Tonight, Mystery Guest and I flew down to San Francisco for a quick weekend away (and to visit some friends). We arrived late and raced to get to a dinner with Laura Lippay in the financial district. Sadly, between our arrival time around 10pm to when we got back to the rental car at 11:30pm, the car was broken into (jimmied the driver's side lock and popped the trunk). My laptop, all our luggage and lots of Mystery Guest's clothing (and my trademark yellow shoes) were stolen.
So, here I am at Laura's apartment (you rock, Laura!), posting and hoping that someone might know the underbelly of San Francisco well enough to help me recover my laptop. I had a very important presentation (that wasn't backed up) that I had created for Monday (40+ slides). Our other items are replacable, but I'm very concerned that I may not have enough time between now and Monday to re-build that presentation.
So, if you're a savvy Bay Area resident and have any idea of what I can do to recover the laptop, I'd greatly appreciate your help.
p.s. Luckily, I'm under Diner's Club card insurance, so I believe I can get back much of the monies for the lost property. I keep calling their 800 number, but all it says is "all circuits busy." Hopefully I'll reach them soon. Update - nope, Diner's won't cover anything :(
p.p.s. SF is super wired - the police department had me file the police report online (apparently they don't send out cops to broken-in cars).
p.p.p.s. Laura - you rock. Seriously.
UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who was so kind to us. For those who are interested, here are more specifics.
As I noted, the SF Police didn't come out for the call, apparently there are quite a few crimes like this each night (even in the very safe parts of SF). The good news is that it does happen overwhelmingly to rental cars - so as long as you own your car (or just be careful when renting), you're much more safe. Apparently, the little "e" (for Enterprise) on the back bumper is a dead giveaway for a theft.
We're going to get some money back - hopefully about $1500 (from business insurance) to replace at least the laptop and the camera. The clothes - including one of my two pairs of yellow Pumas and lots of Mystery Guests's favorite clothes (because you always bring your nicest stuff on vacation, right?) will be the big financial loss, but we have plenty more clothes at home, so no forced nudity.
We flew back to Seattle on Saturday midday - after a very nice Dim Sum breakfast with Brad Stone (who wrote about SEOmoz a couple years back in Newsweek) and his wife, Jennifer (no reason to mope when you can keep appointments and see friends instead). Included in the missing luggage were keys to our apartment and our office - both of which were re-keyed yesterday afternoon. Tomorrow early morning (6am), I'll be flying back to San Francisco to complete my presentation, and today is spent at home on my desktop, re-building it.
We've had no luck with Craigslist, yet, but even if the machine does appear there (or any other items), it will be likely that they've already been re-sold once or twice, so tracing all the possessions back together is tough. Overall, the worst loss is certainly the vacation time with friends and each other for Mystery Guest and me. I'll be leaving for China in a couple weeks, and Mystery Guest has been having a very hard time at work, so this was supposed to be a great way to share some relaxing, fun time together - maybe next trip.
Sorry to briefly turn this into a personal blog - hopefully our experience will help all those other search-industry-world-travelers to be a little more careful in the future.
By: Rand Fishkin
Rand & Mystery Guest Get Everything Stolen in San Francisco
Moz News
The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
That really sucks--sorry to hear about your stuff and laptop. Were there any installed applications that talk to a known IP address frequently? Sometimes that would let you find the new IP address of the laptop, but the odds are not good. :(
Between Nathan Weinberg's camera, Shoemoney's phone, and your rental car, it's like a crime wave against SEOs. :(
Smart idea.... Maybe there is a biz opportunity here... for folks to have a program that reports IP address of the laptop and the owner can see a google map of locations where it has logged in. Would probably be the IP location of an isp.
I'd love to see laptop crooks get snared.
Looks like there are at least half a dozen companies with some sort of solution to tracking after the theft, but I couldn't find one that didn't need to be installed before hand. Hopefully you can get that presentation put back together, Good Luck.
A good run-down of several options, but again no after-the-fact help.
Thanks for that info.
Wouldn't that program be wiped out with the rest of the stuff on HD before the laptop would be sold?
At least one of them talked about being installed as part of the BIOS, so unless the thief was extra savvy that would probably stick around.
Apparently, the service already exists. Rand's dad indicates that he has seen laptop offers online that come with a complimentary service in which a chip is installed in the laptop and if stolen, the police (and perhaps your insurance company; he is not certain of the specifics) can track online the exact locatio of the device.
The same chip is often installed in cars and other property. It started as a way to track fire engines in Detroit years ago. There was a spate of thefts of firetrucks in Detroit. After each one, people would call in to claim that a firetruck had damaged their parked car. The city's insurance company would have to pay to have the cards replaced or repaired. After awhile, the insurance folks were pretty were pretty certain the stolen trucks had not been anywhere near the location of the claims for damaged cars. But they couln't prove it.
Enter GPS and the tracking devices. They have become smaller now and you can get them for laptops. I am looking for any info I can get on the services right now. If I find anything, I'll keep you all posted.
Here is a great video on the sibject.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=BqPPSlYUBeE
Yeah mine has fingerprint access and a lojack.... too much valuable info in it....
hell I lose cameras and phones like mad... at least 2 of each a year... though the current cell is now over a year old... I did lose a camera a month or so ago in Colombia....
Hey Rand, I live in SF and have an extra laptop you can borrow while you're here, if that would help. It a mac, 12" powerbook and it has powerpoint, etc.
email me if you're interested,
Gradiva Couzin
What a wonderful sentiment from the SEOmoz community
I'm so proud to be a member of a community that is as open hearted as I have seen here
Gradiva - That's an incredibly sweet offer. Thanks so much. We're back home now and the presentation yesterday went well. :)
We knew you could pull it off, even without yellow shoes and a laptop. Just give Rand a whiteboard and some markers, and sit back and enjoy :)
You should see what he can do on a napkin or table cloth....
Great idea: in addition to "Whiteboard Fridays", SEOmoz should start "Tablecloth Tuesdays". Soon after that, Scott will kill us all.
In which case, let's go the whole hog (love ya Scott): Magic Marker Mondays, Tablecloth Tuesdays, Whiteboard Wednesdays (moved from Friday for alliteration purposes), Textbook Thursdays (should really be Th... Thursdays but I can't think of anything - 'Thoughtmap' Thursdays?), SEO Fable Fridays.
Storytelling Saturday (what, you thought you'd get the weekend off?), Shrinkwrap Sunday (you can pre-prepare that and have Sunday off).
Something like this happened to someone I know who was giving a lecture. He just went ahead and pretended the screens were there. He would point to the blank screen and say: "In the upper left you would see ..." "Now you'll notice in this slide ..." etc.
I like it - the Emperor's New Presentation so to speak....
OK! everybody in San Francisco look for the guy in the yellow shoes.This will be the thief! Turn him in.
Sorry to hear about this. I know the heartache when you come back to your car and find it ransacked. Its extremely frustrating - but by the sound of your post, it looks like you're handling it well.
I had my laptop stolen in SF a year ago - they also broke into my car (this guy just smashed the passenger window). The SF police don't come down for these because it happens so frequently in SF - 10-15 per night from what they told me. Filing a police report is only valuable to report it to insurance, taxes, etc.
To be honest, I think your chances of getting it back are very slim. So you're probably re-building that presentation now which is the right thing to do.
I never got my laptop back, but I tried the following:
1) Closely monitored Craigslist and ebay for a few days
2) Checked out the local flea markets
More likely than not, these guys do laptop theft often. And they have an underground network where they can quickly resell for some quick bucks. The buyers then resell on places like craigslist and flea markets.
Craigslist is teeming with laptops for sale. But these guys probably don't put it up for sale immediately (since they know their victims are looking)
Local flea markets happen on Sat and Sunday mornings. I visited a couple - all had some laptops for sale. When I talked to the guys selling them, they weren't straight about where they get these laptops. They just say they're in the business of fixing up broken or old laptops and reselling them (yeah right, a lot of those laptops are only a few months old).
They also told me a lot of their laptop sales happen early in the morning. The people that drop them off for sale, and the people that buy them - they'd rather get their business done as soon as the flea market opens when there aren't a lot of people around. The police also walk through these flea markets. And so the sellers know they'd get questioned if they have 10+ laptops for sale.
Sorry again for your loss. My anecdotal experience was probably more discouraging than helpful...
joe
Rand, that really sucks-ass. However, I'm sure it's a good lesson learned for you and a fair warning to all of us to be prepared for the worst.
I've never had my laptop stolen... but in college, I had one never turn on again. It happened to have my completed final paper that was due the next week. After bashing the laptop to bits, I've learned to back up the files on my computer to an external hard drive. You've just reminded me to do it more frequently!
I also store a lot of files online. This would have been a good idea for your presentation. I've found AOL's Xdrive to be very useful for this.
That's embarrasing for us from down here--I'm sorry that happened to you. I live 5 mins from the financial district and have never had anything stolen, so don't hate SF for this.
The craigslist idea above sounds promising... here in SF it is EXTREMELY active. A slight variation on that would be to search for a very specific item that you had in your luggage (as opposed to your laptop). The laptop might be hard to identify on Craigs List, but a more "unique" item might get listed and lead you to the culprits.
Good luck!
I know that comments like this always sound trite, but I guess the main thing is here is that no-one got hurt. I really hope you manage to get back some of your stuff.
On a lighter note, I wonder whether there are any canny employees at Puma reading this who might consider sending you some replacement shoes free of charge?!
Wow, that really sucks, especially a computer because of so much stuff that gets saved that may not be backed up.
If it was an Intel based laptop, remember years ago that every chip got it's own identification number and the big fear then was privacy and being able to be identified, so much so that they introduced a way to turn it off. You probably don't have the number written down anyway, but that might be an good number to take down on all future computers since it is hardcoded.
I don't know if they still do, I'd guess they do, but AmEx was one of the first cards to have automatic "purchase insurance." Years ago when I did my abroad study in England, I had bought a bike for getting around, which ended up eventually getting stolen (quite common I'm sure) and after filing a report with the police and then providing a copy to AmEx, they refunded the bike purchase without issue.
Never thought about rental cars being targets, but I guess it makes sense.... pretty good odds that the trunk has stuff worth stealing.
There are so many goddamn awful people out there. I get frustrated with my husband because he won't let me leave anything -- even receipts -- in the car, even when it's parked outside our place. I end up carrying bucketloads of stuff into the apartment every night. I know he's right, though. The night I leave my phone or backpack in it, it'll be gone by morning. I see a car with a broken or taped up window every day.
This sucks so bad. I'm so sorry, Rand and Geraldine. However, I did not manage to break your old Dell yet and thus, it will be waiting for you when you get back :)
I am sorry to hear about that.
I can tell you I was in a similar situation and the reality is that who ever stole it can not sell it until tomorrow (if they even do), and pawn shops only report sales to police once a day, and these two factors together mean that even under the best of circumstances, it is unlikely you would get it back in time for your presentation on Monday.
So unfortunately, I would plan on rebuilding what you can of that presentation. I hate to tell someone to lose hope, but in your scenario it probably is not realistic to think you will get it back in time.
Good luck, and luckily you and mystery are safe.
Hi Rand,
I'm so sorry to hear this. Laptops theft is an all to common occurence in San Francisco. The worst case was a stabbing around Ritual Coffee Roasters in the Mission (a well known coffee shop where all the linkerati/digeratis hang out).
I'm not too sure what I can do to help, but if you're still around...we have some spare cubicles at e-Storm that we can spare if you need to do some work.
Best of Luck! And again, so sorry to hear.
- Daniel
Blech, not a good way to start the weekend. I would say that you're not going to see your laptop again, so you're going to have to plan on redoing the presentation :(
Of course, you could just keep a lookout for anyone wearing your trademark shoes...
It's never fun having your car broken into and things stolen. I've had it happen a few times, once where the windows were just smashed, and another time when, after my mother had advised me not to take my car to college, I did anyway. 10 minutes after I parked it, and unloaded all my gear, I went back down, and it was gone. It was eventually recovered 3 months later, but it was a write-off by then.
That's horrific, Rand. My heart goes out to you and Mystery Guest. I hope you get some good news soon.
This sucks. I hope you didn't lose any info of vital importance... best luck recovering your stuff.
So sorry to hear of your situation. The sense of violation is probably the worst part.
I hope you were able to recover your presentation for today - that has to be the worst part - stuff can be replaced - a ruined weekend cannot.
*HUGS* to you both
Sorry to hear about the Rand,
Just echoing what everyone else says. Properly best to try and re-do the whole presentation, but 40 slides by Monday! You’re definitely in a pickle.
Good luck in trying to get your laptop back and hopefully your weekend will get better!
All I gotta say is that some people just suck. It's too bad that this came at your expense and lost time. Best of luck with your redone presentation.
Sorry to hear about your loss. 40 pages is a lot of work to replace. I hope you didn't have any private info on the laptop.
Dude, so sorry to hear what happened...
Glad nothing happened to you and Mystery directly.
Be assured there's much love for you here despite the unfortunate and random scenario. Xiexie (thanks) for your ongoing visits (segue)...
China is great, hope that trip goes comparitively without incident for ye.
I just saw this; sorry to hear it, Rand and M_G, but glad you're okay. And I don't consider "favorite clothes" entirely replaceable.
Just a thought: in big cities, don't leave *anything* in the car that's costly or that you can't replace easily. Sadly, that's just the way it is.
Another thought: might be helpful to FTP your presentations to a server, as a "just in case" measure. But of course you already thought of that.
Rand & Mystery Guest,
Really sorry to hear this happened to you guys. People make fun of me for carrying my laptop with me EVERYWHERE when I am out of the office/out of town but I will continue to put up with it after hearing this story. :(
I will definitely be keeping my eye out for any yellow pumas in the Bay Area -- I have a feeling that may be a more recognizable path to the culprit than any laptop-tracking device.
So what style Pumas were they? Everyone knows the color... may have people scouring their areas for replacements.
And what size?
May have to get some of those hand painted Nikes to replace them... God forbid!
That sucks!
Never, ever park the car, put something valuable in the trunk and then leave the car while on vacation.
Hawaii has a fairly low crime rate but people do hang out at some of the tourist spots and watch to see what people place in the trunk before going on the hike or whatever. If they see you placing a purse, laptop and a bunch of other stuff in the trunk, it will be gone when you return.
Always pull over on the side of the road before you get there, put the stuff in the trunk there, and then drive the last few miles or blocks to park at the destination.
Aloha,Dave.
We did that. It's not that anyone saw us putting stuff in the trunk. This was another story altogether. They simply must have guessed that this rental car was loaded with stuff.
That is terrible to hear, I didnt' know the crime rate was that high in SF (seeing how the cops don't even come out for it anymore), though I have never step foot into America as of yet.
Are you in Sydney Francis? There are a few places around Broadway, Redfern etc that I would not leave my car at night. A few years ago there was a very popular netcafe on Broadway that uni students frequented. After 3 smashed car windows in 3 weeks and a stolen phone and laptop, we didn't go there anymore :)
Sorry to hear of your loss Rand+Mystery Guest.
It really sucks how rental cars are easily identified by would-be thieves.
Yeh, I parked in broadway for 2 hours and my car's tyre's air cap thing got stolen. I was lucky my car didn't get smashed up for no reason what so ever.
Worst part was I went to meet a client that was cheap and nasty there. It was a major lost for me tht day (time, fuel, tyre air caps etc).
Bloody people in broadway got problems...
Scour Craigs List
I lived just up from the Financial District for 10 years and to say the SFPD are blase is an understatement
Sorry to hear the news Rand, particularly after finding out your insurance won't cover anything. My guess is you won't see the laptop again, but don't give up hope. Stranger things have been known to happen.
Matt's idea above is probably best if you do have applications that automatically login somewhere. Maybe someone can track the MAC address of the wireless card.
I can't currently think of any way we could, but if there's any way we can help you out, let us know. Glad you're safe at least.
Have you ruled out black-hat SEOs who are jealous of your fame? :) Seriously, though, that just plain sucks. Best of luck sorting it out.
Never heard about filing police reports online before :). Hope you get your stuff back...
In my opinion, the worst offense is stealing your yellow shoes! Since your insurance is going to be handling the financial loss, then I'd say rather than worrying about it all, I'd continue to enjoy myself, basically saying, F8@^ it! As for the presentation, forget about it. Just wing it. It'll be a good challenge for you. You don't need no stinkin' powerpoint, Rand. You're quite capable of getting your ideas and messages across without that crutch.
How awful! Definitely in the top 10 ways to ruin a vacation. :(
This happened to a friend a year ago here in Portland. He found the laptop on Craigslist the next day and when he showed up to "buy it back" the girl who stole it just handed it over acting like it her boyfriend gave it to her as a present etc etc. He called the police but they couldn't find her again. He figured they didn't care and more or less in the end either did he.
Bad news: if it is fenced on CL, like his, it will probably be wiped of anything IDing the orignal owner. I think you could make a case in the insurance submission for lost work time/ assets above and beyond the cost of the laptop.
Diners Club... isn't that so old school you'll need to telegram in your report?
That completely sucks.
Just about the same thing happened to me in NYC about 15 years ago. I'd gotten together with some old friends for NYE, so one came from London, another from Portland, I came down from Boston and a fourth one lived there. We had a lot of stuff in the back of my car, including some expensive gifts one of us had just gotten for Christmas.
We left the car in the Village, just off Bleecker, and when we came back a couple of hours later we found that every car on the block had had their trunk locks popped out and cleaned out -- something like 15 cars.
Nothing was irreplaceable, but it was a lousy feeling and I felt responsible -- it was my car and I'd actually told my friends there was no reason to carry around all their stuff when we could just leave it in the trunk.
Augh - that's exactly how I feel. I keep thinking that I could have done something differently. I'm always queasy about leaving stuff in the trunk ... I guess there's no point in beating oneself up over it, but I can't stop feeling sick about the whole thing. I don't even care about the stuff anymore - I just want this feeling in my gut to go away.
That sucks!! Sorry about that Rand and Mystery_guest. I don't even know what to say. "Hope it works out ok" probably wouldn't fit cause it probably won't, cops won't do anything about it and what are the chances of finding the stuff? What I will say is, I hope you can move on and forget it and (once Monday is over) you don't let it bother you too much. Look at it this way, now you get a new laptop. :)
Good luck on the presentation.
It was a new laptop :( Now he's going to have to use this boat-anchor Dell again for a while.
"Boat anchor Dell."
Oh man, that is an apt way to describe it.
UPDATE: Rand just spoke to Diner's, and we're not covered for theft of our items. So we get nothing. Zilch. We don't have travel insurance, either. We're heading home today. My heart hurts.
Do either of you have renter's insurance? Some of those policies cover your personal property, even if it's not in your home. Just a thought.
Nope. We've been thinking about getting it - now we definitely will. It doesn't cover travel, though. We'd need separate traveller's insurance.
Sorry to hear that :( Don't let it ruin San Francisco for you, though. It's my second favorite town. Besides, Rand's such a whiz that he could stand up and wing it on his presentation and nobody would know the difference.
Ouch. Perhaps a moot point, but because your stuff was stolen from your rental car, homeowner's/renter's insurance may have covered it. In fact, you may want to check with your auto insurance company and/or the insurance policy you may have taken out for the rental and see if it will cover something.
Super sucktackular any way you slice it. I'm sure you'll be mourning at least one pair of shoes, and Rand's laptop was brand-friggin-new.
Crap-slapped indeed.
Oh man. Thinking of you guys. A trip carefully planned and then ruined by some idiot. Rand - I'd go with the advice above - no presentation, loads of caffeine and adrenaline ;)
Yeah Renter's or home owner's insurance can cover persoanl items stolen on the road.... especially the car as it seems to be an extension of your dwelling...
Had a road trip break in covered by home owner's.
May have to weigh the risk of making a claim on the chance and impact of premiums getting jacked up on renewal.
Not sure about elsewhere, but unfrotunately, insurance in the US is often better used as a pay for it and hope you never need to use it, or as a last resort for considerable damage or loss because using it often results in what seems like a penalty in increased premiums.
One of those "just can't win" scenarios.