Friend’s laptop was stolen and I’m more upset then him.
My friend had a Dell laptop that his work gave him for his job. On Friday he had a party and a whole bunch of people came over. One of them was this guy, we’ll call him frank. Frank is a loser. He’s taken small things before and when he’s caught red handed he plays it off as it’s not a big deal and that he was just borrowing it, but that’s only when he’s caught. My opinion is that he’s a total kleptomaniac. I don’t know why my friend keeps hanging out with him. The only thing he has going for him is that he’s funny and good looking enough that the girls like him. Any way, I’m positive that this is the guy that stole my friend’s laptop. But because there were other people at the party, my friend doesn’t even want to confront frank about it. What my friend doesn’t seem to grasp is that IT’S NOT HIS LAPTOP TO LOSE! I told him that he might loose his job when they find out that it was stolen. He’s worried about that but now he considering buying a new laptop to replace the one from his job and hopefully get away with it. I told him that’s ridicules! He’s just nonchalant about the whole thing. FUCK YOU FRANK! YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE WHAT EVER YOU WANT AND NO ONE’S GOING TO GET HURT! I wish I could kick down his door and beat him over the head with said laptop. :mad:
ahhh, i see. There’s a mod here named frank. Didn’t mean him. Anyway is there any way that my I could prove to my friend that it was frank that stole the laptop? Maybe trace him over the internet or something?
The last time that someone in my company had their laptop stolen, we replaced it from our supply (we did insist on getting a police report #). Frankly, we’d be more upset if he a)attached a personal laptop to the network (assuming he could configure it properly) b) tried to pass a personal one off as a company one c) lied to us.
I don’t work for his company so I can’t say for sure how they would react, but him being honest with his company is probably the best policy.
The company might also have some reporting requirements if there might have been sensitive information (social security numbers, medical records, or other confidential information) on the laptop.
I agree with you- trying to cover up having the laptop stolen is likely to make a bad situation several orders of magnitude worse.
We had a big ol’ Christmas/Hanukkah party here last December. When everyone was gone, I noticed that a brand new watch, which I had never worn, was missing. So even though we’ve thrown a dozen big open parties like that, it’ll never, ever happen again.
I think what my friend is trying to do is buy a new laptop and say to his manager “I lost the laptop you gave, but look; I bought a new one to make up for it. Please don’t fire me.”
I found out that the company my friend works for lessees there laptops from another company named BLC Corp. this probably is not good news for my friend in that it just complicates things. This can’t be the first laptop stolen in history. Don’t they install like a tracking program that can be used when ass hole frank connects to the internet. Maybe a gps tracking device. My cell phone has one of those. Could the police triangulate his position and have enough to arrest him? Is the only way we’re going to catch him is if he feels like selling it at the local pawn shop and some serial number comes up saying it’s stolen?
As for the police, my friend said he is going to file what ever report his manager tells him to do. He didn’t go to work today. Took a sick day, go figure.
No. What’s the point of asking though? Your friend hasn’t even notified the police, so what possible steps the police have to recover the equipment are kind of irrelevant, don’t you think? He’s an idiot for waiting this long to contact the police. The laptop may be long gone, but no business is going to fire an employee because someone stole their laptop. The trouble is that your friend’s complete refusal to deal with this situation will get him fired. The company is not going to accept that it was stolen without a police report.
Um, are you certain your friend didn’t steal and pawn the machine himself? Because that’s what his complete refusal to deal with the situation suggests. If the machine was stolen from him, then he ought to be trying to get it back by contacting the cops. His boss is going to assume he’s a thief if he doesn’t do so. Buying another machine is a completely idiotic idea, especially when the company is not going to expect him to reimburse them for the business’s stolen property.
I don’t know what your friend’s problem is, but waiting for the issue to go away is obviously not going to help. It makes him look suspicious - and he’s going to screw up his future royally if he gets fired from his job for stealing something. So it’s in his interest not to look like a thief, which is what he looks like when he won’t even contact the police about this.
Jesus, your friend is a real moron here. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but the only reasonable thing to do here would be to notify the cops. The business is not going to accept that it was stolen without a police report, and his big idea to buy a new laptop instead of reporting the other one stolen is absolutely bizarre. Why in the world would he do that? Why would a company want its employee to do that? What is he trying to accomplish here? Because his complete refusal to deal with the situation properly is going to fuck up his life.
It might not work that way. Corporate and government purchasing has its own arcane rules, and this might well be against one of them. I will leave explaining that to someone who understands it- I don’t.
What I do understand, though, is the objection that IT and network security people have to someone bringing in a personally owned laptop and putting it on the network (this is something a lot of users don’t understand). The problem is that we have no idea what kind of software might be on that laptop. It might have all kinds of worms, viruses, and spyware on it, especially if he’s had it on the internet without a firewall (a setup many people have at home, although they shouldn’t). Machines on the company intranet typically trust each other quite a bit (how much will depend on the company), so it’s very bad news when a virus or worm gets on an intranet. The IT and network security people at your friend’s company are not going to be happy if he just brings in his new laptop and plugs it into the network like nothing happened.
Some laptops do have theft-recovery software such as Lojack (something similar is now available for Macs), some don’t. The IT people at his company should know if something like that is part of their standard install. It’s not a hardware GPS tracker (at least the ones I’ve heard of aren’t)- it’s some software that reports to some central location on the activities of a stolen laptop when someone takes it online.
I am quite positive that my friend did not steal the laptop himself! I know him quite well. He’s the kind of person who doesn’t want to make waves and would be willing to pay for a new laptop if it would make the whole situation go away. He really doesn’t stick up for him self which is why I think he has me as a friend because I look out for him.
I don’t have a job that gives out laptops so I didn’t know about “The business is not going to accept that it was stolen without a police report”, but I did try to get him to call the police yesterday when he noticed it was stolen. I didn’t press him because I figured him telling his boss was just as good as him calling the cops. I’m on the phone with him right now kicking his ass to file a police report.
I suggest you tell him to stop acting like he did, then. He may get himself in a lot of trouble here; it’s gotta be tough to get a job when you were fired from your last on suspicion that you stole property.
In this case, you need to look out for him by convincing him to deal with the situation. He’s trying to hide from it, and that might work sometimes but it won’t work here. Do him a favor and explain to him that this may be a very serious matter for him.
Good. Handling this kind of thing as by-the-book as possible is the only reasonable approach.
I have a laptop for my job and let me tell you - buying a laptop and trying to pass it off as a company laptop is a BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD idea. They’ll find out and then they’ll think he’s a dishonest idiot for not just coming clean and admitting that someone stole the thing. It’s not like he meant for it to happen. But if he buys a new one and tries to pass it off as company material - THAT he meant to happen and they’ll rake him over the coals for it. Come clean, it’s the only way.
My personal Sony Vaio laptop was stolen last summer in Florida, while working with my dad. The neighbor next door saw the woman who took it, which was the woman my dad had recently gone on a few dates with. Unfortunately the neighbor(she was an older woman) could not pick her out of a line-up, and so she wasn’t charged with anything. She was the only person who would have had access and the woman described her car at the scene. I was pretty upset but since my dad payed me back and I got a new one I got over it. On a happier note a friend of mine saw her car and slashed a tire, I didn’t ask him to or anything but I don’t feel badly for her.
Actually, if the thief was selling the laptop for profit, you could scan eBay for a couple weeks for the model of the laptop that was stolen and check where the item is being sold from. If it’s being sold from Franks town (or close to the originating town), you might be close. You can then email the seller for “information”. Not sure what you could get out of it, but if something in the seller tipped you off that it might be the laptop in question, press for more location information, and details on the laptop. Worth a shot.