©2013 Absolute Software Corporation. All rights reserved.

Buying a Laptop from a Gas Station? It Just Might Be Stolen Airports are consistently one of the top 10 places where devices are stolen. According to our own investigations, 25% of devices are stolen from luggage / storage area, 24% are stolen on the airplane, 18% are stolen at check-in / security area, and 15% are stolen in the terminal / boarding area. An Absolute LoJack customer recently had a laptop stolen from an airport in New Orleans, though it's a case that had a very happy ending.

The customer laptop was stolen early in October of 2013. As is very common in cases of device theft, police leads quickly went cold - thankfully, we never stop our own investigations! Our skilled Recovery Team was able to identify a user, but also a complicating factor adding time pressure to our investigation! The investigation revealed that the device was being used by a Turkish student who was due to leave the US on December 30th, so the best chance of recovering the laptop was before it left the country.

By now, it is Christmas and police are very busy. Despite that, local police took our investigative summary and approached the user of the laptop, safely recovering it. According to the user, the laptop had been purchased from his roommate; the roommate shared a story of purchasing the laptop from someone at a gas station near the airport around the date of the theft. Neither person was charged with any crime, though perhaps they should read up on How to Avoid Buying Stolen Devices!

Thanks to local police for quickly recovering the laptop during the holidays!

Stay safe when you travel with your devices. Protect all of your devices with Absolute LoJack and review our Top Security Tips for Airports.

About the Author

Arieanna Schweber has been a part of the Absolute Software writing team since 2007. Arieanna was Canada's first female professional blogger and has been professionally blogging since 2006, speaking at leading blogging conferences including BlogHer and Northern Voice. Arieanna has a joint degree in Business and Communications from Simon Fraser University and continues to build communities for Vancouver-based clients.

©2013 Absolute Software Corporation. All rights reserved.

About the Company Absolute Software(@Absolutecorp) helps businesses and consumers track, manage, secure and recover mobile computers and devices using our patented persistence technology. We license the name "LoJack" from the LoJack Corporation to highlight the similarities between our consumer product, LoJack for Laptops (@LoJackforLaptop), and their stolen vehicle recovery service. Currently Absolute Software has recovered over 30,000 devices in over 100 countries around the world.