Story of the two thousand stolen Playdate handhelds

[gambiting]

The thing that surprised me the most about it is that FedEx didn't just pay them the 400k for lost shipment. They had all the proof that it was lost, all that Fedex had was a signature of someone who doesn't even work at their fulfilment centre. Even after their "higher ups" got involved all that FedEx could do was "huh, sucks to be you I guess?" Does freight shipment not have insurance? What's going on here?

[InsideOutSanta]

This reminds me of the recent story where an Uber courier stole two MacBooks, there was no signature, CCTV showing no delivery, and Apple was just like "our carrier has completed the requested investigation, and no further action will be taken by Apple."

[michaelt]

> all that Fedex had was a signature of someone who doesn't even work at their fulfilment centre. [...] What's going on here?

Basically a lot of global logistics runs on trust.

If a driver is delivering a pallet to the FooCorp warehouse, he doesn't get given a copy of the FooCorp org chart, or get an example signature to compare against the signature they're given, or get given a map or a secret password or anything like that.

He just pulls up to the building that says FooCorp on it, says "got a delivery for FooCorp", they let him in and he accepts any name and signature from whoever is near the door.

[steve918]

This isn't surprising at all if you have every had an interaction with Fedex.

[raybb]

Would playdate be able to sue FedEx or take them to small claims court or do you sign something when you use FedEx that says you can't sue them for XYZ?

[whazor]

Shipment insurance is normally an optional add-on. IMO, if the shipper doesn’t get it, it is on them.

It is nicer for the shipper to decide the value and pay the corresponding price for that. Because you need to know the replacement value of that lost item. This is dependent on all kinds of factors.

[supermatt]

I wanted to buy a playdate when they first came out, but unfortunately they weren't shipping to my country.

Now they do, so I just placed an order 15 mins ago and my partner just received a call from the bank to verify that it wasn't a fraudulent transaction.

She just asked me - what is this "play date" you just sent $300 to? Oh dear. :D

[Toorkit]

Then you say "it's a handheld gaming device" and the matter is settled.

[beAbU]

This comment fells too reddit esque for me, as if it's crafted to solicit upvotes or "facebook up, hit your lawyer and delete the gym" style comments.

- Why is your partner getting the call from the bank when you placed the order? - If it's a shared account, why would you not forewarn your partner about this transaction? If I'm about to buy pay for something big from our joint account, I sure as hell let my partner know about it ahead of time. - If none of the above applies, then a simple "it's a portable gaming console that I've been yearning after for ages that I finally ordered earlier today", and 9/10 times that should settle the matter.

[romanhn]

Interesting choice to go with a PI who's focused on recovery rather than criminal convinctions. Given the lack of sophistication in this operation, I suspect recovery would have happened either way, and the thieves might have faced some actual consequences. As is, they didn't lose anything other than the stolen items and will likely continue to capitalize on similar opportunities in the future.

[treesknees]

Playdate likely took the initial interactions with the police as a sign of how that would play out. It was already slower and a lot more work, including flying to Las Vegas in-person, to involve law enforcement.

Maybe those construction workers will steal again. But also maybe they realized how easily they were found out, how hard it actually is to offload stolen goods, and decide it’s not worth the hassle to steal again.

[kuschku]

I summarized the transcript into an article: https://gist.github.com/justjanne/1e1254bf207c4d98862e040136...

Not sure if it helps anyone else, but for me it made the story a lot easier to grasp.

I wrote most of it by hand, using an LLM just for a rough outline which I then manually rewrote line by line, streamlined, removed hallucinations, double-checked all quotes, reordered and added images and links.

[deely3]

Honestly original article is way more interesting and nuanced. I'm afraid LLM version is too short and while technically correct definitely feels like dry list of random facts from transcription.

[anymouse123456]

That was amazing. I wasn't up for spending an hour listening to the podcast, but a few minute reading the article you created were well worth it. Thank you!

[Terr_]

Huh, so a half-baked crime of opportunity, as opposed to a sophisticated operation.

Still unclear on how the delivery managed to get put (or taken) to the wrong side of the road at a construction site. Fedex mistake? Trickery by thief? Misdirection by thief that took them from loading-dock?

[josephg]

Almost certainly just a fedex mistake taking them to the wrong lot. Happens all the time. And, Hanlon's razor - never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.

Its pretty easy to imagine construction workers just signing for everything that arrives, and only afterwards figuring out that the address is wrong.

[Shank]

I suppose the key insight is that mandatory device registration really saved them. Everyone loves the concept of an entirely open device that doesn’t require this, but if Panic didn’t have registration, it would’ve been impossible to locate the devices, and end up being a $400k write off.

[Hackbraten]

Love this quote in particular:

> Thanks so much for listening, and please don’t steal our Playdates. Because we will find you.

[LeonidasXIV]

Allegedly.

[jatins]

wait FedEx just delivers 400k worth of stuff without any KYC or OTP verification??

[Spooky23]

UPS pays their drivers very well. FedEx… does not.

I’ve had them “deliver” a bunch of PCs to a dumpster. Or drop off a laptop to a garbage can in a Manhattan office. How do I know? The courier took a picture to document the delivery.

[Cthulhu_]

I get the impression business-to-business shipping is a lot more informal... somehow.

[markovs_gun]

Imagine being the thief in this case and getting stuck with an entire pallet of these weird indie handhelds that you can't fence because nobody knows what they are just hanging out on your garage.

[actionfromafar]

It seemed it was a planned thing, so probably not a big surprise.

[RantyDave]

Strange things are afoot at the circle k.

[nkrisc]

Thanks. I don’t have time to listen and reading a transcript of casual conversation is awful.

[kuschku]

Here's a better version, with images, in the style of a traditional print newspaper article: https://gist.github.com/justjanne/1e1254bf207c4d98862e040136...

Not sure if it helps anyone else, but for me it made the story a lot easier to grasp.

I wrote most of it by hand, using an LLM just for a rough outline which I then manually rewrote line by line, streamlined, removed hallucinations, double-checked all quotes, reordered and added images and links.

[forrestthewoods]

This is getting downvoted but I actually quite appreciated it. Story is interesting enough I'll listen to the whole podcast! I can't do that for every single podcast link that I come across. There's not enough time in the year much less the day.

[jna_sh]

Source for the arrest? I listened to this the other day and I don’t recall an arrest being mentioned. The podcast in fact covers that the police weren’t very much interested, which is why they got a PI involved, who got the thieves to “return” (dump in an adjacent car park) the devices simply by asking questions.

[bmalum]

Surprised by HN again. 1st Place „Story“, wanted to read because no headphones with me, ending up reading a podcast transcript, and TL,DR out.

[voidUpdate]

I read it all just now, I quite enjoyed it. Its not my preferred format to read but it wasn't bad

[cr3ative]

The transcript was a good read, I also don’t prefer audio.

Admittedly I can skim read quite well though.

[saagarjha]

I read it for lunch yesterday. It wasn’t that bad.