Hey guys, so i recently got new neighbours and they've been taking trolleys from my local shopping centre and ditching them outside house on the nature strip. It's on a hill so a couple have naturally rolled down to outside my house.
One has hit the light post at the moment and is semi dug into it now. I park my car there too (trying to leave it park on the other side now until this stops).
Anyway i told them to stop and they denied it was them which i'm 100% sure is a lie. I've called up the shopping centre management who then put me through to coles/woolworths (whom the trolleys are from). They send people to pick it up but they haven't and aren't doing anything after my complaints to stop this from happening. Guessing because they can't prove it was them?. Is there anything else i can do before i resort to some sort of vigilante justice.
Stop Trolley Thief
Last edited 24/07/2016 - 23:28
Comments
Don't have anything that can film outside like 10m to outside my driveway and be able to recognise faces (especially if it was at night when they leave them).
Set alarm for 3am. Reposition trolley to spot most inconvenient to them, on its side. After all, they like that sort of thing. If approached, demonstrate sympathy and blame an unknown third party.
Do you know their name??
Type up a well written letter about it, from the perspective of Woolworths.
Use phrases such as "Cease and desist" or "Legal action".
Plug in a Woolworths logo.
And put in a working Woolies complaints phone number in there.Then seal it professionally and drop it off into their mailbox.
If afraid to do so, go drop off the mail at 4am at night.That should stop the trolley debacle.
If it doesn't… it might just mean it is the neighbours next to them/someone else.
(at which point, you can send a mail to that house as well)Be careful when becoming a vigilante, because they know where you live and can make your life a nightmare if you let them.
This is unwise. Who wants to commit fraud to try stop a trolley thief?
How is that fraud? Its not.
Sounds like a good idea to me, though I'd just post it.
Better still, registered, so they have to sign for it.The Fraud Act 2006 makes it an offence to dishonestly make a false representation with the intention of making a gain or causing a loss. It is difficult to see how any kind of impersonation, no matter how odd, cannot have the intention of causing some kind of tangible gain or loss.
http://www.himsworthslegal.com/when-is-it-unlawful-to-impers…
Anyway it's perhaps more forgery than fraud, and you could be facing 10 years imprisonment…
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ca190082/s…
@inherentchoice, you needed to continue your quote - I have made the part you missed bold:
It is difficult to see how any kind of impersonation, no matter how odd, cannot have the intention of causing some kind of tangible gain or loss. Gain or loss must be loss of money or property.
Okay, let's say that I start calling myself Professor Pete. I am not actually a professor, so I am making a false representation about my name, and I am impersonating a professor.
How have I caused a tangible gain or loss of money or property to anyone?
I can understand the problem if I tried to actually pass myself off as a professor, but how can the name I choose for myself possibly cause anyone a gain or loss in and of itself?
@Cheap Charlie: 10 years as a goalie might actually be worse. :)
Or just use the American spelling, jail.
@pjetson: And I'm also not a professor but it should be if I were a professor. But don't worry about it, the subjunctive is losing ground in English.
@greenpossum: Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think "was" is correct in this case.
Yes, you are right if the intention was that the phrase be in the subjunctive mood (ie if I was wishing that I were a professor), but that's not what I was doing. My intention was to point out that if I actually was a professor, I would have done something, in which case I believe that "was" is perfectly correct.
Kind of like "If I was wrong, I apologise" - you wouldn't say "If I were wrong, I apologise". When you say it, put the emphasis on the "was", and it will sound like I meant it to be.
Perhaps I "are" a professor after all…
@pjetson: You would use if I was a professor if in the actual past you might have been a professor. If you meant to say in the imagined past you might have been a professor, then you need the perfect subjunctive, which is if I had been a professor. However if you meant to say that in the present if you might be a professor, then it should be if I were a professor. The perfect subjunctive is also seldom seen now, but it's alive in many languages.
I'd just put in an official looking flyer with an "announcement" of a reward for taking trolleys back to the supermarket. Makes them take it back and then get puzzled who scammed them.
You incorrectly assume they would give a shit about a 'letter'.
Unless you catch them in the act, there's not much you can do about it nor do you want to accuse Bogans over it as you have much more to lose than them.
I assume it's Bogans as it always is.
I'm a Bogan who's never stolen a trolley.
I never said all Bogans steal trollies, but those who steal trollies are almost always Bogans.
That's called a forgery. Never a good thing.
Did they stop after you asked them though. Maybe they just didn't want to admit it.
Try playing along, tell them your concerns and ask them to help by keeping an eye out for whoever is doing it to ask them if they could be sure to leave the trolleys in a safe manner.
Usually simple rules for neighbors, if they like you things get better if they don't like you things get worse.
Sounds like they are troll(ey)ing you.
See if you can catch them on video. Then tell them you have it on video, and if they bring any more trolleys you will report it to police.
Do not be frightened by them!
They are weak!
They are too weak to do the right thing in getting their grocerys home without offense.
They are too weak to do anything against truth…
Where was that Mi Drone deal?
Local Councils will fine people for dumping on nature strips. Worth putting a complaint in with your council and attach photos.
Wow, this is so common place that I don't know why people get so upset about it…
Are you sure you didn't anger them and thus result in the trolley being placed outside your house?
It doesn't seem likely that it would roll up to your front door if they were your neighbour as it would have to navigate past a fence. In fact it would just roll downhill…
Something doesn't add up.
I'm surprised your suburb doesn't have a guy that goes around to pickup the trolleys. Either way, it wouldn't be a big deal unless there were tens of them sitting outside on the nature strip…
They're left on his nature strip then roll onto mine as its a hill. One at the moment hit the light pole and looks semi dug in after the rain. Every single one of them end up going onto my nature strip. I park my car there and theres a good chance one will hit my car soon enough. Why should i have to park far from my house to avoid their selfishness. And when it hits my car no one is going to see it so ill be the one stuck with the excess.
After talking to them its still been happening. I went around to the other neighbours and who have said its not them either. 100% sure its my next door neighbour as they're new and as soon as they moved in it started happening.
I spent today calling up my shopping centre management,coles,woolworths,the trolley tracking company and my local council. All have offered to send people to pick it up but all of them have said they can do nothing to stop it which is really annoying. Not sure where to go from here.
At the moment not sure what route to take. Have a letter written up but dont want to get done for fraud.This is why I'm in favour of coin deposit (Aldi) or wheel locking (some shopping centres) trolleys.
Yeah agreed. I can now see why the OP is so angry and worried.
Hmmm. I thought of this much earlier today but haven't been able to post because I am currently overseas and there seems to be a 5 post limit every 24 hours.
What I came up with was to basically buy a cheap $15-$20 trolley as a gift. You can find these at any store selling cheap imports, although I believe it might actually be Australian made because I find even Vinda toilet paper in these stores is actually Australian Made. Regarding the trolleys, lots of people use them these days, I'm surprised people even have to nick the larger trolleys to bring back a few items as they are a pain to navigate with in the street.
It can be like a cheap form of insurance and you might even gain a potential friend.
Don't think that would work because then they'd need to push the trolley to the shopping centre then take it home when at the moment they're just pushing it one way home from the centre.
Keep an eye out on the junk people put out for pickup and grab an old cot or playpen.
Sneak out in the night time and but a barrier across their nature strip.I'd say dump some bush rock on their nature strip but worry a bit it would make a tripping hazard for the innocent.
Best bet, if they are renting start making complaints to their real estate agent.
Old phone or webcam setup to record out the front for a few days? Help jog their memory a little.