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Is your car a target for theft? Here’s how to protect it. - YouTube
Channel: Texas Department of Insurance (TDI)
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I’m Ben Gonzalez with the
Texas Department of Insurance.
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And this is the Texas Insurance Podcast.
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On each episode we’ll look at an insurance issue,
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why it’s important to you, and tips to help
save you money and protect your property.
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Today we’re going to talk about what you need to
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know about car break-ins and
theft of your personal items.
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For expert insight, we spoke to
Sergeant Tracy Hicks with the
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Houston Police Department’s
Auto Theft Crime Task Force.
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He talks about how thieves pick their targets,
how long it takes, and what they’re really after.
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Where are break-ins most likely to occur?
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Is it somewhere where you're going to be
parked for a long period of time or at home?
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Well, here in Houston, our biggest thing
is is mostly the restaurant, the gyms,
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even the convenience stores.
It's it's not the long-term
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cars parked overnight in town here.
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Our biggest problem is not the kids at night
time, you know walking through a neighborhood
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and looking in people's cars. Ours are very quick
and easy. It's the lunch crowd, the dinner crowd,
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people go into the yoga
studios, going to our gyms.
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We have a thousand gyms and that's
that's prime pickings, because
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I think criminals learn over the years.
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They're not going to return to places
where they struck out basically.
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So they're gonna go to places
they know - people go in the gym,
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they're afraid to bring their valuables into
the gym because lockers get broken into.
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These guys hang out and the parking lots of
the gyms and and they watch people, literally.
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Females put in their purse, or
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men stuff and their wallet in their trunk,
or trying to hide it someone in their car.
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And we're trying to get the message
out as that's not such a great idea.
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Because people
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you've basically taken all the guesswork out
of I wonder if there's valuables in that car?
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There are definitely valuables.
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Yeah, I think I've heard of people - you got your
wallet, and you don't want to leave it anywhere
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where it can be seen, but you don't want
to take it in so you stick it in the side
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on the car door or right underneath your seat,
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but that's probably not a good
idea if somebody's watching you.
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Right. The first place crooks
when they... we have videos
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that show the first thing they
do when I dive in your car,
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they check their center console, your glove box,
under the seat, the seat pockets in the back,
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the door panels. And if they don't
see anything - boom, they're out
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They check the five places that everyone
hides their stuff, and then they're out.
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It's quick. They're not gonna get caught in there.
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They're not going to be in your
car for more than 15 seconds.
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As far as the places that it occurs,
like you said, gyms or a restaurant,
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they know you're gonna be
busy for at least an hour.
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Right. Because of the the COVID-19
and obviously state-wide we've had
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almost all the restaurants the
gyms - everything's been closed.
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It concentrated our car break-ins to the
parks where people were still able to jog.
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or people were able to even go
outside and have any fresh air at all.
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That's where all the cars were.
There were no cars at the gym.
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So all of our crooks all
concentrated their efforts. Which was
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good on our part because we could concentrate
our undercover officers in those places.
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But now as stuff starts to open back up,
not just here in Houston, but everywhere,
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we're actually seeing huge numbers. It's like the
crooks kind of took off a little bit of time, too.
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They're back out. The gyms are slowly
opening, but not all of them are open.
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The restaurants are open, but not all of them.
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They are going where the vehicles are.
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What makes a car a target as opposed
to the one that's right next to it?
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Well, a lot of these guys they
watch. They're they're looking for
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eople actually placing... you go to
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a restaurant - a Chilis or Olive Garden - for
lunch, a lot of people bring their laptops
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or whatever, and they know they're having a
business lunch, and they don't want to bring
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that large clunky laptop in. And these guys sit in
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the parking lots. They're there
at 10:45. I've seen them myself.
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We have videos and videos and videos of people
just looking. There's not a particular car.
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I think it's... a lot of times
they're watching for behaviors.
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When a lot of people go away from
home, they might be more vigilant.
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"Oh, I would never leave my purse or or leave
my car unattended or leave my car running."
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But when people get close to home,
they kind of let their guard down.
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We all have our favorite grocery store
that we go to, and you've stopped there
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a thousand times to pick up bread and milk. And
leaving something like your laptop or something
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valuable your camera bag, whatever in your
car. "I'm just gonna run in here for a minute."
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That's what crooks are hoping for
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They're going to the daycares. They're
going to the local convenience stores.
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Where you've gotten your cup of coffee
every morning for the last three years,
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you know the clerk, and you let your guard
down, because you've done it a hundred times.
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In the wintertime, people have a
tendency to leave their car running.
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They're only two blocks from
home, their cars not warmed up,
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they run inside for just a second,
grab a coffee, come back out.
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Same thing on the way home,
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you grab something quick. People are
leaving their cars, it's hot in Texas,
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we don't want the AC to stop.
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And that's what these crooks are looking for.
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They're looking for, not a particular car,
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but a pattern of behavior and they're gonna go
where those patterns are profitable for them.
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And is it a matter of a newer car or older car or
is it just having an easy target or an open door?
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Do they break in? Or is it
just looking for open doors?
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It depends. We have probably a third of the BMVs
(Burglary of a Motor Vehicle) are open doors.
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Here in Houston, some of the
community service officers
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will actually go into an apartment complex
with a manager and just check doors,
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and we'll leave little report cards.
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You would be shocked at the number
of cars we find unlocked. And
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I've talked to people that say "Well,
I don't have anything. valuable
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I don't want them to break a window, which
cost me three four or five hundred dollars.
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I just leave my car unlocked." Which we
tell people. No. No. No. Do not do that.
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It just gives them an easier way to... if
they are actually looking to steal the car.
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Anything else you can do to prevent break-ins?
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You know the the best thing, and
it's been said a thousand times,
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and there's posters, and
everyone sees the signs...
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It's not leaving valuables in your car.
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I tell people, hey, if you don't
leave anything the value of a car,
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they're not going to hit your car.
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In Houston, Dallas, Austin,
the bigger cities in Texas
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we've actually seen quite a
big shift in the last year
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I've been teaching community groups,
don't leave stuff in your car because
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when a bad guys looking in your car,
and your car looks like it's brand new,
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and the car next to you has
a backpack and a camera bag,
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which car do you think he's going to break
into? It makes sense that if my car looks clean,
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He's not going to break into it.
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This last year we have seen a huge increase in
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people breaking into cars that had nothing
showing. They're simply looking for guns.
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Guns are the new hot topic.
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We've had some apartment complexes that
have the big high-rise parking garages,
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a lot of the bigger cities have those now...
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We had one complex that got
hit for 66 cars in one night,
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and only one person out of the 66
reported anything missing from their car.
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They were leaving in laptops
and camera bags and backpacks.
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The only thing they were looking for was guns.
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Guns have a lot more resale value.
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The thing about laptops...
when I got into this business,
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auto-theft, 15 years ago, it was all laptops.
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Everyone stealing laptops.
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The value of laptops has changed. I mean
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You can get a decent laptop for
$300. They used to cost $3000.
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Resale on that, they're gonna get 40 bucks. It's
just big and it's clunky. It's not worth it.
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When they can get a gun. They're
gonna get $500, $600, $700 for it.
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And the biggest thing I can tell people is there's
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no circumstances, whatsoever you
should ever leave your gun in the car.
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If you are a person who carries, and you frequent
a bar or a restaurant that it's not allowed,
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they make small gun safes that can
be mounted permanently into your car.
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Those things work great.
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They're kind of like little hotel
safes, almost. They're very inexpensive.
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You go to a ballgame, you go to an amusement park,
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there's a lot of places you can't bring your
gun in Texas. And it's not just for guns.
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I mean, you go to the gym you
can throw your wallet in there.
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You got an expensive watch or a diamond bracelet,
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you can throw that in there. Having
that little safe mounted in your...
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they have center console safes,
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glove box safes. Those those things
are a great investments - $200-300.
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It's a huge piece of mind for very small price.
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Besides them break-ins...
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Can you touch very quickly on auto thefts? Is
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there anything you can do to
prevent a car being stolen?
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Well, the auto thefts, they're kind of going
up a little bit, depending on where you're at.
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Here in Texas people love their trucks.
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And thieves love the trucks. Because that's
what re-sells. We've had a huge increase of
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Chevy trucks. You used to always be Fords.
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The '08s and older, the old vehicles
that don't need the key fob.
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Criminals have figured out that GMC products
- which includes Cadillac, GMC, and Chevy -
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all have the same motor, and they all have
a very easy way they can be stolen now.
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So, a lot of people think
"Well, I have an old vehicle.
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I don't need to spend any money
to prevent it from being stolen.
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Like an expensive alarm or
a club or a kill switch."
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Well, you're actually a lot more likely...about
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10 times more likely to have your
car stolen if you have an older car,
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like an '08 or older. Because a lot of
these people, they're not stealing a
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2000 Tahoe to "part it out."
It's worth a thousand dollars.
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It's not worth the whole vehicle
itself. The parts aren't worth anything.
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They're they're stealing old
cars to commit other crimes.
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If you're gonna go rob somebody,
you're gonna go shoot somebody,
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you're gonna go commit other crimes,
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you just need a car. And so the older cars are
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easy to steal because they
don't have that key fob.
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What they have figured out is... the
Chevys 2015 till the brand-new ones,
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they have found a way to bypass that key
fob, which I'm not going to tell you.
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(laughs) No. Don't tell us.
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But as far as the newer cars that are stolen,
a lot of them are stolen because the key fobs.
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The key fobs are kind of handy to have.
The car has to sense that key fob in there.
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The criminals have learned.
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There's more financial crimes involved.
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Valets or dealership ripoffs have went through
the roof as opposed to what they used to be.
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Sergeant Hicks also shared that
police have seen a spike in
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thefts of catalytic converters. (That’s
part of the exhaust system under the car.)
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The parts contain a few grams of precious
metals like platinum and rhodium,
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making them especially valuable to resell.
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And thieves often target hybrid cars – like the
Toyota Prius. It’s easy to remove the catalytic
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converter, and the metals are less likely to be
corroded than in a traditional gas engine car.
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Another trend Sergeant Hicks told us about
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was some creative car thieves taking orders
for specific vehicles—often custom pickups.
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The thieves take photos of the parked trucks
and then advertise them for sale in other
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cities. When they find a buyer, they make
their move, and steal that particular truck.
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It cuts down on the time the thieves
have to hold the stolen property
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and gets it out of town quickly,
often hundreds of miles away.
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So, what can you do to avoid having
your car broken into or stolen?
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You’ve heard this before, but it is still
the best way to prevent being a target:
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Lock your doors, roll-up your windows,
and always take your keys with you!
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Park in a garage if you can,
or at least in a well-lit area.
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If you have an alarm or a
starter kill, use it every time.
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And it helps to make it obvious to the
thieves. That little red blinking light
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might be the only difference between
your car and the one next to it.
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And if you drive a Prius or another
hybrid, you might consider buying a
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casing—or converter lock—to protect
your catalytic converter from theft.
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And finally, if your car is stolen, your
auto insurance will probably cover it,
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if you have comprehensive auto coverage. Those
policies will also cover high value parts
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like the catalytic converter or
the airbag in your steering wheel.
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If you have property stolen from inside
your car, that may be covered by your
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home or renter’s insurance—depending
on the policy and your deductible.
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If you have questions about your auto insurance,
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or any kind of insurance coverage, we have
lots of tips on our website, at TDI.Texas.gov.
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You can also call our Help Line at 800-252-3439.
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And remember to subscribe to The
Texas Insurance Podcast—wherever
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you get your podcasts—so you don’t
miss out on this important information.
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We’ll talk to you next time.
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