Cops: Laptop Thief Busted After Customer Service Call

Calling customer service for help with your laptop is generally a fine idea, but maybe not if you stole the thing in a home burglary. Police in New Hampshire say they made an arrest on Monday and recovered a computer stolen in February 2013 thanks to that very scenario, reports WMUR. The break came when Apple emailed the original owner and thanked him for calling customer service. Except he hadn't.

Someone else had done so, using the long-gone laptop's serial number as a reference. "It then took us a while to track down the individual who made the phone call, but we were able to put that together and ultimately come up with enough evidence to charge him with the original burglary and recover the computer," says a detective. It might be "the only example of when a broken computer is a good thing," observes the Consumerist. (More weird crimes stories.)