And someone tried to nick a car from the spiral underground car-park where I once worked, and scraped it round and round the outer wall for two floors before giving up - brand new car, complete write-off, that was definitely the security guards who did that...

 

[Ms T]

Where I once worked someone pretending to be a builder casually walked out with a £30,000 TV camera, in front of all the crew having a cigarette break, then when they clocked us they legged it, with the camera, but jumped on a bus and got away with it!

And someone tried to nick a car from the spiral underground car-park where I once worked, and scraped it round and round the outer wall for two floors before giving up - brand new car, complete write-off, that was definitely the security guards who did that...

The guy who used to deliver the papers to work was done recently -- turned out he'd been nicking equipment for ages and had enough stuff in his flat to open up a branch of Dixons.

 

[pk]

See that's just lazy.

If he'd hired a lock-up he could have got away with it...

 

[magneze]

Iemanja Post

We were done once a few years ago now, very professional, all the I think hard drives ( or the expensive bits ) taken from about 40 pcs in out dunno whether security were involved or just useless.

Similar thing happened where I worked... They actually came through the skyline(a bit like Mission Impossible), and stole our source code!!! They had inside help as they knew exactly what to take.

'Industrial espionage' was mentioned, our GA got delayed, it was all very exciting... Not long after we were taken over by another company...

 

[J77]

I hear schools and hospitals have a lot of trouble with equipment being stolen.

Apparently around the last Euro football tournament there were a spate of thefts of large screen projectors from schools from unscrupulous footie fans wanting to have the pub experience at home!

And universities!

It gets worse, as educational institutions can't get much in way of insurance when it comes to computers etc.

 

[wiskey]

well i spose working for an emergency service where the computers are used 24hrs a day has its benefits.

hospitals suffer great losses including massive bits of specialised equipment which is then shipped off to other (?eastern european?) countries.

 

[DarthSydodyas]

During College (GNVQ years) we did a 2 or 3 week placement in a big civil service place which involved developing an audit database for their IT equipment. Lo and behold, a major robbery took place there a little while later, and they had the convinence of our database to crossmatch what went missing. It was generally understood (by the people working there) that it was an internal job. Not exactly a case for Holmes, but there ya have it.

 

[marco mark]

well i spose working for an emergency service where the computers are used 24hrs a day has its benefits.

hospitals suffer great losses including massive bits of specialised equipment which is then shipped off to other (?eastern european?) countries.

Tis true, in my nhs days the Imaging Dept had all their pcs and lazer printers knicked over a weekend, the whole lot was less than a week old, inside job or what