A Portland, Oregon, woman says her red Subaru was stolen from her driveway — and then it reappeared with an apology note and gas money.
Erin Hatzi tells The Oregonian/OregonLive that her husband noticed the car was missing on Tuesday night and she posted security camera stills on Facebook, asking for help finding it.
Police caught a woman returning the vehicle to Hatzi’s driveway Wednesday evening. The accidental thief had instructions from a friend to pick up a different red Subaru in Hatzi’s neighborhood and returned when the friend said it wasn’t her car. She brought along $30 for gas and a note expressing apologies.
Police told Hatzi that some older Subaru keys are interchangeable, making it easy for the woman to make off with the wrong car.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
I had a 1970 Ford Maverick and while at a shopping center I walked back outside and went to get in my car. I unlocked the door and put the key in the ignition, it turned and was running. I looked in back of me and saw all kinds of stuff in the back seat which was not there before. I then looked closer at the car and it was the same color, same interior and thought, OH MY God, I am in the wrong car. I shut it off, got out, locked it up and walked another 2 or 4 cars and there was mine. I thought to myself, what if the other owner saw me in their car, what would I say or do?
I HAD THAT HAPPEN TO ME,AT THE TEXASSTATE FAIR.
BOTH CARS WERE BLACK CHEVROLET.MY KEY OPEND THE WRONG CARDOOR.I STARTED THE CAR AND WAS READY TO DRIVE AWAY,BUT THIS CAR WAS AN AUTOMATIC,MINE WAS A 4 SPEED.
NEEDLESS TO SAY,I LOCKED THE CAR AND FINALLLY FOUND MINE.
WASN’T FUNNY THEN,BUT IS NOW LOL
I own a Prius with a push-button start.
As I got out of my car one day the man parking
next to me hit his button to lock HIS car and
mine beeped also. The odds of that, according to
Toyota are about one in a 1/4 million1
If his car were newer I would have taken it!
When I was in the service I knew a guy that accidentally stole a car. He asked a friend if he could borrow his car.. The friend said sure and tossed him the keys. He did not know that the friend had sold his car and had a different one then. He went to what he thought was his friend’s car and started it up and left. When he came back from town he was stopped at the main gate for driving a stolen car. He told them that he did not steal it, he only borrowed it. The APs told him that they had heard that story before and they weren’t buying it. It turned out that the key for his friend’s new car worked fine in his old car. I believe that both cars were Ford products that were manufactured several years apart. I think that one was a Ford and the other one was a Mercury. Apparently they only made a certain number of different keys and duplicates did occur. This was back in the early ’60s.