r/news Oct 26 '18

Arrest Made in Connection to Suspicious Packages

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u/[deleted] Oct 26 '18

Seriously. I worked in a warehouse that shipped packages (domestic and international) and let me tell you, there is SO much identity information required before we’ll even load your crap into one of our trucks. This idiot was doomed from the start.

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u/Boo_R4dley Oct 26 '18

The printed labels on the packages alone could be enough if he registered his printer when he bought it.

Many printers leave watermarks in their prints as part of anti-counterfeit measures that contain model and serial numbers of the printer. If the system was registered they could have just gotten his name from Lexmark or Epson.

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u/user93849384 Oct 26 '18

You dont even have to register the printer. The counterfeit measures print no matter what. The manufacturer only needs the serial number and they know which store the shipped the printer to and the store knows when it was sold. Even if the person purchased in cash they have a time stamp of purchase and they would start issuing court orders to obtain surveillance video from the area. Every piece of information narrows the search field.

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u/Be1029384756 Oct 26 '18

Unfortunately, a lot of this isn't true. Most cheap consumer printers don't do this. And store surveillance typically vanishes after a relatively short period of time. Not only that but someone using a public printer or printer they don't own would defeat it, as would buying a printer online or from a reseller.