Page 26 - On The Move - Volume 18, Issue 3

SHOWROOM

switcheroo
Dealers Threatened

by Both Low-Tech, High-Tech Crime

A common problem is that dealerships may not be vigilant

enough. To put it more positively, Federated Insurance investigator

Andris Berzins says dealerships understandably may be “too”

welcoming because, after all, they’re trying to sell cars.
By Jim Henry
For WardsAuto

Low-tech crime poses a serious threat to dealerships, too, The NICB says there were an average of 1,203 catalytic
even though high-tech crime gets most of the headlines, says converter thefts per month that resulted in an insurance
Andris Berzins, Special Investigations Unit team supervisor claim in 2020, up from a monthly average of 108 in 2018. The
for Federated Insurance. victims in those statistics include individual consumers and
commercial businesses.
For example, there’s catalytic converter theft, where
thieves steal the emissions-control devices and sell them There are probably many more catalytic converter thefts
to scrappers who recover the precious metals inside. Each that don’t result in a claim because the victim doesn’t have
converter contains just a few grams of materials such as insurance or doesn’t file a claim because the value of the
rhodium, palladium, and platinum, but those bits add up. claim doesn’t exceed the deductible enough to make a claim
Pure rhodium fetched $14,500 per ounce in December 2020, worthwhile, a spokesman for the NICB says.
according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau.

A cordless reciprocating saw is all the technology a well-
equipped catalytic converter thief needs, Berzins says, in a
webinar hosted by the American International Automobile This article originally appeared at the WardsAuto
Dealers Association. website on May 17, 2021. You can access it at
https://www.wardsauto.com/dealers/dealers-threatened-
both-low-tech-high-tech-crime.
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