Hi Guys,
My true story was last year at a show in the South, I had nine models of kits that we manf. taken from my stand over night. The discovery was on the Sunday morning, the organiser was contacted who then spent the next three hours thinking about it. Meanwhile the local boys in blue were contacted who took the usual stand of details and a number for insurance over the phone. We pointed out that there were two boot sales going on locally and that there was a very good description of the offenders. However the police decided that they would pass on the info to the police woman who dealt with this sort of thing after the week end. After I suggested that a couple of us would go to the boot sales and try and get the goods back, we were warned that if we did go and cause a frackarse, it would be us that would be arrested!
At this point I was thinking chocolate fireguard - waste of space - drink in a brewery ect.
Then looking around noticed CCTV on the roofs of the school that the show was at. Great, one of the cameras was pointing down on us, there must be footage. The answer from the organiser was that the cameras weren't working due to vandalism!! Ok, lets go and see the security person for the school and the show.........a woman who was in her sixties turned up and mentioned that she had heard a noise during the night and shone her torch along the line of stands but didn't see anything and put it down to foxes!!!!
Ok, I then spoke to the organiser about their insurance, "Sorry, but we don't have any insurance" This is a large well established show for goodness sake!
The show closed and we heard nothing from any one and put the loss down to our own stupidity. Here is were it got interesting, about a week later I received an email from a customer in Scotland who emailed me that some of my models were on E....y.
The long and short of it was that they had been sold for a fiver at the local boot fair the day after the theft and the guy who bought them had put them up for sale. Needless to say, I got them back but with four still missing.
We went to the show this year and told all of the trade and exhibitors that they were at high risk as there was no insurance in place, and the security was a sixty year old woman with a torch!!
The moral of this story is - check that there is insurance in place at a show and that there is some form of security, if not, make sure that you lock all of your models and valuables away at night.
Don't rely on the organisers
or the police
, my experience showed that they will not help you. Make sure that you do not leave anything open to be nicked.
Otherwise.........................
Regards
Graham
