Hope for your financial life and beyond

What to Do If Your Wallet or Purse Is Stolen

“My wallet’s gone!”

thief stealing purseAren’t those words horrifying to even think about. There have been several instances in my life when I truly thought my wallet had been stolen. Those moments filled me with such fear and anxiety I could hardly think straight.

Of course the initial reaction is to panic as your mind starts ticking off all the items that might leave you financially vulnerable. Information like credit card numbers, social security card, driver’s license and home address could be exposed and make you at risk to identity theft.

What I realized is that I needed to keep my head…panicking didn’t help. I thought through where I had been and retraced my steps. In each of my situations I eventually found my wallet and life returned to normal.

However, if you are able to confirm that your wallet or purse has indeed been stolen, take these steps immediately to protect your financial assets and limit your exposure to identity theft.

Your Wallet/Purse is Gone…Now What?

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Pushing Against Evil: I Have My Basketball Goal Back!

Hidden Nuggets Series #68: “Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?” – Psalm 94:16

Superman fighting Lex LuthorSeveral weeks ago I wrote about being robbed and how we were dealing with the theft of a portable basketball goal at our house. After some investigation on my own, I discovered that the neighborhood kids in the subdivision behind ours took the goal and had placed it in their subdivision’s park area. The big complication to the whole situation was that the subdivision directly behind ours is in another county.

Because I didn’t have proof like a model number for the goal or any personal identifying marks inscribed on it, our local police would not cross jurisdictions to retrieve the stolen property. So we were left frustrated about what to do.

In the end we felt resigned to let the issue rest. It seemed dangerous to retrieve the goal ourselves in that it might incite the teens to take some further action against us. The wise course of action was to just chalk this up as one of those unfortunate life situations that you are forced to stomach.

Before we closed the book on the case though, we had one last route to consider (which some commenters here suggested). Now I’m glad we decided to push back just a little bit more.

How We Got Our Goal Back

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We’ve Been Robbed! Dealing With a Theft at Our Home

basketball goalLast Saturday I pulled out the leaf blower for the first of several fall sessions of blowing leaves out of the yard. I went around the side of the house to begin clearing leaves out of our secondary driveway. As the motor roared to life I looked around and something didn’t seem right. It only took a few seconds before the puzzlement lifted.

OMG…our portable basketball goal had been stolen!

You know the five stages of grief people experience when dealing with a relationship loss? I went through all those in about 30 seconds (except I skipped bargaining). Honestly though, after reaching acceptance, I reverted to anger for the rest of the day. That’ll make sense when you find out the details.

So, step 1…inform the wife, so she can experience the five stages herself.

Step 2…get on Realtor.com and start looking for another house. OK, that’s not exactly what we did but wouldn’t you feel that way? Talk about feeling violated and insecure and vulnerable. It’s a sickening feeling knowing people have been traipsing around your house.

We decided to call local law enforcement and a sheriff arrived within 10 minutes. We knew the likelihood of getting our goal back was close to zero but felt it was our responsibility to report the theft. I want to live in a secure neighborhood and the more they know about the area the better.

He asked the basic questions you would expect for a police report. When was it stolen? What did it look like? How much did it cost? How long have you had it? We answered as best we could and then thanked him for coming. Dejected, I went back to my leaf blowing wondering how and why someone would do such a thing.

My Discovery

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