How to survive a carjacking, and other timely scraps of advice
Another dispatch from SomebodyNobody Asked(™), America’s preeminent unsolicited advice columnist.
Dear local motorists:
Let the carjackers have your damn car. You’re very likely to get it back. If you don’t, it can be replaced. You can’t.
Police around the country have seen a major surge in carjackings in 2020, with numbers in Chicago more than doubling. The bad guys, emboldened by the anonymity conferred by the widespreadwearing of face coverings and frustrated by improvements in anti-theft technology, have taken to commandeering running vehicles, often at gunpoint.
They don’t want to kill the drivers, but, as the story ofDwainWilliams tragically illustrates, they will. Williams, 65, a retired firefighter, was killed Dec. 3 in a shootout with threewould-be carjackers who confronted him as hewas headed toward his Jeep Cherokee parked near 118th Street and SouthWestern Avenue.
I certainly understand and resonate with the impulse to fight back. Strong-arm theft is particularly infuriating. The urge to administer immediate justice is powerful. But lawenforcement officials unanimously emphasize the wisdom of cooperatingwith assailants unless they are putting you or someone else in physical danger.
“Never resist a robbery,” says the list of tips on surviving and avoiding carjacking supplied by the Chicago Police Department. “Value your life over any and all property.”
The CPD list includes a recommendation of heightened awareness at all times, particularly at gas stations, and the suggestion that you keep duplicate records of everything that could be stolen— vehicle registration information, credit card numbers and so on— at home.
Other tips fromaround theweb include keeping your doors locked at all times, not consulting your phone when the car’s idling, not pulling up close behind the car in front of you at stoplights and leaving as little room as possible between your car and a drive-up ATM.
Safety experts recommend not leaving your car to exchange insurance information when you’re bumped frombehind and not playing good Samaritan to help a driver who seems to be in need of assistance. Call
police instead.
Chicago police say they ultimately recover 95% of vehicles taken in carjackings, which is a lot better success rate than you’re going to have resisting or fighting back.
Dear Amazon customers:
Hang up or click delete when you get a robocall or email alert suggesting your Amazon account has been compromised. It hasn’t been. You’re just the target of the business-impostor scam— one that always gains momentum around the holidays and has become particularly prevalent during the pandemic when so many of us are shopping online— in which criminals try to trick you into giving up your login information or other credentials so then they really can compromise your account.
“To connectwith one of our customer support representatives, please press ‘1’ or simply stay on the line,” says one such call featured in a Federal Trade Commission alert earlier this month. The recording may also supply a bogus toll-free number for you to call. Emails will ask you to click through to what looks like official company login sites.
Whether it’s Amazon, Apple, the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service or any other corporation or agency contacting you with “urgent” warnings that sound official, the first thing to do is back all theway out of the situation.
Don’t press “1.” Don’t click the seemingly helpful link. Don’t reveal any personal information. If you doubtmy advice and wonder if this time thewarning is real, go to your account and contact the company or agency directly using trustedwebsites. Check your credit card transactions for unexpected activity. Thank me later.
Tell your children. Tell your parents. Tell your friends. Back out. Always, always back out.
Dear Chicago diners:
Youmay have heard about the $1.50 “Chicago fee” that the DoorDash food delivery service is tacking on to all orders placed at restaurants in the city.
Don’t be outraged. It’s a gambit intended to counter the 15% cap on third-party delivery-service fees recently imposed by the Chicago City Council, a cap that the company haswarned “could cause us to increase costs for customers, which could lead to fewer orders for local restaurants and fewer earning opportunities for (deliveryworkers).”
Their concern is valid and with competing food delivery companies in the market — among them Grubhub and Uber Eats— itwas unduly meddlesome of the aldermen to impose price controls. Customers can decide what they’re willing to pay for meal delivery, and if you don’twant to cough up the DoorDash “Chicago fee,” vote with your pocketbook.
That said, I reiterate what I said earlier this year: The bestway to prop up local restaurants when indoor dining is closed during the pandemic is to call them first or go directly to theirwebsites. Find out if they have their own delivery operation that circumvents middlemen and leaves more profit in their pockets. If they don’t, and if you can manage it, arrange to pick up your order at curbside (and eitherway be sure to include a generous tip with your payment).
Customers can decide what they’re willing to pay for meal delivery, and if you don’t want to cough up the DoorDash “Chicago fee,” vote with your pocketbook.
Re: Tweets
The winner of thisweek’s reader poll to select the funniest tweetwas “TheMcRib is here for a limited time only. But then again, aren’twe all?” by @RickAaron. The winner of the recent poll that closed while Iwas taking a few days offwas “Joe Biden haswon in Michigan so many times now he’s legally required to change his name to Ohio State,” by@ejmaroun, a quip that didn’t lose any of its sting even when pandemic concerns canceled thisweekend’s nowritual thrashing ofmy belovedWolverines by the school down south.
The poll appears at chicagotribune.com/ zorn where you can read all the finalists. For an early alert when each new poll is posted, sign up for the Change of Subject email newsletter at chicagotribune.com/ newsletters.