stolen tools

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rogue

Member
Location
MI
has anyone ever heard of not being covered for a claim if there is no visiual sign of forced entery.
 

ceb58

Senior Member
Location
Raeford, NC
van emptied out all i can think of is the lockes were frozen. 15 years of work gone!

It really sucks.
But from the insurance company's point of view. No broken glass, no pried open doors, no busted locks. You could have sold the tools and now are trying to make a claim. Any thing to get out of paying.
You could try having a certified locksmith look at the locks. He may determine they were not working properly and give a statement to that fact. This may be enough for the insurance company to pay the claim.
 

stars13bars2

Senior Member
I don't know if you had power locks or not but if so someone can open your truck with their remote. A few years ago a friend locked his keys in his suburban at the marina. I had a tahoe that was a couple of years newer and just on a lark I pressed my remote and his truck opened. He was then able to cancel the locksmith he had called. I still tried to get fifty bucks from him.
 

rodneee

Senior Member
don't take no for an answer

don't take no for an answer

has anyone ever heard of not being covered for a claim if there is no visiual sign of forced entery.

i have never heard of that...i would stay after them...there is always enough gray area in many claims that they may find in your favor just to make you go away...good luck...
 

ceb58

Senior Member
Location
Raeford, NC
I don't know if you had power locks or not but if so someone can open your truck with their remote. A few years ago a friend locked his keys in his suburban at the marina. I had a tahoe that was a couple of years newer and just on a lark I pressed my remote and his truck opened. He was then able to cancel the locksmith he had called. I still tried to get fifty bucks from him.

And there are devises that people can use to detect you signal when you lock your doors. The devise will read the code and they can now unlock your doors after you leave. This came out in a security bulletin we received before Christmas. People were doing this in parking lots of stores to steal merchandise that was in the cars. It was advised when you get out to use the manual button to lock the doors that way there was no signal for some one to pick up.
The same as some one picking up the signal from a garage door opener and now the new thing if you have the "go pass" chip on your debit card they can read you card from you wallet.
 

shepelec

Senior Member
Location
Palmer, MA
If the locks are old and worn sometimes a key that is close can open them as well.

One of the apprentices I used to work with had an old S-10 blazer and locked his keys inside. For the heck of it I tried an old Chevy door key I had in the truck, the lock opened but only the drivers door. The passenger door would not open with that key.
I figured the drivers lock had more use so the lock was was sloppy.

Sorry some crack head took your tools.
 

defears

Senior Member
Location
NJ
Sorry to hear that.

Now you got me thinking about getting a car alarm that will text my phone and send an email everytime the doors are opened as a log. Snowed in today so now I have something to do.
 

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
And there are devises that people can use to detect you signal when you lock your doors. The devise will read the code and they can now unlock your doors after you leave. This came out in a security bulletin we received before Christmas. People were doing this in parking lots of stores to steal merchandise that was in the cars. It was advised when you get out to use the manual button to lock the doors that way there was no signal for some one to pick up.
The same as some one picking up the signal from a garage door opener and now the new thing if you have the "go pass" chip on your debit card they can read you card from you wallet.

"People were doing this in parking lots of stores to steal merchandise that was in the cars."

Can you provide a link of this actually happening? I doubt you can.

The story about the doors came about because someone figured out how to use a computer to trap the hopping codes from a key fob. In order to do it, you have to have the fob for at least an hour and send thousands of signals so the computer can extrapolate the code's algorithm. Once that is done, a second fob can be created to open the car's door.

Kind of stupid if you already have the fob, isn't it?
 

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
If the locks are old and worn sometimes a key that is close can open them as well.

One of the apprentices I used to work with had an old S-10 blazer and locked his keys inside. For the heck of it I tried an old Chevy door key I had in the truck, the lock opened but only the drivers door. The passenger door would not open with that key.
I figured the drivers lock had more use so the lock was was sloppy.

Sorry some crack head took your tools.

There are only so many different physical key combos. I worked for Chrysler in the early 90's and we had a ring of keys of every combo. There were less than 50. That ring came in mighty handy when people dropped their cars off and locked the keys in the car. We didn't have to wait for them to come down with a spare, we just got out the bunch and kept trying keys until the door unlocked. They would also start the car if there was no chip in the original key.
 

nhfire77

Senior Member
Location
NH
I know this isn't the best news now, but for $500 you can get the contents of your van covered for about $10000 of tools and supplies, from fire and theft. Talk with your insurance guy. I look at it as piece of mind, its replacement value, so if you lose it all, you get all brand new.

I work on the wrong side of the tracks a lot.
 

satcom

Senior Member
What did the Police report say?

In many states, they have a department of banking and insurance, that help consumers with claim problems
 

hurk27

Senior Member
has anyone ever heard of not being covered for a claim if there is no visiual sign of forced entery.

We had a van that was slim jimmied, and had not sign of entry, and the problem was the officer who made out the report stated it in the report, so our lawyer started a claim against the police department on what the report said, and on the fact they could not prove that the van was not locked and that there are ways to get into vehicles without doing damage, well we got a new report that they reversed this comment and the insurance company paid out right away knowing about the law suit, our lawyer didn't even charge us but for the filing fees.
 

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
We had a van that was slim jimmied, and had not sign of entry, and the problem was the officer who made out the report stated it in the report, so our lawyer started a claim against the police department on what the report said, and on the fact they could not prove that the van was not locked and that there are ways to get into vehicles without doing damage, well we got a new report that they reversed this comment and the insurance company paid out right away knowing about the law suit, our lawyer didn't even charge us but for the filing fees.

Yep!

Most repair facilities aren't dealers with a full factory key set and have to rely on a kit to get cars unlocked. The kit consists of a slim jim along with a couple of specially bent wires and (here's the part that makes the kit worth the money) Teflon wedges for making a space between the window glass and the frame.

In the last year I have opened two locked cars for people without damaging the car. One was a pal that worked at a tranny shop locked a customer's car at a gas station, I stopped by the shop, grabbed the kit and opened the car. The other was during Thanksgiving where a lady's dog hit her locks and locked her running car up in the parking lot of a grocery store. For that I just used a coat hangar and a screwdriver with a bunch of rags and help from another customer. Without the kit, four hands were helpful.

The point is, FAR more cars are broken into without any sign of damage than the opposite. It happens every day. The fact that there were no signs of forced entry does not mean that it didn't happen. I would be talking to a lawyer about getting the insurance company to meet their end of the deal.
 
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