I Finally got Caught Last Monday Morning

[Big Janner]

Well
After 54 years of (mainly) happy, (mainly) incident free motoring, having always paid my road tax and insurance, the bastards finally got me.

My GLc was stolen off my drive, early Monday morning, along with the approx £1000 worth (yeh, surprised the hell out of me) of stuff in it.

The car was on Autotrader
Guy rang on Sunday to ask if he could come and see it.
Yes, said I.
2 Eastern European looking guys turned up . . . .tidy, polite and looking at a gullible git.
I never left them alone with the unlocked vehicle and kept a close eye on the both of them . . . . . I thought.
They cloned my key

Turns out I wasn't as attentive as I thought.
They had the car away whilst I was sleeping the sleep of the just.

Spent most of the last 5 days dealing with car insurer and my house insurer for (some of, it turns out) the contents.

 

[Will]

Well
After 54 years of (mainly) happy, (mainly) incident free motoring, having always paid my road tax and insurance, the bastards finally got me.

My GLc was stolen off my drive, early Monday morning, along with the approx £1000 worth (yeh, surprised the hell out of me) of stuff in it.

The car was on Autotrader
Guy rang on Sunday to ask if he could come and see it.
Yes, said I.
2 Eastern European looking guys turned up . . . .tidy, polite and looking at a gullible git.
I never left them alone with the unlocked vehicle and kept a close eye on the both of them . . . . . I thought.
They cloned my key

Turns out I wasn't as attentive as I thought.
They had the car away whilst I was sleeping the sleep of the just.

Spent most of the last 5 days dealing with car insurer and my house insurer for (some of, it turns out) the contents.

Sorry to hear about this. Are you sure they cloned your key?

Did you have both keys available when they came to look at the car? I wonder if they swapped one of them for a different ‘spare’

Hope the insurance etc is sorted with minimal pain for you.

 

[AMGeed]

Bad luck John. It can happen to the most cautious of us.
You can only wish Karma catches up with those responsible.

 

[clk320x]

So sorry The exact same thing happened to my friend selling his S63 - literally the EXACT same story. 2 people came, they then said they’d go home and transfer the money, a couple hours later car gone… London area?

If it’s any consolation Admiral paid out the very fast for them.

 

[clk320x]

Did you have both keys available when they came to look at the car? I wonder if they swapped one of them for a different ‘spare’

That’s what we think happened with my friends car, which was stolen in the same way.

 

[KennyN]

Sorry to hear about this , things like this really pi$$es me off

Can you clone a Mercedes key without some form of electronic device ??

If so i would think it would be obvious what they were doing.

The fact you must have locked the vehicle when they left points to you having the original key.

Too much grief selling anything automotive these days , unless to WBAC or Motorway etc.

K

 

[markjay]

Sorry to hear this.

Did you give the police whatever contact details / telephone number that you had for the 'buyers'? And if so, did the police seem interested?

Also, is there CCTV outside your house? Yours, neighbours', or the council's?

 

[markjay]

Sorry to hear about this , things like this really pi$$es me off

Can you clone a Mercedes key without some form of electronic device ??

If so i would think it would be obvious what they were doing.

The fact you must have locked the vehicle when they left points to you having the original key.

Too much grief selling anything automotive these days , unless to WBAC or Motorway etc.

K

Surely it has to be more difficult than that .. otherwise why bother with the fake viewing? All they need do is stand next to the owner when they park and lock their car, then clone the key and drive off.

 

[fabes]

Sorry to hear
At least no violence or home invasion involved, if there is an upside....
And you get to go car shopping!

I will only sell really low value cars (my daughter's Corsa soon) privately these days
Sad world

 

[ALFAitalia]

Sorry to hear that....there was probably a third person with a laptop and scanner near by that did the cloning. The appointment just avoid the possibility of your keys being in a metal box and un-scannable. seems more risky than the usual scanning the keys through the house when you are asleep....even if you put your keys in a Faraday pouch there will be many other owners who don't. They risk being recognised or being picked up on CCTV that way. And you don't even need to clone the keys if the car has front mounted radar....simple process with the right software..... Google it.

 

[pioneercollector]

That is really shite! These stories make my blood go off the monitors scale.... Grrrrrr

About 10 years ago i had my off road motorbike stolen from within my locked garage, they even moved the new chainsaw off the seat and hoiked it around the LWB Shogun. The police told me that 13 similar bikes went that very night. Apparently they wait by a by-way and follow the bikes and see where they park up and zap! gone. What really cheesed me off is the fact that i had the engine completely rebuilt that month and for the first time the bike was running perfectly.

I have top grade security doors on the garage now...... Still makes me mad now

 

[SpikyMikey]

Well that sucks
The only consolation I guess is that the oygen-wasting vermin didn't break in to 'persuade' you to hand over the keys.
Hope your dealings with the insurance goes smoothly.

 

[Big Janner]

Sorry to hear about this. Are you sure they cloned your key?

Did you have both keys available when they came to look at the car? I wonder if they swapped one of them for a different ‘spare’

Hope the insurance etc is sorted with minimal pain for you.

Sure it was a clone, I have a different tag on each key
The only time I didn't have a key was when the car was running

 

[Big Janner]

Sorry to hear this.

Did you give the police whatever contact details / telephone number that you had for the 'buyers'? And if so, did the police seem interested?

Also, is there CCTV outside your house? Yours, neighbours', or the council's?

No1 son tried calling the number about an hour after I reported it to the police.
The number was dead, either switched off, or dumped

Apart from the crime number supplied over the phone, the police have been obvious by their absence

 

[Skd884]

A idea - tell anyone who wants to view not to bother unless they bring 2 forms of id.

 

[Big Janner]

The keys (all my keys) are kept in a metal key cupboard, as far from the front of the house as I can get them

Yep, the good news is that only metal, rubber, leather and plastic were disturbed, no one was hurt.

GA are proving to be slow in responding.
My son in law is an insurance broker and advises turning down the 1st offer.
Then refuse the second offer unless it makes sense.
It may take time.

On my side, is an advert, on Autotrader, that is for a GLc, a mimic of mine, same colour, same spec, but with just 685 more miles on the clock than mine.
This is up for £18000.
I'm going to use it as a benchmark

 

[Big Janner]

A idea - tell anyone who wants to view not to bother unless they bring 2 forms of id.

an idea i'm going to adopt

 

[MeQ]

The keys (all my keys) are kept in a metal key cupboard, as far from the front of the house as I can get them

Yep, the good news is that only metal, rubber, leather and plastic were disturbed, no one was hurt.

GA are proving to be slow in responding.
My son in law is an insurance broker and advises turning down the 1st offer.
Then refuse the second offer unless it makes sense.
It may take time.

On my side, is an advert, on Autotrader, that is for a GLc, a mimic of mine, same colour, same spec, but with just 685 more miles on the clock than mine.
This is up for £18000.
I'm going to use it as a benchmark

For your insurance claim get screenshots of as many adverts as possible, same year, spec and mileage. If yours was purchased approved used or with a full Mercedes history make sure this is part of your comparison.

I ended up with around £4,000 more than my insurers first settlement offer as I was able to provide examples of similar cars higher than their figure.

My argument was to compare apples with apples rather than the lower condition and poor service history cars available in some back street garages.

 

[Stratman]

...................

Apart from the crime number supplied over the phone, the police have been obvious by their absence

Probably too busy trawling Twitter for incorrect pronouns

 

[mioba]

Sorry to hear this OP.
Vermin, scum are the words that come to mind.
A very sad reflection of what we live with.