A demonstration of how thieves “shoulder surf” to gain locker combinations. Lily Merritt | Washtenaw Voice
| Tips to prevent larceny |
| Compiled by Danny Villalobos ContributorTo help prevent larcenies from occurring, Dawn Lyons, manager at the Health and Fitness Center, recommends: 1. Always check-in with the front desk and never assume that the workers there know who you are. If they stop you, simply give them your name to be verified and checked-in. 2. If you go out for a run, play tennis on the platform or go to the café, let the front desk know, especially if you plan on coming back to the locker room. 3. If you see any suspicious behavior or anyone loitering for too long, report it to the front desk. 4. Don’t use the same locker every time you enter the locker room. 5. Lock your locker and watch out for people who are trying to look over your shoulder while you’re putting your combination in. |
By Brian Babcock
Staff Writer
An ongoing string of larcenies, or thefts, reported at the WCC Fitness Center caught the attention of WCC Public Safety. The thieves were after one specific item: credit cards.
“There was an incident where somebody got their credit card stolen from their wallet and curiously enough, inside the wallet was $700 and the perpetrator did not take that cash,” said Dawn Lyons, manager of the fitness center.
Victims of the thefts weren’t out any money as the stolen credit card charges were waived under The Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA).
Six people were identified to be working together in the thefts.
According to Scott Hilden, chief of WCC public safety, the criminals were taking advantage of the busiest times to slip into the locker rooms and steal.
“Shoulder surfing,” or spying on peoples’ locker combinations was likely how the group orchestrated the thefts, said Hilden. Upon gaining entry, the thieves would snatch the cards and then immediately attempt to drain them before eventually being cut off by the banks.
After discovering that this was part of a bigger heist being committed throughout the southern Michigan area, Campus safety and fitness center staff teamed up to take action to stop this from continuing.
“We started out with educating the staff on what to look for and managing access in and out of that area . . . we also increased our presence over there and we’ve got great video systems over there,” said Hilden.
“We have narrowed the entry space so that it slows traffic down, we’ve also put out a request to our members for when they pass the front desk, they let us know and they check back in,” Lyons said. “There are a lot of good reasons for people to come back and forth because they might go out for a run or take a phone call . . . it is nice to see them honoring this request.
“We also had Chief Hilden come over and talk with our staff about things to look for during prime times. We do know when that the center is really busy we need to be on high alert . . . he spent some time training our front desk staff for this.”
Since these actions were implemented at the fitness center, no new cases of larceny have been reported in the last two months.
