Gym locker thefts: Police seeing rise in reports

Rise in credit card thefts from gym lockers

An avid gym-goer in Austin wants to send a warning to people about what happened to him. A thief took his credit cards out of a gym locker while he was working out and then quickly used the money to buy thousands of dollars worth of stuff. Austin police officers are seeing a rising number of reports for this crime too. FOX 7 Austin's Meredith Aldis has more in this CrimeWatch.

AUSTIN, Texas - A gym-goer in Austin is warning others about what happened to him as Austin police officers say they're seeing a rise in reports of this crime too.

The backstory:

The trending crime in Austin is people stealing things from gym lockers. Nate said it happened to him at Lifetime.

"I have like a money clip and I usually just put it right in the locker and like it's sitting right out in the front," Nate said.

When he finished working out, he started realizing something was wrong.

"I got a notification from my American Express that somebody just tried to make a purchase for roughly $5,500 at the North Best Buy in Austin. I looked into my wallet and I was like, my AMEX and my Discover card are missing and cash is missing, so then about no joke, probably about two hours later, I get another notification from my Discover saying they were trying to purchase jewelry at a jewelry store over in the San Marcos outlets," Nate said.

Nate said he called the jewelry store and let them know someone was using his card.

Gym locker break-ins in Austin

The Austin Police Department is warning people about a new crime trend. It involves gym memberships and people stealing others? things.

Dig deeper:

"I got a call saying, Hi, who is this, is this Kings Jeweler? That was my card. I don't know who's purchasing the stuff from you guys on that thing," Kings Jeweler owner Minhaj Baig said.

The owner said someone had just come in and bought a $3,500 chain.

"This is happening again and again. People come with a stolen card or somebody else's card," Baig said.

Baig said this trend has cost him.

"Even if a good customer comes in we are scared like okay, should we give it to him or no?" Baig said.

"How much money do you think you’ve lost because of this?" FOX 7 Crime Watch Reporter Meredith Aldis asked.

"Total? Almost $30,000 to $40,000, $40,000, easily," Baig replied.

Nate said he doesn’t bring anything valuable into the gym with him anymore. His message to those doing this sort of thing:

"Find a better day job, it's so it's only necessary to be stealing from people that you know are harmless and innocent and you know go find something better to do," Nate said.