Comments on: stop, thief!

By: FredE

FredE — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 17:33:02 +0000

My wallet was stolen last night in a street near germantown / chelten ave.
I have almost $600 in that wallet since I need it to open a bank account. I dont have my ss# in there. Please someone help me.. I really dont know what to do..

By: Cool Stuff I Found on teh Interwebs « Di Has Stories…

Cool Stuff I Found on teh Interwebs « Di Has Stories… — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:33:31 +0000

[...] not marthaWhat to do if your wallet is stolen….a handy list. [...]

By: Steph

Steph — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 22:13:07 +0000

I work for a credit card company. I hate to scare everyone but it is uber easy for people to steal you identity. Example: someone puts in a change of address at the post office all your mail goes to their address. A few fraud preventative things I didn't see. NEVER put your outgoing mail in your house box with the flag up, it's like a neon sign inviting someone to steal your payments. Never put your ss# on your checks or if your state allows it take it off your license. If someone calls you never give or confirm your personal info. Ask them for their phone number to call them back to make sure its a reliable company. If you have fraud start the leg work yourself. I have helped many many customers catch the people who stole their id by advising them to check the store they used it at & see if they still have the video tapes from that day. The police especially in large cities don't consider True Name fraud a big deal & won't do the leg work. Ask what was bought. One woman caught her theif because they ordered pay-per-view, crooks aren't that smart sometimes. OH & to reply to #9 by Roger that is a great idea in theory but I already see a bunch of ways around it. Insider fraud, anyone from the company who makes those can alter your info & sell it to the highest bidder along with posting the plans to get around it on the net in a second. Also what are you going to verify for people who are sick like stroke victims their signaturs and/or apperance change drastically, then you have the poorly educated or who do not speak the language well who do not know their basic info like address or ss# what will you verify for those poor people who are just uneducated or have poor communication (trust me there are a staggering amount)then that leads into well if you only verify a little bit for those people what is to stop a fraudster from calling up acting like they had a stroke & cant remember the stuf you need to verify & they get a new stick. Its not that easy PLUS the companies will have to deal with all the people who loose their verification sticks & complain because they can get to their money immediately thats bad for business. Unfortunately when it comes to security companies have to set it to the lowest common denominator for all those type of people.

By: Amber

Amber — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 21:36:11 +0000

I'm a bit late to the party, but I would add to be wary of monitoring services. Not that they will do anything bad or scary, just that they don't much at all. If you check your statements every month and your credit report every year, you see everything that they do. There was just a big article in the NY Times this year about several people who had paid monitoring services but hadn't paid attention to the fine print that they didn't look out for people applying for new stuff (mortgages, cars, new credit cards, etc) in your name, just activity on the existing stuff, which is exactly what you get every month yourself.

By: margot

margot — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 03:01:58 +0000

I'm sorry you had your wallet stolen, but I just read an article today that had a great idea. it said take everything you carry in your wallet and make a xerox copy of it. File in a very secure place. That way, if you lose your wallet, you will have an itemized list of everything that is missing, so you will not forget any of them. You will also have all your account numbers.

By: Jeannette

Jeannette — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 20:56:39 +0000

ALWAYS give your credit card to the cashier FACE DOWN!!! My # was stolen by camera phone (I think) once.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:21:52 +0000

Thanks for posting this information. I've actually printed this post out and will make use of the wonderful suggestions that apply to me. This whole situation must have been a real b***ch for you, but I must admit that it's been a good learning experience for me....

By: david

david — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 18:12:03 +0000

another way to get through those phone voice-mail mazes is to mumble...it's works sometimes!

(btw: hope you don't think it was me that lifted your wallet...)

By: aubri

aubri — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 14:37:51 +0000

Thanks for the information. Sorry your wallet was stolen that is awful.

By: miranda

miranda — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 07:39:15 +0000

wow, that is super-sucky! and scary! hope things calm down for you soon. My local library system, always one of the top 5 in the country (but where they are on the list varies from year to year), makes you punch in a PIN every time you want to check books out. I think they're hip to the "lost/stolen library card" scam. They confirm your address every so often, expire the cards every couple of years, etc. The PIN is part of your phone number, so if your entire handbag is stolen (with cellphone or phonebook, etc) the protection wouldn't be so good. On a completely inappropriate and flippant note, I would like to point out that fine establishments such as Dunkin' Donuts and Tim Horton's are *happy* to convert currency into donuts. ;)

By: PC

PC — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 18:01:09 +0000

Actually, banks are pretty good about returning money and whatnot right away, so you shouldn't always cancel everything ASAP.

I was held up at gunpoint and the police told me not to cancel anything for 24 hours. So I left all of my cards active and through the thief's purchases they were able to track him and arrest him!

Now he's serving 30 years for armed robbery. Of course, he was dumb enough to pay his cell phone bill with my credit card. That helped, as well, but they have video at every convienence store where he made a purchase with my money. And I still got it all refunded.

Stupid criminals. I still don't feel safe....

By: AnnieD

AnnieD — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 04:13:39 +0000

This is such a helpful list. I wish it was around when my wallet was stolen three weeks ago. Sorry this happened to you but thanks for sharing.

By: stef

stef — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 01:09:06 +0000

it is so nice of you to share your findings even during this challenging time of trying to regroup/rebuild your wallet.

i'm sorry you had to deal with this and i am glad that you're on your way to having a complete wallet soon.

By: lisaann

lisaann — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 21:35:46 +0000

be careful with the "extended" fraud alert - i had to do that because someone stole my identity [oh joy that was!] but i *still* have a hard time proving that i'm me now - the extra extra checking on my personal identity proof almost stopped me from being able to buy my last car. only go the seven year route if you ABSOLUTELY have to.

By: Red Zinnia

Red Zinnia — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 21:24:03 +0000

Thanks for the great list of tips. I'm so sorry this happened to you, what a nightmare. I once lost my wallet at a truck stop after a Dave Matthews concert. That's better than having it stolen (at least no one was creeping up on me) but still, I felt freaked for weeks after.