What’s In Your Wallet?

Yesterday evening, Number Two Son was working out with the Rocket City Rowing Club (look for a future post about that little experiment) when he had his cell phone and wallet stolen.

They were in a friend’s car (in plain sight–lesson learned), and although the parking lot was only located a short distance away, the thieves waited until the team was rowing on the Tennessee River before quickly picking out the only vehicle without an alarm system and smashing the window. The driver also lost his phone, wallet and an iPod (Number Two had left his at home fortunately).

Number Two’s wallet contained his learner’s permit, a small amount of cash and his debit card. He called us on a friend’s phone while we were at a soccer match and told us what had happened. Eyegal immediately called Cingular and stopped service on his phone. After the match was over, we went straight home and Eyegal called the debit card company and reported it stolen. Number Two recently started a part-time job and we had just opened the account. In fact, since he has yet to receive his first paycheck, the account had a zero balance. Nevertheless, in the short time that it took us to cancel the card, the thieves had managed to swipe it twice for credit and had attempted twice more but had been denied.

We got off light this time, but it did get us to thinking about how important it is to have a list of the cards and items in our wallets in case they are ever lost or stolen.

What’s in your wallet? You’d better check now, before some young hoodlum uses it to purchase beer and gas at the local Texaco.

6 Comments

  1. Ed

    Sent you an e-mail that circulated here a few years ago.

  2. Mike the Eyeguy

    Thanks, Ed, that’s good advice. Here are some excerpts from that email:

    Place the contents of your wallet on a photocopy machine, do both sides of each license, credit card, etc., you will know what you had in your wallet and all of the account numbers and phone numbers to call and cancel. Keep the photocopy in a safe place…

    As everyone always advises, cancel your credit cards immediately, but the key is having the toll free numbers and your card numbers handy so you know whom to call. Keep those where you can find them easily. File a police report immediately in the jurisdiction where it was stolen, this proves to credit providers you were diligent, and is a first step toward an investigation (if there ever is one)…

    Call the three national credit reporting organizations immediately to place a fraud alert on your name and SS#…

  3. Stoogelover

    Good advice … learned the hard way. Thankfully the iPod was safe at home! Of the things stolen, I would miss my iPod the most.

  4. Mike the Eyeguy

    Exactly. I felt bad for the kid who lost his. When you calculate in the songs and video on one of those things, that’s a big deal.

  5. Mike the Eyeguy

    I just found out that our hard-working, sharp-thinking thief went inside the Texaco, signed for his purchase rather than just swiping, and even used Number Two’s learner’s permit (hello? does anybody bother to compare the person with the picture these days?). And get this: he went back later and used it again at the same Texaco and it was denied.

    Needless to say, that means that our thief is most likely on surveillance video.

    Our credit union was delighted when they found this out. Apparently, they have full-time investigators who go after thieves if they can be identified, and they assured us that they would be prosecuted in full if caught.

    Don’t worry; we’re not holding our breath on that or anything.

  6. Carolinagirl

    You bring such a good point to light about knowing what’s in your wallet. Being female, people look at me weird when I’d rather not carry a purse, but instead stick a very small wallet into the front pocket of my jeans. Mum never did approve of this. It’s scary how easily debit cards and such can be swiped instead of having to punch in a secret code for usage. I’d rather have to go through the memorization headache of remembering a code everytime I swiped then to risk something happening.

    All in all, glad to hear all came out of this safely.

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