I’d do hard time just to get another six inches.
Not necessarily dumb, so much as purely petty: I was working in an office building a couple decades ago, and often kept spare change in my desk drawer to use at the vending machines. One day, the coins were gone.
Others on the team noticed the same thing.
So we put more money in to see what would happen. And consistently, everything but the pennies were taken.
They stole other things as well - one woman lost a bottle of hand lotion. She left a snarky note in her desk drawer that night and in retaliation, her box of kleenex was emptied out.
We were quite certain it was the evening cleaning crew. We had reported it to building security, and I gather some cleaning crew staffing changes were made and the thefts stopped, though we never heard any confirmation. Someone potentially lost his/her job, for stealing what was certainly less than 10 dollars worth of money.
"Looked smart but turned out dumb": I brought my Nook Color with me to the local water park. Left it somewhat hidden under my towel when I went to grab something for lunch. Came back, and it was gone. It was an out-of-date device, utterly worthless from a fencing standpoint, and I had it bricked within 2 hours by calling B&N. It had a lovely case on it, which was useless for any other device - that was the saddest part.
"Didn’t happen but I wish it had": a purse snatching in NYC. You see, that particular day, I was transporting a little jar containing, well, a sample, to a gastroenterologist.
"Gee, I’m sure they won’t figure out who committed it": I was working on a project at a government client, a couple decades ago. We had an admin assistant who answered phones, handled paperwork and so on. She was out sick or something, so a temp was brought in one day.
All of us from the one main room were upstairs at a meeting that morning, came back downstairs, and the temp (who’d been holding down the fort) took her lunch break.
And never returned.
We were all getting a bit worried about her - thought she’d gotten sick or something - but went on with our days.
That evening, I got a call at home from the project manager: “Have you had any unusual transactions on your credit cards? Do you have them in your possession?”.
One colleague had gotten a call from her credit card company about potentially fraudulent activity. Phone calls were made, and at least one other person was affected.
Building security got involved (and this being a Federal building, it was real security not rent-a-cops), and we never heard how it all really turned out but basically, the temp took advantage of us all being gone, went through several purses, and took credit cards. She didn’t return to work because she was busy buying whatever she could before the cards got cancelled.
Not enough reach, but your opponents probably feel it when you do connect 
[QUOTE=BobArrgh;19932301Possibly explaining eschereal’s statement: I remember reading something a few years ago in a magazine – Reader’s Digest, probably – that in Russia, windshield wipers were a semi-precious commodity, so drivers typically did not keep the blades on the car. Then, when it started to rain, the roads would temporarily clear while all the drivers pulled over and attached the wiper blades.[/QUOTE]
cwPartner tells me this was a problem in Communist Bulgaria (could still be now, for all he knows, but he hasn’t been back since then). In fact, when he rented a car, the agent initially refused to provide windshield wipers on the grounds that “You’ll just leave them installed and they’ll get stolen.” After many assurances that he would not install the wipers unless it was raining and he was with the car, the agent relented - grudgingly - and provided a set of windshield wipers (which he dutifully installed and uninstalled, repeatedly, as he traveled through the countryside).
Just heard from a friend with a new one.
He deposited a check from a gig as usual, but realized a few days later the bank had bounced it. When he went in to investigate he was notified that his deposit had been refused because that check had already been deposited by someone else into another account at another bank.
I don’t know about other countries but banks here offer an app for you smartphone which will scan a check and automatically deposit into your bank account. Apparently, someone who worked for the client must’ve had access to his check to scan it.
Copy of phone scanned check obtained… including banking and personal information of depositor. Police report filed and fraud investigation opened.
There’s a guy in DC who runs this street scam where he asks you for a $20 for two $10 bills. Then if you give him the $20, he claims you just gave him $1 (he makes a switch) and starts a big scene. He gets people not looking for any trouble to give him another $20. He’s kind of infamous.
But here’s the thing: in what situation would you ever need a twenty dollar bill instead of two tens? If you think about it for just a second, the whole thing falls apart.
Oh, the things people will do to try to steal from the registers. There’s someone who came up to my register, asked for a $50 for two twenties and a ten, then claimed I gave him a five dollar bill. I called over the head cashier and said “Let’s look at the videotape, and then call the police.” He ran out of the store.
When one cashier was counting out and had the money on the counter, I saw one guy look at it and then start acting very loud and crazy. Suddenly everybody was looking at him and not at the money as he started walking over to that counter. I ran over the counter and threw my arms on the cash. The guy went back to normal, turned around and left.
Some guy tried the old change-shuffle on me when I was working at a convenience store. But I had seen Paper Moon, so I was able to follow it closely and make it come out even. He sure looked confused at the end.