[hackerspaces] Do your spaces have a theft problem? How do you deal with it?

[David Powell]

At Harford Hackerspace we don't collect money for snacks and drinks. When we
start running out of drinks we take turns buying more. Our space is
monitored by several cameras and the space is owned by one of our members
and he lives literally 20 feet away. I think what makes me comfortable about
our members is knowing they all have good jobs. They may use tools and
forget to put them back but they simply don't have a need to steal them. If
I ever did suspect a member was stealing from us I would have to get to the
bottom of it even if it were only $30 from petty cash. We only have 11
members so I would ask each of them individually if they took the money just
in case they took it to go purchase something for the space. If I knew when
it happened I would look at the video archives to see who it could have
possibly been.

I just don't think it will ever be a problem for us because all of our
members pay their dues. The stuff we own at the space was paid for by the
members. We don't have any freeloaders. We make it well known that if you
can't afford your dues then you simply tell us you can't pay them. We all
know that people have rough financial times. We are all very good friends
and would not have a problem asking to borrow money from another member.
Everyone contributes equally and they all feel like the space is their own
space.

If someone is stealing from you then you need to do everything you can to
find out who it is and put a stop to it.

On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 9:32 AM, h0uz3 <h0uz3 at foto23.com> wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> At shackspace we had a "open cashier" for a certain type of soda which was
> completely removed by someone. We still don't know whether it was stolen or
> accidentially thrown away. Usually people miss personal things because they
> were used without their permission or stuff doesn't get back to where it
> belongs.
>
> For about a year we had a "open cashier" for sweets (vending machine for
> sweets came in about 3 months ago, drinks were always in a vm), there were
> slight differences between sweets "bought" and money "paid", but it didn'd
> become a big issue.
>
> --
> Kein Footer.
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>
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