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Stupidity

by Mike Masnick

Thu, Aug 19th 2010 11:41pm




Filed Under:
crime, criminal, fact checking


Bank Robber Outs Himself After He Fact Checks Local News Reports On His Crimes

from the times-not-to-fact-check dept

You know what they always say: when there's a news article written about you, the facts are always wrong. Of course, in most cases, that's bad, and the fact checking you try to do afterwards is a bit useless. However, in some cases, you would think it would be good. Such as if you were a bank robber, and they had the description about you all wrong. Unfortunately, vanity sometimes gets the better of some people, and apparently a bank robber in Germany contacted the press and the police to correct the "errors" in their reporting on the crime, noting that they got "his age, height, mode of escape and accent wrong." Of course, emailing that info made it easy to track him down, and a few hours later he was in custody. Perhaps that's the trick in capturing overly vain bank robbers. Just get them to do their own fact checking by inserting errors into the police reports...

9 Comments | Leave a Comment

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  1.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Aug 19th, 2010 @ 11:50pm

    Germans have an eye for detail, but that doesn't seem to be a good trait for criminals.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  
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    Anonymous Coward, Aug 20th, 2010 @ 5:06am

    And the parade of idiots continues.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  
    icon
    Trails (profile), Aug 20th, 2010 @ 6:26am

    They already do this

    A common tactic when hunting serial killers is to ascribe incorrect and sometimes insulting traits to the killer in the media, often in the form of a profile, in order to make the killer contact authorities.

    "This person is ineffectual, has never held down a job for very long, has a hard time solving complex problems, etc..."

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  
    identicon
    Bill Gates, Aug 20th, 2010 @ 8:49am

    My description was wrong

    Hi, you got my information all wrong, my name is Bill Gates and this is my correct address and phone:
    1 Microsoft Way
    Redmond, WA 98052-8300
    Phone: 425-882-8080

    ----------
    Don't you think that this could be exploited by a robber to break into a place, and use their computer and/or internet (wifi cracking) to incriminate someone else?

    hmm, interesting!

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  7.  
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    joanofarse, Aug 20th, 2010 @ 2:20pm

    HA HA HA

    Classssssic Herman move. What a doucher. HAH!

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  8.  
    identicon
    Inventor, Aug 20th, 2010 @ 9:05pm

    world dumnest criminals

    I have book called America's dumbest criminals. It has stories like that. Like the bank robber that was given a check to cash and got caught cashing it the next day. He wrote his name and address on the check.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  9.  
    identicon
    Andreas, Aug 21st, 2010 @ 1:18pm

    Makes me wonder, why the article doesn't cite a single source, no location, and no robbing event. Especially because I'm in germany and never heard a word of it. Journalists really should learn from wikipedia and start citing sources. Maybe readers of consumerist also should start checking facts ;)

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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