Advice to Thief: Don't Accept Victim's Facebook Request

By Minara El-Rahman on January 05, 2011 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

What kind of thief steals a television from a carwash? The same kind that gets caught on Facebook.

A thief hid a 27 in. flat screen television that he stole from the men's restroom of a Taunton, Mass. car wash under his sweatshirt, Gearlog.com reports.

While no one actually witnessed the thief take the television, car wash manager Nicole Telles reviewed a video surveillance tape in order to identify the thief. Not only did the thief take the television, the footage revealed that he paid with a credit card at the car wash before he stole the television.

While it is weird enough that the thief stole a television under his shirt, what happens next is even weirder:

Nicole Telles looked up the thief's transaction and got his name. MSNBC reports that she then went on Facebook to search him down: "I went on Facebook, searched the name -- the first and last name -- and he was like the third one up top. He looked like the guy, and I was like, 'All right. Let me request him'" as a "friend," said Telles. "He accepted me, so I went through all his pictures, made sure it was him."

Once she confirmed that the man was indeed the same thief in the surveillance video, her boss sent the thief a message asking him to return the television and that they wouldn't call the police. The thief didn't accept the offer; he tried to delete Ms. Telles from his account instead. However, it was a little too late for this amateur thief. Ms. Telles and her boss went to police and the cops arrested him.

There were a lot of weird things in this particular bungled car wash heist. First off, as Gather.com points out, if you steal from a business, don't use your actual credit card there. Next, don't get caught on a surveillance video. And last but not least, don't accept your victim's Facebook request.

Related Resources:

Copied to clipboard