This hasn't happened to me personally, but several people I work with and work around are finding holes punched or drilled in their vehicles gas tanks!!! I suspect it's only going to get worse as gas prices continue to rise...

It seems like every other time I get gas, someone hits me up to buy them some gas. It's always some sob story and they need some gas. I just tell them no and move on.

Punched or drilled??? Wouldn't siphoning be easier and less dangerous? A perfect set up for a "Knuckleheads in the news" story when the explosion occurs.......

Punched or drilled??? Wouldn't siphoning be easier and less dangerous? A perfect set up for a "Knuckleheads in the news" story when the explosion occurs.......

Most cars you can't get a siphon hose down into the tank, especially anything made after the mid-late 70's. I had a '93 Plymouth that I was sending to the crusher that had a nearly full tank of gas. I ended up siphoning the gas out with a 1/4" diameter hose as that was all I could fit down in there. It took forever...something a theif isn't going to want to wait on in the middle of the night.

Punched or drilled??? Wouldn't siphoning be easier and less dangerous? A perfect set up for a "Knuckleheads in the news" story when the explosion occurs.......

You must have missed the Mythbusters exploding gas tank show... ;)

It seems like every other time I get gas, someone hits me up to buy them some gas. It's always some sob story and they need some gas. I just tell them no and move on.

I've been in Oklahoma City since November of last year...and I have in all my life never been "panhandled" as much anywhere else in this country in 36 years as I have been here in the last 6 months. Like you said, always a sob story. Heck, the first week I was here I nearly got into a fight with a well dressed guy in a Walmart parking lot because I wouldn't give him any money for gas. He layed the sob story on thick...started out by asking me "Do you still believe in America?", then went on to tell me how we were "brothers" just trying to get along in this world, yadda yadda yadda. The whole time I was either in and out of the truck buckling in my (at the time) 8 month old twins :eek: or loading groceries in the truck. When he FINALLY got to the point (needed gas money to get home...300 miles away) and I told him I didn't have any money on me (I really didn't), he started getting loud and calling me selfish and stingy, etc etc. As I was getting the last bag of groceries in the back seat of the truck, he comes right up behind me, still calling me names and telling me how much of a piece of crap I was. I stood up and turned around...at that point he finally realized just how much bigger I was than him (and getting pi$$ed), and he backed away and took off in a hurry. (*&^%$ people...

The last time I was approached was about 3mths ago in a Home Depot. The guy was a painter from AL and had come to GA for work. He said his alt. had broken and showed me he had $20 in his wallet, but that was for food for the week. He was pretty odd and very humble (you had to see/hear him). I normally blow off the "regular" type, but I gave this guy one of the two $5 bills I had in my wallet......and I felt good about it.

Giving money to people is a judgment call. I'd guess that most are homeless and/or alcoholics, drug users etc... But there are some good people who are just down on their luck and have no readily available support system, if at all.

My truck, which gets parked away from the house gets syphoned once in a while. Seems more often now.

The last time I was approached was about 3mths ago in a Home Depot. The guy was a painter from AL and had come to GA for work. He said his alt. had broken and showed me he had $20 in his wallet, but that was for food for the week. He was pretty odd and very humble (you had to see/hear him). I normally blow off the "regular" type, but I gave this guy one of the two $5 bills I had in my wallet......and I felt good about it.

Giving money to people is a judgment call. I'd guess that most are homeless and/or alcoholics, drug users etc... But there are some good people who are just down on their luck and have no readily available support system, if at all.

Good for you.
Tom

The last time I was approached was about 3mths ago in a Home Depot. The guy was a painter from AL and had come to GA for work. He said his alt. had broken and showed me he had $20 in his wallet, but that was for food for the week. He was pretty odd and very humble (you had to see/hear him). I normally blow off the "regular" type, but I gave this guy one of the two $5 bills I had in my wallet......and I felt good about it.

Giving money to people is a judgment call. I'd guess that most are homeless and/or alcoholics, drug users etc... But there are some good people who are just down on their luck and have no readily available support system, if at all.

Nice gesture :thumbsup: The ones who think we owe them or get angry do not get my help either. The one you gave to seem's as if he was honest and just needs a hand.

Kev

I challenged one of those "will work for food" guys once to come with me to move some bricks around to the back of the house. I told him I would feed him, and even offered up some cash for his time. He would not do it, I guess sitting there waiting for suckers paid off better. I know many need the help, but I think this was just his con.

A few weeks ago, cops in Mpls area caught a gas thief who was a sort-a-kinda engineer type. He had an electric fuel pump mounted under his Ford pickup with hoses going into his gas tank. He pulled up to mall parking lots next to cars he knew probably didnt have locking gas caps, pulled up tight next to them, opened their gas tank door and cap, slid a hose down into the tank and hit a switch, presto... grabbed gas direct into his tank.
Someone saw him doing this and called the cops, he got busted with the hose in a tank and with so many thefts over a certain amount, it was a felony. They had his truck in the cop shop showing all the elaborate hoses and pump system. Its only going to get worse Im afraid. :(

A guy in my shop was fired last week, just made 19 years... stole 2 5gallon buckets of diesel.
We make decent money, but I guess "free" is better than $4 a gallon :clonk:

I have a friend who is retired and was down on his luck, just a series of things that lead him to public housing, the kind of thing that public housing was designed for.

He got to know the guys who held up the "Will work for food" signs at the offramps and mall entrances. Most had a fairly good sized drug habit and the "work" kept them very comfortably high and gave them some disposable income. Most even when clean kept at it because of the "high" pay. The upside is that it kept them from stealing copper wiring/plumbing or other such activities to support their habit.

I'm in a poor neighborhood, and the funny thing is that most of the people who leave the homeless shelter and panhandle come here, since the working poor know what it's like to be hungry and most likely donate. I've heard many of the stories and know many of the angles, and it's sometimes hard to be sympathetic to the genuine people when I see so VERY VERY VERY VERY many that are not.

I have NO doubt that I'll be replacing a gas tank(s) soon, luckily I don't ever have much in 'em!

Travis...Which Wal-Mart were you at? The Panhandlers are THICK at the corner of Penn & Memorial. I see them there almost every day.

There is a guy who hangs out in my area at South 19th & I-35 who will approach people and uses the same line over and over... he asks if he could have $5 or so because he's broke and needs gas money to get to Tulsa.

That's why all the Panhandlers are here in OKC because all the toll roads in Tulsa keeps the riff-raff out. :D

I was at a stop light a couple weeks ago and noticed one of them people with the signs holding up wanting money. When I got closer. I was able to read the sign, it said "Why lie? I need a drink." I was almost tempted to give him money for just being honest.

I was at a stop light a couple weeks ago and noticed one of them people with the signs holding up wanting money. When I got closer. I was able to read the sign, it said "Why lie? I need a drink." I was almost tempted to give him money for just being honest.

That`s funny right there. I saw one the other day that had a sign saying, "Having visions of a cheeseburger."

You better purchase a gun!

I do not believe the cost of gas will cause honest people to turn into criminals. The guys doing this crap were criminals before the gas prices went up. Problem is, they go from neighborhood to neighborhood, and suddenly, everyone thinks there is a new crime wave. The reality of it is, they bounce around to keep the cops (and the citizens) from knowing where/when they are doing this.

I just leave my tanks low...no worries. :)

Here's 1;

Here's 1;

Priceless :beers:

When I first got out of the military back in 86, I had a job and then was layed off. The employer wouldn't give me my last check. I kept bugging him and bugging him to no avail.
No money and my rent was paid to the end of the month. I had no family in that area.
My goal was to get that last check and use it to buy a tire for my car and the gas I needed and some food and drive from California to where I was from which is the Seattle area. In Seattle, I had friends and family and connections to get a job.

The days went by and I ran out of money. I kept nagging my last boss.

One day, about 7 days before the end of the month, I ran out of anything to eat and was getting hungry. I had not one person to turn to. I sat there and wondered what to do. The next day I was so frickin hungry I was going to go nuts. It had only been about 2 days since eating or just less than that.

So I walked up the block to the Church's Fried Chicken place and asked for a job. I had been there 2 weeks prior but he said he wasn't hiring. He saw me and said, 'no, I told you, we ain't hiring, come back in a couple months'.
So I just stood there, the smell of that chicken was making me just swoon. It smelled absolutely divine. I had not one red cent either.
I said, 'do you have something, anything I can do for just today, I mean anything man, like sweeping, cleaning, I can do whatever you need me to do, I can even wash your car if you got a bucket'.
He was getting kind of disgusted with me and I think he started to say something to get me to go away and then he stopped for a second and looked at me kind of oddly and said, 'are you hungry'?
'Man, I am so hungry I'm about ready to pass out, I had a job, got layed off and haven't gotten my last paycheck'.
He told me to wait there and he came back with a broom and said, 'OK, sweep the parking lot'.
So I did. It was sizable too.
When I got done he handed me this wide spatula looking thing and said, 'my kids', (his son's worked for him) 'can't do much right, why don't you clean the grease out of this fryer'? He told me it was broke and they couldn't fix it until all the hardened grease was out of it.
So I scooped it all out. It smelled great and if nobody would have been looking, I'd have probly ate some of it.
When I got most of it out, I got some paper towels and wiped the rest of it out. It was spik and span.
He came back there and said, 'that's all I have for you, I can't really be having you do this without an application and a W-4 but if you come back tomorrow, maybe we can figure out something more'. He gave me a 5 dollar bill and an entire bucket of chicken and a 32 oz pop!
I was on top of the world.

I walked home eating my chicken and in about 45 minutes, it was ALL gone.
I came back the next day and he had me sweep some more and gave me some more chicken and told me to come back in two weeks with this application and he'd hire me.
As it turned out, I finally got half of my last check and was able to drive back up to Tacoma.

But when I see the 'will work for food' signs, I know they ain't sincere because when I was willing to work for food, I did.

Great story Mike!!

Great story Mike!!

Yup, x2.
I had a similar experience with a contractor that didn't think he had to pay me. I eventually went to his office every morning and sat in the waiting area, telling the receptionist that I had an appointment with him. After a couple days he wouldn't come out of his office anymore. I got a check by the end of the week...:yes:

My 2nd Son was working at the KFC over by the Mall in HS and there was this panhandler that worked the corner of Worley St. and Stadium several Sat. mornings and he saw him doing it!

Well, long story short, after the Dude worked the corner for say 3 or 4 hour's, he'd come into KFC and buy a bucket or whatever and then GO OUT AND HOP IN HIS VAN and drive off!

Boy was my Son's eye's opened when he finally realized all the Dude was doing was working GOOD PEOPLE and the system!!

pdq67

A friend of mine parked his pickup at the Oakland Airport. When he returned from his trip he started it up and it sounded very loud and strange. Called a tow truck to haul it to the repair shop.

Turned out the catalytic converters were removed for the platinum. The cops said that trucks are targeted because they are easy to crawl under- don't have to mess with a jack.

I guess if you were really lucky the gas tank would be empty too....paid $4.09 the other day for premium...

Thats why i carry a 40cal beretta on my, even at work. I never want to have to use it for ANYTHING however the way this world is getting you would be crazy to not have one on you.

There getting creative and daring, but there still stupid.
Here is a incident that just happened in my neck of the woods.
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/168/story/216544.html

Thats why i carry a 40cal beretta on my, even at work. I never want to have to use it for ANYTHING however the way this world is getting you would be crazy to not have one on you.


I wish I could. Just this morning I thought I was going to have to fight my way out of a gas station!! That kind of adrenalin in the morning isn't good for me. I am getting gas. Once I got the nozzle into the tank and was fueling, I hear an engine start. Its about 0500 or so and still mostly dark. The engine started of a vehicle parked a ways away in the parking lot of the Fred Meyer on 72nd in Tacoma. The engine revs and this ole boy roars up, stops short and gets out with another guy.
"hey man, you got a couple bucks to help me out for gas"? I just said, "no, driver carries no cash".
They both stood there looking at me for a moment and I thought, 'uh oh'. I figured they were gonna do something. They looked pretty rough around the edges and now that I think about it, that SUV seemed a bit too nice for their appearances. It may have been stolen. I figured if they closed on me, I'd douse them with gas and make a break for it. But had they a weapon or weapons, I wouldn't be writing this. I'd be dead or dying.
I have a number of different pistols that I could carry. I practice with them too.
The company I work for forbids in any way, any weapons of any sort that could be used for self defense. So in driving into work in the morning, I have to be defenseless. If in the event my car was to be searched by our security and they found a weapon, I'd be fired.
Mine is not the only company that has this policy. Most do. So our companies force us to drive into work and we have nothing we can defend ourselves with.
Not only that, if some nut comes into work disgruntled and wants to take us all down, all we can do is hide or stand there like cardboard targets. We can't defend ourselves from that either. Security sure as hell ain't going to come in and rescue us.
Seems like the current security/law enforcement process for dealing with nutjobs that come into the work place with a gun is to wait it out, then come in after the jerk caps himself.
Meanwhile, we're screwed.
Once when I was in a Starbucks drive thru, a guy dressed as gangsta as he could be, was pan handling people in the drive through. Their window is open and they're boxed in. You got coolio with his gold chains on, leaning into your window asking for a dollar. People were just shelling out to this guy to get him the f#ck away from them. He was clearly using fear to his advantage. This was a day that I was not heading to work and I happened to have my gun on me. He started towards me and I just emphatically shook my head 'NO' to him. He didn't miss a beat, he just moved right on to the next car. I had more confidence because I was armed and had he pulled something, I was in a position to defend myself.
I told the starbucks people that they had an aggressive pan handler there but what are they gonna do? Send suzie the barista out there into potential harms way? They can call 911 so that Tacoma PD won't show up anyhow. They'd have to put down their radar guns.

Sorry to vent. I'm just a little out of sorts right now, after an adrenalin dump like that from my little stand off this morning, I'm just jittery is all.

The company I work for forbids in any way, any weapons of any sort that could be used for self defense. So in driving into work in the morning, I have to be defenseless. If in the event my car was to be searched by our security and they found a weapon, I'd be fired.
Mine is not the only company that has this policy. Most do.

The company I work for is the same way. A lot of people ignore it and pack anyway. No one at my company has ever gotten in trouble for having a firearm in their car (out of site, out of mind..), although a few years ago, one guy got yelled at for having a BB-gun in the gun rack of his truck and told to take it home immediately.

Anyway, just this past week, the Georgia legislature passed a new bill that makes it illegal for companies to have policies like that.

"16-11-135.
(a) Except as provided in this Code section, no private or public employer, including the state and its political subdivisions, shall establish, maintain, or enforce any policy or rule that has the effect of allowing such employer or its agents to search the locked privately owned vehicles of employees or invited guests on the employer´s parking lot and access thereto.
(b) Except as provided in this Code section, no private or public employer, including the state and its political subdivisions, shall condition employment upon any agreement by a prospective employee that prohibits an employee from entering the parking lot and access thereto when the employee´s privately owned motor vehicle contains a firearm that is locked out of sight within the trunk, glove box, or other enclosed compartment or area within such privately owned motor vehicle, provided that any applicable employees possess a Georgia firearms license.