a $17.95 lock for a $5000 item?

CNN.com – Arrest makes Segway history – Aug. 20, 2003

Segway.com offers a front-page link for buyers to insure their machines, and a $17.95 lock appears at the top of its list of accessories.

And you have to wonder what someone was thinking to buy a $5000 Segway for $75: “gee, that looks like a good deal. I’m sure this fellow pushing a highly-publicized state of the art invention down the sidewalk is the real owner.”

There’s a more detailed story in Wired that explains how the thief was tricked into meeting a self-styled “Hercule Poirot” who offered to help him hack into the digital key system and get it working. In that story, the price was $800: still nowhere near what one should expect to pay for one of these.