On August 1st, I went to a 4:30pm Bikram yoga class in Old Town Scottsdale. When I walked out of class I was looking forward to going home and having a relaxing night. All plans changes when I walked out to see this:
Whenever I go to the gym or to workout I would always leave all my stuff in my car. I looked in the busted window and could tell right away they had taken my purse. They went through my gym bag and threw my clothes all over and they also went through my lunch bag that I take to work.
I went back inside the studio to use their phone (since mine was now gone) to call my mom and have her come to the studio. I then called Scottsdale PD to report the break-in and get a police report. I was on the phone with the police officer for about a half hour, and as soon as I got off with him I used my mom's phone while driving to my parent's house to start canceling bank and credit cards. The people who took my purse only used one card at a gas station before I was able to put a stop on all cards. I also logged into iCloud when I got to my parents and used the Find My Phone app to locate my phone. These were the screen shots that the officer asked me to email to him:
When I called the officer back to let him know that I had emailed the pictures to him, I had also realized that they took my wedges (they were somewhat new from Nordstrom Rack - I don't know what these people would want with used shoes). About an hour after I sent the Find My Phone pictures, the officer called me back asking if I would provide my log-in information to them so they could track my phone. I told them no problem and gave them the info (while driving to my apartment in a rainstorm with no window on my car). I didn't hear anything further from the officer that night, but about 10pm I was receiving email notifications that Find My Phone signals were being sent to my phone - I figured that had to be a good thing.
On Saturday morning when I woke up I logged back into my iCloud account and my phone was showing at 90th Street and Via Linda. I called Scottsdale PD and they said that there was a police station there, and that is where the officers storage lockers were at.
My phone was showing in the middle of the street - I was tempted to drive there and look in this median, but now I know my GPS locater on my phone is just slightly off. I didn't hear anything from my police officer all day, so I called him Saturday night when he was back on duty. He said good news that they did find my phone. The guys had just thrown it off to the side of the road. He said my case was now in the hands of the detectives and to call them on Monday.
On Saturday morning I also took my car to the BMW service center to see what I needed to do about getting my window fixed. My service rep, Joe, said that the body shop was actually located in Tempe and it was not open on weekends. However, he did check and there were some services due on my car so he took my car for the weekend and gave me a loaner to drive until Monday. I picked up my car Monday morning and they had crash wrapped the window. I was definitely driving a ghetto car at this point :)
I was going to take my car to the body shop on Monday and pick up a rental, however, realized I couldn't rent a car until I had a drivers license. So, Tuesday morning I went to the DMV and got a new drivers license. I went straight from the DMV to the insurance adjustor to get an estimate and then to the body shop. After a day of driving the plastic wrap wasn't holding up too well anymore. Mom ended up following me to the body shop and I ended up just borrowing a car from my parents while mine was in the shop.
There was glass in the passenger seat.
And in the backseat.
Inside view of the crash wrap.
In the meantime, I was still talking to the detectives about the process for getting my phone back. They had asked me to get further information from the credit card company on the charge on my card, so I was able to provide them the address of the gas station as well as the exact time it was swiped. The detective then worked with the station manager to figure out what pump they were at.
On the next Thursday (August 7th), I was finally able to go pick up my phone. I was talking to my co-worker when I got notification that I could go get it so he came too…much more interesting than day to day work :) While we were waiting for my phone from the back, the detective showed me pictures of the guys who broke into my car. They were 2 Hispanic males between 40 and 50, and they were driving an old maroon Honda Accord. While they were pumping gas, the passenger went into the store and made a purchase using another credit card. They had a better shot of him, and the detective said he was working with the POS system to try to obtain that credit card information and track it. The detective gave me my phone back and he asked me to turn it on and log in to see if they guys made any phone calls on it. I had the standard Apple 4-digit password on my phone and fortunately they were not able to hack that. My phone was cracked before it was stolen, but it didn't have glass missing as it does now.
I still haven't heard anything back from the detective to let me know if they were able to find anything by tracing the additional credit card (it wasn't mine). The police told me to be thankful that I am safe, as they think these guys watched me go into the yoga studio. The police also said that these guys are probably "professional criminals." I now have my car back and it is fixed (with the exception of the door panel which is on it's way from Germany). The body shop told me they could tell that the guys broke in with a crow bar - they knew that by the way something was dented on the car. I also have a new drivers license and have re-obtained my bank cards and credit cards. Unfortunately, my purse was a brand new Michael Kors that I had bought when I was in NYC, and my wallet was a Coach wallet (but had had that for at least 10 years or more). Out of everything that was stolen, if I could have chosen only one thing to get back it would have been my phone. I have voice mails saved on my phone from Grandma Hazel that I had not yet saved, so those were the only things that could never be replaced. Everything else was just stuff and is easily replaceable.
I now take all of my stuff into the gym and have a combination lock to lock it all up while I workout.
