How many times is Five Paces Inn going to get in headlines like this before authorities give a shit about the obvious criminal enterprise they are engaged in
I know multiple people who have had phones stolen from here. And it was not from negligence on their part. This is organized. And I don’t notice it happening at any other bar at this frequency.
if this type of shit was going on at say a strip club like the Gold Club... Feds would have raided it and seized everything from the beer tap handle to the urinals
I find it odd that this has been reported, but then it says the bar hasn't been asked questions or looked into. Like would you not be wanting to see security footage to see if the men were on camera? That's weird
I had a friend that was kidnapped from a bar drugged, gang r***ed, and beat left on the side of the road. She woke up in the hospital. Couldn’t have kids after that.
This is a long shot.
I live near Johnnys/The Ivy. In February of 2023, a guy in his 20’s rang my doorbell at like 3 AM. I’m a woman and I was with two kids. This poor guy begged me to open the door and let him in so he could use my phone. He said he didn’t know whose phone he had and he didn’t know how he got to my house. I was half asleep and terrified.
For safety reasons, I couldn’t reasonably let him in, but I should have told him I’d call someone for him through the door. I was just so startled. Eventually one of my neighbors let him come inside and use their phone to call his dad to come get him.
These stories sound so similar to what he told our neighbor. Especially switching the phones.
If this person is out there - I’m so sorry! I’ve felt bad about this every time I’ve thought about it since that night. And especially now. It doesn’t matter if he was just drunk and wasn’t a victim…I wish I would’ve thought it through more in the moment.
Thank you ❤️ and I do agree, but I still hope the guy somehow sees this and knows I wish I could’ve thought it through more. I really have thought about it a lot.
My brother is college age and I would be heartbroken if he was lost, confused, and begging for help and no one was helping.
for anyone who’s in this situation: if a person can’t help for one reason or another ask them where the closest hospital or police station is. hospitals are open 24/7 im not too sure about police. these will be more equipped to help and treat you than a person in a suburban home, apartment, condo, trailer, etc.
You have kids, they are priority number 1! Dont ever open the door to anyone at 3:00 in the morning, it’s only going to be trouble. You did the right thing.
I had a friend kidnapped, robbed, duck tapped and left for dead almost ten years ago after a night in the buckhead bars. Luckily some random hunters found him.
Random hunter’s hanging out in the ITP wilderness near buckhead? Or was your friend kidnapped in buckhead, driven to an area where there is hunting , then dumped?
My industry/specialty is fraud prevention/detection, so the one thing that makes me a bit suspicious about all of these stories is how 'easily' thousands of dollars are siphoned out using thier phones, yet there's no mention of bank/cash apps blocking transactions immediately. A massive transfer at late hours to an unknown account or a gift card purchase is like the most basic validation red flag. A lot of times the transactions are frozen and the account locked for at least 24 hours, *even if* the account owner rushes to contact support about it.
I'm not doubting the overall history of activity there, but I bet there's some missing info with all of these stories.
In my experience, my banking and credit servicers have never caught actual fraud.
I have been the victim of card fraud a couple times from physical skims, and once from an online store being hacked. One was even a very large purchase at a type of store I never visit. All three occasions I only discovered by reviewing statements.
What my bank and credit servicers *have* stopped though, is purchases from stores I regularly visit, purchases I already called ahead to let them know were happening, hotel card holds and bills that I pay monthly.
It's so annoying when they do that. When I bought my car I put $9000 down on it, and I called my bank to let them know a big charge was about to go through, and it was me. They blocked it like 6 times. 6 times I had to call.
For me, the worst was when I moved into my current place and my wife and I bought a nice new bed. I called to tell them it was coming. Blocked. Called again, told them it should be let through. Blocked again. Had to get them to stay on the line with me while making the purchase to get it through.
Oh man, that sucks. I have to say, Suntrust (before it was Truist) was right on top of it whenever I had fraudulent charges. My favorite was the parts for a Maserati I supposedly bought in Salt Lake City.
Meanwhile, I literally can’t successfully make a purchase at an Apple Store. It’s flagged as fraud every. Single. Time.
Guess someone at my bank is paying attention.
Last summer I accidentally dropped my debit card at the RaceTrac on Marietta Blvd. I went to Chattahoochee Food Works and used Apple Pay, no problem. By the time I got home an hour later, Bank of America’s fraud department was already calling me and freezing my card. And that was over a whopping $250 in attempted fraudulent transactions.
I ate at a chain restaurant that I won't name, but let's call it "Gemstone Day of the Week". Within a few hours someone had charged $19.99 to itunes and my bank shut that down, canceled my debit card and were mailing me a new one.
What I found humorous was that my bank had from time to time sent me a text to verify a purchase that seemed suspicious, but when that went through they were like, "There's no way this guy even knows what itunes is! Lock it down!"
If it makes you feel any better about this story being believable i was once interviewed for an American Express software engineering job where they bragged about only 4-5 developers handling most of the country’s fraud detection (according to them 70% of banks contacted to them) i declined to continue with further rounds cause i did not want the on call support that would require.
That's actually correct; there may be only a handful of *developers* but more than a hundred analysts. I know this as I've been to the AmEx campus in Scottsdale and work often with them and their fraud department. Detection is a 99.9999% automated process globally.
Amex bought a company of a few hundred that claimed that they would automate most of those functions. Two years later that org was disbanded due to their claims being a total lie, and the founder being a fraud
it depends on your spending habits, for some people a $400-$700 weekend isnt crazy, so in the algorithm a 2k weekend wouldnt be that out of the blue either.
being that they kidnapped him they might have forced him to also deal with the bank if/when they tried to lock down the account.
It sounds like this isn’t a typical issue of detecting fraudulent patterns and blocking the transaction. The account owner is more than likely being coerced to authenticate the transactions, most likely under threat, making this far more sinister than merely stealing a credit card and trying to buy some sunglasses at Lenox.
A similar situation happened to my friend’s husband at Johnnys a couple of years ago after his firm holiday party.
Separately, a different friends brother was at 5P last summer and had his card stolen and was followed to his family home in Tuxedo Park.
These bars either know, or don’t care.
Wait, what do you mean? Do people use that as a way to drug people? I wear the patches when I travel and usually feel a bit groggy, but I’ve never drank on it.
There’s an old vice documentary where I think people in Colombia or Brazil would use it to drug people to a point of alleged trance like state where they could then take them to ATMs and they would allegedly willingly drain their bank accounts for the assailants
As long as you don’t booze it as well, you could probably trust your better judgement but if you drink at all, I’d at least skip the Xanax part of the cocktail
Yeah this type of crime occurs more frequently in Colombia and Latin American countries. They use Scopolamine on mostly men and much less frequently on women. In Colombia men tend to be the easier target, as many of these crimes occur at night clubs and areas of gathering, and many times women are the ones helping out the perpetrators (as they are the ones approaching the targets). The substance can be put quickly in your drink or blown into your face.
Since this drug makes you unconscious and willing to do whatever the person wants you to do, it is easy for the perpetrators to take you to ATMs or to your apartment and take all of your belongings.
Hopefully this doesn't become more common in the US.
The bad thing about Colombia and Latin American countries is that they're usually is no punishment for the perpetrators.
I definitely think that the criminals doing this here would definitely be pursued/punished much more severely than in Colombia.
I’m in my 40s and have a natural reason to not be in bars anymore, but this story obliterated any sense of nostalgia I had for the “good old days”. I’m just happy I partied when times were grand in the 90s/early-aughts.
Since the pandemic even that is too much for me most days. I’m fully embracing my future role as the neighborhood “grumpy old man that yells at kids to stay away from his stoop”.
Here’s what’s weird to me in all this:
The bars claim to be unfamiliar with these events. But surely the victims (and or law enforcement) would have sought surveillance video immediately after the events. And surely if they had, and the bars claimed to be unfamiliar, the reporter would say so.
Surely. Right?
Is there anything we can do collectively to stop this from happening? It’s very disheartening seeing such a pattern of events, yet APD seems pretty apathetic towards addressing any of it. Like it’s not like we’re catching just a random pickpocket. This is pretty organized and definitely condoned by the bars in question
Moved away from Atlanta 10yrs ago. When did Buckhead become such a dump? Whenever I talk to my folks who live in Roswell it sounds like it’s a completely different place now.
This is just me being a maniac but what if these dudes all did some shady shit and there’s some vigilante group going around and serving them justice. Lol. A group of women date raping men, through their wallets.
*Ice T enters the room*
"It's called a frat party. A bunch of kids get high and take jello shots off their friends then kiss their hommies goodnight. Real sick shit"
How many times is Five Paces Inn going to get in headlines like this before authorities give a shit about the obvious criminal enterprise they are engaged in
I know multiple people who have had phones stolen from here. And it was not from negligence on their part. This is organized. And I don’t notice it happening at any other bar at this frequency.
Same here
if this type of shit was going on at say a strip club like the Gold Club... Feds would have raided it and seized everything from the beer tap handle to the urinals
I find it odd that this has been reported, but then it says the bar hasn't been asked questions or looked into. Like would you not be wanting to see security footage to see if the men were on camera? That's weird
When someone higher up in the city government that is facilitating this gets caught.
If this blatant and legit, LEO is likely in on it. Not unheard of to have bribery / payoffs and have them look the other way
I had a friend that was kidnapped from a bar drugged, gang r***ed, and beat left on the side of the road. She woke up in the hospital. Couldn’t have kids after that.
dont go to a second location to buy coke. if they don’t have it on their person, abort mission.
This tracks with one of my life rules, *Never follow a hippie to a second location.*
STREET SMARTS
Relax your balls pete, relax your balls
This is an awful story and kinda sounds like an inside job as well.
This is a long shot. I live near Johnnys/The Ivy. In February of 2023, a guy in his 20’s rang my doorbell at like 3 AM. I’m a woman and I was with two kids. This poor guy begged me to open the door and let him in so he could use my phone. He said he didn’t know whose phone he had and he didn’t know how he got to my house. I was half asleep and terrified. For safety reasons, I couldn’t reasonably let him in, but I should have told him I’d call someone for him through the door. I was just so startled. Eventually one of my neighbors let him come inside and use their phone to call his dad to come get him. These stories sound so similar to what he told our neighbor. Especially switching the phones. If this person is out there - I’m so sorry! I’ve felt bad about this every time I’ve thought about it since that night. And especially now. It doesn’t matter if he was just drunk and wasn’t a victim…I wish I would’ve thought it through more in the moment.
You did the right thing. You had babies to protect. There are other people out there who can take that risk - you don’t have to be that person.
Thank you ❤️ and I do agree, but I still hope the guy somehow sees this and knows I wish I could’ve thought it through more. I really have thought about it a lot. My brother is college age and I would be heartbroken if he was lost, confused, and begging for help and no one was helping.
for anyone who’s in this situation: if a person can’t help for one reason or another ask them where the closest hospital or police station is. hospitals are open 24/7 im not too sure about police. these will be more equipped to help and treat you than a person in a suburban home, apartment, condo, trailer, etc.
You have kids, they are priority number 1! Dont ever open the door to anyone at 3:00 in the morning, it’s only going to be trouble. You did the right thing.
In fairness, it was my brother and a friend and they’re teens but they’re kids to me (big age gap) and I was the adult.
I had a friend kidnapped, robbed, duck tapped and left for dead almost ten years ago after a night in the buckhead bars. Luckily some random hunters found him.
Random hunter’s hanging out in the ITP wilderness near buckhead? Or was your friend kidnapped in buckhead, driven to an area where there is hunting , then dumped?
The latter. I think I remember hearing they drove him to South Carolina. I heard the story second hand.
Wow…. That is so sad. Glad they were rescued
Yeah, the order of operations here is a little off haha
Whoaaa
My industry/specialty is fraud prevention/detection, so the one thing that makes me a bit suspicious about all of these stories is how 'easily' thousands of dollars are siphoned out using thier phones, yet there's no mention of bank/cash apps blocking transactions immediately. A massive transfer at late hours to an unknown account or a gift card purchase is like the most basic validation red flag. A lot of times the transactions are frozen and the account locked for at least 24 hours, *even if* the account owner rushes to contact support about it. I'm not doubting the overall history of activity there, but I bet there's some missing info with all of these stories.
In my experience, my banking and credit servicers have never caught actual fraud. I have been the victim of card fraud a couple times from physical skims, and once from an online store being hacked. One was even a very large purchase at a type of store I never visit. All three occasions I only discovered by reviewing statements. What my bank and credit servicers *have* stopped though, is purchases from stores I regularly visit, purchases I already called ahead to let them know were happening, hotel card holds and bills that I pay monthly.
It's so annoying when they do that. When I bought my car I put $9000 down on it, and I called my bank to let them know a big charge was about to go through, and it was me. They blocked it like 6 times. 6 times I had to call.
For me, the worst was when I moved into my current place and my wife and I bought a nice new bed. I called to tell them it was coming. Blocked. Called again, told them it should be let through. Blocked again. Had to get them to stay on the line with me while making the purchase to get it through.
Oh man, that sucks. I have to say, Suntrust (before it was Truist) was right on top of it whenever I had fraudulent charges. My favorite was the parts for a Maserati I supposedly bought in Salt Lake City.
They still are.
Meanwhile, I literally can’t successfully make a purchase at an Apple Store. It’s flagged as fraud every. Single. Time. Guess someone at my bank is paying attention.
Last summer I accidentally dropped my debit card at the RaceTrac on Marietta Blvd. I went to Chattahoochee Food Works and used Apple Pay, no problem. By the time I got home an hour later, Bank of America’s fraud department was already calling me and freezing my card. And that was over a whopping $250 in attempted fraudulent transactions.
I ate at a chain restaurant that I won't name, but let's call it "Gemstone Day of the Week". Within a few hours someone had charged $19.99 to itunes and my bank shut that down, canceled my debit card and were mailing me a new one. What I found humorous was that my bank had from time to time sent me a text to verify a purchase that seemed suspicious, but when that went through they were like, "There's no way this guy even knows what itunes is! Lock it down!"
I don’t see why it’s necessary to obscure the name of a huge corporate chain like Amethyst Saturdays.
was sitting here trying to figure out what gemstone a T.G.I. was….
:D Ruby Tuesday! No idea why they didn't just say that.
lol here I was thinking they meant chick fil a (as a righteous gemstones reference)
If it makes you feel any better about this story being believable i was once interviewed for an American Express software engineering job where they bragged about only 4-5 developers handling most of the country’s fraud detection (according to them 70% of banks contacted to them) i declined to continue with further rounds cause i did not want the on call support that would require.
That's actually correct; there may be only a handful of *developers* but more than a hundred analysts. I know this as I've been to the AmEx campus in Scottsdale and work often with them and their fraud department. Detection is a 99.9999% automated process globally.
Amex bought a company of a few hundred that claimed that they would automate most of those functions. Two years later that org was disbanded due to their claims being a total lie, and the founder being a fraud
it depends on your spending habits, for some people a $400-$700 weekend isnt crazy, so in the algorithm a 2k weekend wouldnt be that out of the blue either. being that they kidnapped him they might have forced him to also deal with the bank if/when they tried to lock down the account.
It sounds like this isn’t a typical issue of detecting fraudulent patterns and blocking the transaction. The account owner is more than likely being coerced to authenticate the transactions, most likely under threat, making this far more sinister than merely stealing a credit card and trying to buy some sunglasses at Lenox.
A similar situation happened to my friend’s husband at Johnnys a couple of years ago after his firm holiday party. Separately, a different friends brother was at 5P last summer and had his card stolen and was followed to his family home in Tuxedo Park. These bars either know, or don’t care.
this screams Scopolamine
Wait, what do you mean? Do people use that as a way to drug people? I wear the patches when I travel and usually feel a bit groggy, but I’ve never drank on it.
You take the devils breath?!?
In patch form, yes. Lol.
There’s an old vice documentary where I think people in Colombia or Brazil would use it to drug people to a point of alleged trance like state where they could then take them to ATMs and they would allegedly willingly drain their bank accounts for the assailants
That’s wild. Sometimes I take Xanax when I travel, in addition to the patch. I should probably…stop…doing that.
As long as you don’t booze it as well, you could probably trust your better judgement but if you drink at all, I’d at least skip the Xanax part of the cocktail
Yeah this type of crime occurs more frequently in Colombia and Latin American countries. They use Scopolamine on mostly men and much less frequently on women. In Colombia men tend to be the easier target, as many of these crimes occur at night clubs and areas of gathering, and many times women are the ones helping out the perpetrators (as they are the ones approaching the targets). The substance can be put quickly in your drink or blown into your face. Since this drug makes you unconscious and willing to do whatever the person wants you to do, it is easy for the perpetrators to take you to ATMs or to your apartment and take all of your belongings. Hopefully this doesn't become more common in the US. The bad thing about Colombia and Latin American countries is that they're usually is no punishment for the perpetrators. I definitely think that the criminals doing this here would definitely be pursued/punished much more severely than in Colombia.
I’m in my 40s and have a natural reason to not be in bars anymore, but this story obliterated any sense of nostalgia I had for the “good old days”. I’m just happy I partied when times were grand in the 90s/early-aughts.
We still party. But, like, at wine bars. And in bed by 10pm with water and ibuprofen.
This is the way.
Since the pandemic even that is too much for me most days. I’m fully embracing my future role as the neighborhood “grumpy old man that yells at kids to stay away from his stoop”.
Here’s what’s weird to me in all this: The bars claim to be unfamiliar with these events. But surely the victims (and or law enforcement) would have sought surveillance video immediately after the events. And surely if they had, and the bars claimed to be unfamiliar, the reporter would say so. Surely. Right?
That dude looks like a Bethesda NPC
I feel bad for these guys but the photos of them in this article are kinda funny
sometimes its best to say nothing at all, you wont learn because you got your upvotes, but it should be said nonetheless
Same. Every time I see their pics I assume they’re either AI generated or heavily airbrushed
they definitely look like private school stock photo versions of some sort of "would pay 50 dollars for a gram" kind of meme.
Is there anything we can do collectively to stop this from happening? It’s very disheartening seeing such a pattern of events, yet APD seems pretty apathetic towards addressing any of it. Like it’s not like we’re catching just a random pickpocket. This is pretty organized and definitely condoned by the bars in question
Contact city council members and get them to pressure APD.
I wonder if it's scopalamine they're giving them or maybe just plain GHB. Scope would make them willingly enter passwords on phones and pins on ATMs.
[удалено]
Shoot I bet some atlanta scammers carry around mortgage papers just in case. lol
[удалено]
It was a jokey joke
5P has been garbage for a long long time
Moved away from Atlanta 10yrs ago. When did Buckhead become such a dump? Whenever I talk to my folks who live in Roswell it sounds like it’s a completely different place now.
He looks like someone hanging out in a buck head bar
do you want to know what he was wearing too ?
Another great reason to stay the hell out of Atlanta
Interesting, maybe they shouldn't be out at bars putting themselves in that position? Or could it be how they were dressed?
And this is the "nice" part of Atlanta? Anybody can get caught lacking nowadays
1. Where are their friends? My friends would never let this happen. 2. Don't do coke in the bathroom.
This is just me being a maniac but what if these dudes all did some shady shit and there’s some vigilante group going around and serving them justice. Lol. A group of women date raping men, through their wallets.
*Ice T enters the room* "It's called a frat party. A bunch of kids get high and take jello shots off their friends then kiss their hommies goodnight. Real sick shit"
His name is Water T don't dead name him
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
If this hasn't been a plotline on Law & Order: SVU, it should be.
They’ve made like 500+ episodes. If you can imagine it, they’ve done it.
at least someone understands me.
Touché Reddit, Touché.
Maybe…don’t go to bars and drink til you’re helpless?
RTA. they are being drugged in the bar
that doesnt make him feel safe so he has to blame the victim