The second big announcement at PERG’s NAB meeting was that PERG is raising money for a major upgrade of RENTAL GUARD. RENTAL GUARD has surpassed all expectations as a tool for pushing back against theft. We estimate that RENTAL GUARD has helped our members avoid roughly $1.5 million in attempted (fraud) thefts, and the system has played a role in more than $1.4 million in recovered equipment.
The system is clearly working, but, we need to make some upgrades to help improve the user experience and make it more useful to law enforcement. The cost for the needed upgrades is $35,000. PERG has launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise the money. To fund has already raised $4000, 11% of the way toward our goal. We are appealing to everyone who has ever used RENTAL GUARD, to our members and associates, to please make a donation in the name of your company.
- There is no minimum contribution.
- Anyone contributing $100 or more will receive, as our gift, a copy of the Digest of Fraud and Theft Prevention.
- Any company donating $1000 or more will have their name displayed on the Rental Guard home page.
- Of course, the key to successfully crowd-sourcing a campaign is to engage social media resources. So, please go all out—share, like, post, tweet.
The total cost of the RENTAL GUARD program to date and maintenance into the future has been sponsored by Allianz, Chubb, Hiscox, One Beacon, and ProSight.
Why the Upgrade is Needed. The upgrade will improve the user experience, and increase utility, but perhaps most important, it will improve the system’s reporting capability. At the General Membership Meeting at NAB, Lori Rubinstein explained why this is so important to law enforcement.
“I can tell you from personal experience how important these enhancements can be. Here are just two examples. I received a call one night from Detective Martin Pastor, who many of you met here last year. He had been alerted that a suspect was flying into Buenos Aries and the local police were willing to detain the suspect and search his luggage for stolen gear. Could I be on standby to help search the RENTAL GUARD data base? A few hours later Martin was passing on information. That’s when we really discovered the search limitations of the current system as we could not draw up the information we were looking for easily.
One of the most important aspects of the upgrade but one that will not be visible to you is the enhanced reporting. On several occasions, Martin has called me and said “Can you give me a list of all thefts in a particular city right away?” The answer has been ‘I will need several hours to cobble a report together.’ This upgrade will make that kind of reporting available in minutes.”
RENTAL GUARD Successes. Mark Wofford, PERG Council Member and the General Manager at PC&E in Atlanta, underlined the significant effect of RENTAL GUARD when he updated the NAB audience regarding an attempted fraud that PC&E experienced two years ago. He was recently informed by London police that 12 individuals have been charged, ten of them are already in custody, and that he may be asked to testify (via Skype) at their trial next year. This crime ring was responsible for string of “thefts by rental.” PC&E avoided being robbed in 2014—a camera package valued at over $130,000—by posting a New Customer Inquiry on RENTAL GUARD. Within an hour, PC&E heard back from ARRI in the UK informing him that the same “customer” had stolen equipment from their affiliate in South Africa. At the time of the attempted theft, the courier, who was sent from England to pick up the equipment, was questioned by Atlanta police. This and other evidence has now enabled London police to bring a crime ring to trial.
Detective Martin Pastor of the New York Police Department’s Major Case Squad made the journey to join us in Las Vegas for the PERG meeting. He presented three Las Vegas police detectives with awards for their part in a sting that Detective Pastor orchestrated last year. Detectives Joe Herbert, Dave Williams and Gary Chaney arrested a suspect and recovered a reported $130,000 of equipment that had been stolen, via fraud, from a rental house in Burbank. The perpetrator, now in the custody of the New York Police, also has warrants in two other states for rental house thefts. Pastor pointed out, without RENTAL GUARD the information that enabled the sting would never have come to light. In the Burbank robbery, RENTAL GUARD enabled the Burbank Detectives to learn that the same thief was responsible for five other thefts (or attempts) across the country. The rental house owner that was robbed gained this key information because his Missing Equipment Alert prompted emails and phone calls from other rental companies in New York and Philadelphia. As we have reported in this Newsletters on many occasions, there are multiple ways that RENTAL GUARD helps push back against theft.
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