CITRUS HEIGHTS-
Your cellphone is your lifeline, your digital boyfriend and these days, a criminal’s source for quick cash.
But technology is fighting back.
Roseville Police say 35-year-old John Carter of Sacramento stole two cellphones from a softball complex and tried to cash in by selling them at an EcoATM kiosk at the Sunrise Mall.
“They’re going to a kiosk, an unattended kiosk because they think that gives them a little bit more anonymity,” said Det. Sgt. Darin DeFreece of Roseville Police, he says that’s not always the case. “It takes their picture, their thumb print, their identification. They think they have some anonymous way of selling the cell phone and that’s really not the case.”
EcoATM scans your old phone and makes you an offer, but while the machine is trying to differentiate Droid from iPhone, it’s also scanning you.
“We’ve actually got multiple cameras on the machine that are taking photographs of the person who’s standing in front of it,” Ryan Kuder from EcoATM told FOX40 via telephone. EcoATM says it’s even better than a pawn shop employee trying to sniff out a bogus sale. “It’s a robot. It does it the same way every time, it can’t be bribed, it can’t be convinced otherwise.”
That combined with GPS technology, stolen phones can get returned and investigators are given a handy print out on the crook, complete with name and address.
Carter was arrested on charges of grand theft.