For a while, all was quiet on the “payday loan store robbery” front. However, yesterday I got reports of two robberies — in different states.

The first, in which a payday loan store in South Carolina was robbed, fit the regular description of a payday loan store robbery. However, a story out of California had a very different ending.

South Carolina robbery

Here is a press release from a news outlet in South Carolina on the robbery that occurred there:

LONGS, SC (WMBF) – Two men walked into a Quick Cash Advance in Longs Thursday and robbed it at gunpoint, according to Horry County Police.

The store at 3373 Hwy. 9 was hit shortly before 2 p.m. Thursday. Witnesses said two men, one of whom was armed with a handgun, entered the store and demanded money from the clerk. The suspects fled with an undisclosed amount of cash.

The case remains under investigation.

Crazy in California

I chose to just post the press release on that South Carolina robbery because it reads like pretty much every other payday loan store robbery. I could change just the location, store name and date and it would still be a perfectly accurate reflection of several other incidents.

However, things got shaken up a little in California yesterday when a payday loan store robber did more than “flee with an undisclosed amount of cash.” Check out my report from yesterday:

Lake Forest, California

That’s where this whole episode went down: Lake Forest in Orange County, California, at a store called PayDay Loan. The robber, in traditional robber style, entered the building, pointed the gun and demanded the money.

Only the store had a silent alarm system, and the cops were on their way. This is where the story gets interesting.

Wrong place, wrong time

The police arrived just as the robber was leaving, and rather than surrender to the inevitable, he decided to involve an innocent bystander. He grabbed a a61-year-old male customer, forced him into his SUV at gunpoint and sped off with the man and the cash.

Police followed, and the robber proceeded to lead the police on a high-speed chase that at times reached speeds of 120 mph. Schools were put on lockdown, as police and suspects sped from on the freeway and around Laguna Hills and Laguna Niguel. The chase lasted about an hour.

Under arrest

Of course, the chase had to end some time. When it did, the police freed the unharmed hostage and arrested the suspect. They recovered the cash, they took the gun and they continued with the business of keeping Orange County safe.

The moral of this story is that payday loan stores and any other frequently targeted establishment should definitely invest in one of those silent alarm systems. Payday loan stores often get targeted by robbers because they keep a large amount of cash on hand. Anything you can do to get police officers on the scene before the robber is off the scene will help deter future criminals from endangering employees and customers again.

We’ve all had our break-ups, but it is never a reason to commit a felony

A woman in Indiana has had a serious falling out after her most recent relationship has gone up in smoke, along with her freedom, in all likelihood.   Now, we all know that some relationships are in and of themselves bad, and that some breakups get incredibly ugly.  It’s a fact of life, and as unfortunate as it is to have to deal with the loss of the bonds you have with someone you once loved and the subsequent pain and heartache, a person must bear in mind that some good will come of it eventually.  Also, domestic abuse is something nobody should ever have to take.  Although it is natural to have frustrations with your partner, it isn’t anywhere within any bounds whatsoever to abuse them, mentally or emotionally, and it is also wrong to take it.  All this being said, there are normal, constructive, and ultimately legal ways to handle these things.  You don’t have to resort to anything insane in order to cope.
According to a police report, a 26 year old woman has set fire to a block of storage units, and has been arrested on the charge of arson, a felony.   Now she may be needing payday loans for a lawyer.  What evidently has happened was that after a long, on-going domestic dispute with a former boyfriend, she took his clothes to the storage units in order to dispose of them.  She set fire to the clothes, and then left them to burn, which caused fire to spread to the rest of the building, which burned down.  The total damage was $100,000 in lost property, and she was taken into custody on Wednesday in Anderson, Indiana.  (Sources do not indicate whether or not the woman was a redhead.)  She was booked into the Madison County Jail, and then later released upon posting $20,000 bond.  Her court case is pending.

This was NOT a disco inferno

A cheery fire is great.  A loved one’s things, as well as an entire storage facility being set ON fire are not.  That is a felony.  Now it is a serious thing, this monumental of a mistake, but it is slightly humorous.  (Anyone remember the jilted astronaut who drove several hundred miles wearing a NASA diaper to confront her ex-boyfriends’ lover?)  Just bear in mind, that in a sudden emergency, where you have a financial gap to cover, you have sensible options to look to, such as payday loans instead of, say, setting anything on fire.

The Biggest Gift Items are often the Biggest Targets

One of the largest gift ideas that many of us have for our loved ones is jewelry.  Now obviously, the jewelry that a lot of people like to be able to afford during the holidays goes beyond your average pearl or cubic zirconium earrings; we’re talking the high class, multiple thousand dollar diamond necklace, or bracelet, or ring type of stuff here.  Jewelry is a constant attention getter for thieves. On Thursday, December 4th, a diamond heist went down at the Paris location of Harry Winston Jewelers as night was beginning to fall and just before the store was about to close.  Harry Winston is one of the largest and high class jewelry companies in the world – some of the particular store that was robbed has a clientele list that lists names like: Richard Burton (the actor who was married to Elizabeth Taylor), Aristotle Onassis (Greek shipping tycoon, married Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of JFK), Nicolas Sarkozy (The President of France), the former Shah of Iran, Scarlett Johannson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Hilary Swank, just a few.  The heist went down in a matter of only a few minutes, the robbers being very well prepared, and made off with €85 million, or about $108 million dollars, or over a hundred million payday loans‘ worth.  The robbers may not be likely to find a buyer for extremely high price jewelry including rings and watches that will be far too easily identified, but its likely mobsters will be able to find buyers around the world with the ill gotten gains.  Apparently, three of the robbers were dressed as females, so as to drag investigation efforts to a slower pace.  This is the second time the Paris Harry Winston store has been robbed in a the last year, as they were robbed almost a year to the day of about $16 million in cash and jewels.

Hopefully, Santa will bring these thieves a lump of coal – and a prison sentence

We all know what it is like to wish we had some extra money during the holidays.  It would be great to get everybody the things on their wish list, make the family happy, and see our wives or girl friends eyes go wide open as we put a big shiny rock on their finger, but we’re not going to rob anybody to do it.  However, we do know that if we have a sudden expense come up, in the holiday season or not, we have legal, affordable, responsible options to help us out, such as payday loans.

You don’t have to look far these days to see just how depressed our economy is in both, terms of financial instability as well statistical crime rates. Short term payday loans may help you in any financial trouble that you may be experiencing but and when it comes to local crime, Mugshots may be the answer you need

MugShots? What is MugShots?

Mugshots are becoming a new trend in the media making criminals more accountable to their wrong doing.

We have heard and seen mugshots before, whether on the news or in the paper but now, a new publication is hitting the streets called just that, MugShots!

This publication publishes the mugshot photos of those who have been arrested for the rest of us to see. No matter the crime, big or small, just get arrested and your face could be given optimum visibility in the MugShots magazine or Web site, and payday loans probably won’t keep you from being featured.

A New Trend In Media Entertainment

Mugshots have entertainment value that more and more media sources are wanting to capitalize on. People are drawn to know the dangers that exist around them, and to be able to pick up a publication that gives them the mugs of each offender, allows them to do just that. Citizens in nine states now can currently pick up this publication and thumb through the latest local offenders of the law.

Besides the MugShot Service a few Newspapers have also picked up on the popularity of this type of publicity and have had great benefit using it. One newspaper called the “Palm Beach Post” said that their web site gets several thousand clicks a day since implementing a mugshots feature on their Web site.

Mugshots.com, a website devoted to mugshots, gives both celebrity mugshots, historical mug shots, as well as the jail mugshots of those everyday offenders. Books have also been published filled with mugshots from both the famous as well as the average Joe.

Profit At Face Value

Of the more popular publications such as “Jail“, “Busted“, “Cell Mates“, and “Gotcha-ya!“, MugShots a publication out of Clearwater Florida sells for $1 and provides primarily three things. Photographs, names, and charges.

The weekly publication sells for only 1$ and provides gives a round up of the latest community arrests.

How MugShots got it’s Start

Max Cannon, publisher of the Local MugShots publication, got the idea from a free magazine he was publishing eight years earlier called “Profiles“. This publication was distributed as waiting room material for restaurants and doctors offices. It contained jokes, riddles, some mugshots and other odd articles.

Upon hearing that mugshots were popular in the Daily News Journal, he decided that he would create a publication that had less editorial content and more mugshots.

MugShots Popularity Is Growing

MugShots has become a hit with over 250,000 people in nine separate states purchasing the publication on a weekly basis. The publication is distributed primarily through local convenience stores and is filled with mugshots from each of the targeted regions it sales in. These regions are low to middle income neighborhoods in metropolitan areas. Cannon says the publication sales best where the crime takes place.

MugShots also includes some filler pages featuring celebrities, famous prisons and women on death row. Perhaps a little unconventional and maybe a little disturbing to some, the publication includes photos of fugitives and sex offenders which Cannon claims is a public service and has some real testimonials to back it up.

Publishing Mugshots Is Catching Criminals

One reader recognized the softball coach of her child’s team in the MugShots publication distributed in Tennessee. Another fugitive was apprehended in Florida who was accused of robbing a local Wal-Mart after a reader had seen his face in a MugShots publication.

I suppose anything keeping the streets clean and the honest guy honest can’t be criticized to much, after all the only way you can become part of the publication is to not participate in the crime. Many of the arrests being made today are a result of theft, seems like these criminals need to try some cash obtaining alternatives like payday loans to keep their faces off the front line.

We all need to be careful out there, and thats where MugShots can help us.