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I’ll admit, I was one of the many people oogling over Apple’s latest announcement of their new iPhone product, and new iPhone OS 3.0 release this past week. The iPhone and iPod lines from Apple have become a staple product for many people around the world, including people that have entire song collections on them, or manage business affairs right from their phones.

That popularity sometimes comes with a price. As I watch the crime reports each day, I see as a more and more common occurrence “theft of ipod from car”. Now, the crime reports are just a subjective listing of specific issues that the Crime Prevention department of the RPD and OCSO decide to release to the public, but I wanted to do a little data mining, and see if I could see a trend in the number of iPod and iPhone thefts over the past few years.

I want to emphasize this is not a scientifically accurate measurement of thefts in Rochester, this is just a search on the published CopTalkLive crime summaries for the past few years. I’m sure many more thefts of iPods and iPhones don’t get specifically listed, or the devices themselves don’t get named on the report. But, this is just a quick and dirty way to see if there has been any trend increase of thefts, and it certainly looks like there has been.

Just remember one thing, even if you live in a great neighborhood — don’t leave your valuables in your car! Thieves just pick random streets to walk up and down, look for anything worth taking, and they’ll bust out a window, or find unlocked cars to prey on. Especially expensive devices with information on them that would be painful, or impossible to replace.

Now, that said … time to order my new iPhone from Apple.

This notice was sent to all Mayo Clinic employees today, indicating that a phone scam has been targeting Rochester residents, claiming that their Mayo Credit Union credit card has been compromised, and they need to call an 1800 number to “verify the account”. Please be very cautious of anyone asking your credit card information over the phone, or online!

Full notice:

Several people in the Rochester area have been the target of a phone scam that uses the Mayo Credit Union name in an attempt to collect credit card information.
Reports indicate the phone call is from an automated system telling the recipient the Mayo Credit Union is calling them to let them know their credit card has been compromised or is overdrawn. The call recipients are asked to enter their “16 digit number” to verify account information along with an expiration date for the card.

If you receive one of these phone calls, do not enter any information. This is an attempt to gather credit card information to be used for illegal purposes. Mayo Employees Federal Credit Union would not call members and ask for this type of information.

There has been no breach of Mayo Employees Federal Credit Union records. The calls are being made randomly to Rochester phone numbers regardless of whether or not the numbers are published. People have received these calls at both work and home locations.

Credit union staff are working with the Rochester Police Department and Mayo Security to try to end this scam. If you feel you may have inadvertently given someone your account information, contact the credit union’s Phone Center at 507-535-1460 or stop into a credit union branch for assistance.