Facility managers know the joys of dealing with their cable and internet provider. A phone call for a simple service request usually entails navigating automated menus, redirected calls, and when you finally get someone on the line, a hard sales pitch to expand your service package. However, one rather enterprising Spectrum employee in Riverside, California took it upon himself to give us all another reason to dread having to call them. And while this incident happened in a residential neighborhood, it highlights the value that security cameras offer for facility and grounds security.
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Earlier this week, Melissa Cortez took to Twitter, where she tagged Spectrum and a few local news outlets to accuse an unnamed Spectrum service technician of stealing her 10-month-old pug from her fenced-in backyard. The kicker, the theft was picked up by two of her neighbor’s security cameras that had eyes on the edge of her property. The video shows the employee exit his vehicle on the opposite side of the street and then walk onto her property. He then slowly opened the fence gate, crouched and grabbed the tiny pooch before running back to his Spectrum-branded vehicle.
As you can imagine, this incident blew up on Twitter following Cortez’s post, but to cover her bases, she had also filed a police report and contacted Spectrum directly. To her great relief, Andrew the pug was back home safe within 24 hours, hand-delivered by Spectrum’s head of security. As you might imagine, the dog-napping employee is out of a job.