David, move here to Portland.  We have lots of musicians here *all equally good*.  In portland, all the musicians are above average, just like lake wobegon.  

dmbaer
A book I read some time ago about crime in the US made one somewhat gratifying point.  Criminals almost always get caught, just probably not for the crime in which you were the victim.  But sooner or later they make a mistake.  If they weren't stupid, they'd have found a much less risky way of obtaining money.

Thieves they are sneaky, and they think they are smarter than everyone else and can snoop and sneak around and get to know their victim, but they are not, but especially in this age of electronic devices and spy crap. Just like Private Investigators who are no better than thieves because they try and steal information, should be illegal what P.I's do, they stalk someone and they get paid for it without regard for who that information they share to their client or what purpose it's being used for, just so they can make money. It's stealing either way. 
 
I say this based on having a few things stolen from me in my life. Way I see it, they will get caught, because if you wake a hornets nest sooner or later your gonna get stung. 
 
I hope Bit get's his master tracks back. Man, I know how that feels to lose master tracks only my case was a different set of circumstances, my mistake was trusting a CLOUD file storage system that just all the sudden shut down without warning or notice. 
 
It's ashamed you should even have to have a security system, but since adding one to our own home, I get calls all the time that seem shady to our home phone, never got them until I added a personal home security system and then all the sudden once a week I get them telling me some security provider are offering and most importantly "ASKING ME THINGS LIKE : DO YOU CURRENTLY HAVE A HOME SECURITY SYSTEM AND IF SO THEN WHAT IS IT?".  Thing is my home number on the DO NOT CALL LIST. But recently somebody told me about this site that people are using where they can call any number and have whatever number they want to show up on that person's phone that they are calling. That should be illegal if you ask me. But guess what, you can stop all that by PAYING some service to block such things. I've just gotten to where I don't even answer the phone at all if I don't know the number. 
 
People will follow you home from the stores you go to also, I suspect if you aren't careful, they look for people who are buying high priced items and then target their homes if they know something of value is in there home I suspect. 
 
I don't mean to sound paranoid, but I mean, sad fact is in my opinion in this day in time if you aren't a little paranoid you will get taken advantage of. Just my opinion. 
 
Don't get me started on Facebook, I no longer use that site, there are people who target you on there also, believe me, I had an experience with someone showing up in a shopping line behind me because his wife added me as a friend on her list. this person kept on and on and on talking to someone with them about everything I had said on Facebook and various things I had shared and posted, I didn't realize it at the time but was suspicious of the conversation, later getting back on that site I realized it with what was being said because this person sent me a nasty letter. So I no longer use that site and never will again. Just something else to think about. Too many thieves out there who use sites and various things to steal from you. 
 
 

Serious_Noize!

dmbaer
A book I read some time ago about crime in the US made one somewhat gratifying point.  Criminals almost always get caught, just probably not for the crime in which you were the victim.  But sooner or later they make a mistake.  If they weren't stupid, they'd have found a much less risky way of obtaining money.

 
People will follow you home from the stores you go to also, I suspect if you aren't careful, they look for people who are buying high priced items and then target their homes if they know something of value is in there home I suspect. 
  

 
I had an elderly widow customer about 20 years ago. She went grocery shopping and someone followed her home. They timed it so she would be inside with the first bags of groceries, of course she left the door open like we all do, they came in, robbed and robbed her. Then they tied her to a chair and tried to strangle her with a lamp cord. Then they poured gas or diesel over her and tried to set her on fire but for some reason, they couldn't get it lit. They left her like that, almost dead. Her whole head turned black from the strangulation but... she survived and they were caught. I don't think much happened to them. In the 19th century they would have been hung and this sort f thing didn't happen as much.
 
Be careful when you come home from the store, especially if you are older and might look like easy prey, there ARE predators. I carry a FNH FNP .40 with 15 rounds everywhere I go. I leave it in the car BUT it is in my back pocket when I come home and when I go back out to my car or truck. I will do my best to not come home and face my own gun. I think I probably mentioned that someone tried to come in on my wife just before sunrise after she had walked to the mailbox. Thank God she locked the door behind her. Our doors have handles and someone tried it twice. They had to know that she was there. They weren't trying to break into an empty home and THAT is scary.
Bottom line, if you don't protect your self, no one is. If you don't take care of your health, no one is (well not the way you would want anyway). Police only respond if there has been a crime (if you're lucky). The only one that can keep you from being a victim of crime is you and then there is only so much you can do, locks only keep out honest people.
I keep checking back for a good report. Dave, try to not let this change you in a bad way. Let it make you more careful but not ore fearful, more ready but not more suspicious. Don't let other people's evil create evil in you. Be you, just a more careful and ready you... and get some claymores, lol. J/K...
 
If these people are teens they are not going to be too careful. You probably wont have to check pawn shops in more than a 50 mile radius... and music stores. I doubt if they are sitting on it, young people don't think that way. Have you made fliers with all your gear to put in stores and take to pawn shops? I don't know but I have a feeling that something is going to break, someone is going to see something of yours somewhere and it will go from there. I sure hope so.
 
Be sure... they will pay in some way. People who live like this always hit big trouble before they get very old.
 
J

It's probably also a good idea when you discard packaging to fold cardboard in such a way as to not advertise what you just bought. My trash is set out on a busy street with lots of foot traffic. 
 
And this nightmare gets worse. The insurance company requires receipts for everything, but I have almost no paper receipts. Online purchases only result in email receipts, and my mail history went away with the stolen computer. So now I'm trying to remember where I bought everything and contacting vendors. So far I've only recovered receipts for stuff I bought at the local music store. 
 
But think about all the things you've bought with cash and never gave a thought to storing the receipt. Mike stands, cables, stompboxes. I figure it'll cost me $400 just to replace my cables. Stuff I bought second-hand on Craigslist I'll just have to write off. My computer was a gift from my daughter, so I have no receipt for that - hoping she does! My main synth was more than 10 years old, before my local music store maintained a proper database. Fingers crossed they'll come through for me...
 
One saving grace is that my insurance company (USAA) is also my credit card company, and most of the online purchases were with their credit card. Hopefully, that'll be acceptable proof of purchase.
 
What a f*ckin' pain in the arse.
 
I hope you are all learning something from my tragedy. Prepare for the worst. Collect your receipts, write down your serial numbers, take photos of everything - and most important, keep that info somewhere else!

bitflipper
I hope you are all learning something from my tragedy. Prepare for the worst. Collect your receipts, write down your serial numbers, take photos of everything - and most important, keep that info somewhere else!

USAA was my insurance company too.  They accepted photo evidence of my equipment as well.  Do they still do that?  And do you have any pictures of your stuff?  That's what saved my ass on several items. 
 
Now, when I buy things used or new, I take a picture of it and then open it with MS paint and use the text feature to type in the serial number or any other useful information, like price and all that, and then save it.  It's all in one file like that.  Then email to two different addresses, gmail and yahoo, in a folder made for it.  It's quick and painless, really.  Just a few minutes. 
 
We also bought a Browning Medallion 10 gauge steel safe, with rolled steel door frame.  1000 lbs, bolted to the garage floor, cost about 1800 bucks on sale.  And that's the minimum you should go with.  Anything less than 10 gauge is a joke.  (They used my own tools from my garage to pry open my 300 dollar Wal-Mart "safe").  It may be too much trouble to store stuff in it all the time, but you might think about putting hard drives in there, super expensive stuff you don't use too much, etc.  I stuff it with my guitars and computer when I'm going to be gone any longer than a work day. 
 
Just throwing out more ideas...

...double posted

I'd put a cheap safe visible in my room (hiding the real one), then put a door-triggered paint bomb inside so when they opened the door it would spray the perp.  
 
(Ok, maybe I wouldn't, but I'd like to!)

bitflipper
It's probably also a good idea when you discard packaging to fold cardboard in such a way as to not advertise what you just bought. My trash is set out on a busy street with lots of foot traffic. 
 
And this nightmare gets worse. The insurance company requires receipts for everything, but I have almost no paper receipts. Online purchases only result in email receipts, and my mail history went away with the stolen computer. So now I'm trying to remember where I bought everything and contacting vendors. So far I've only recovered receipts for stuff I bought at the local music store. 
 
But think about all the things you've bought with cash and never gave a thought to storing the receipt. Mike stands, cables, stompboxes. I figure it'll cost me $400 just to replace my cables. Stuff I bought second-hand on Craigslist I'll just have to write off. My computer was a gift from my daughter, so I have no receipt for that - hoping she does! My main synth was more than 10 years old, before my local music store maintained a proper database. Fingers crossed they'll come through for me...
 
One saving grace is that my insurance company (USAA) is also my credit card company, and most of the online purchases were with their credit card. Hopefully, that'll be acceptable proof of purchase.
 
What a f*ckin' pain in the arse.
 
I hope you are all learning something from my tragedy. Prepare for the worst. Collect your receipts, write down your serial numbers, take photos of everything - and most important, keep that info somewhere else!

At one point I was pretty fastidious about keeping email receipts and serial numbers saved in categorized folders, but at some point I stopped doing it when I realized that whenever I need that stuff, I can just do a Gmail search and bing, there it is.  

bitflipper
What has come as the biggest surprise is the psychological effect this has had on me. Paranoia, anger, insomnia, loss of appetite. It sucks. 

You're describing my life from the day those guys who'd broke into a house nearby decided to hide in our backyard.
 
Add to that the fact that I had yet to get used to the noises of the new house, factor in a bunch of cats busy being cats from the minute we closed the light and the fact that I'm extremely territorial/protective and worry about stuff all the time because it's in my nature... 
 
We got the security system shortly after. I remember that you had mentioned your camera/FTP system, and that's been on the back of my mind ever since. Every time I browse for security cameras, I think about you.
 
Three years later, I still hate to leave the house, even just for an hour. I think it's actually gotten worst. I eventually managed to sleep better but I'm still extremely jumpy - if a cat knocks something off in the house, I'm up on my feet w/ the baseball bat in my hands (and my heart pounding in my head) in half a second.
 
I've had to block a lot of info from making its way to me. For a while, I felt like all I was seeing on Facebook were news about home invasions and robberies. It was eating at me and got to a point where it was only counterproductive. I was angry ALL the time, feeling that the law wasn't severe enough, wishing that justice would come down 100 time harder on criminals than it does.
 
I was getting ready to create a petition to reinstate public flogging. ;)
 
I eventually had to get a prescription for my anxiety issues - following the car accident, things became unbearable.
 
I'm guessing that someone w/ a good head like yourself has a much better chance at overcoming those issues. And I wish you luck, I know it's not easy.
 
 

I hope you are all learning something from my tragedy

 
Definitely. I'm planning to put a couple of backup hard drives in our safe deposit box at the bank and also store (encrypted) files in the cloud. Google Drive maybe.
Right now I keep my backup drives in a home safe, mainly because of its fireproof and waterproof features but also to discourage theft. I like craigb's suggestion to have a cheap safe in view while hiding the real one. (Hmmm the paint bomb idea sounds good too.)

Couple of years ago I had my pocket picked in the Paris Metro, but they only got my decoy wallet with blank paper in it. It would have been a huge hassle if they'd gotten the real wallet (which was in another pocket). The only reason I thought of doing the decoy wallet was because a friend of mine had his wallet taken by a pickpocket in the Paris Metro so I learned something from his experience.

Take care