I'll tell you what...there's nothing like going for 48 hours thinking your entire life is ruined as a result of identity theft. I lose my wallet ALL the time. I lose keys, I lose everything, always. Blaine doesn't lose things, ever. So when he came home from work on Monday night saying he had lost his wallet, things got a bit tense. The last time he had seen it was on Saturday night when we had gone to chick-fil-a and wal-mart. We tore apart the house and I spent all day yesterday searching for the wallet at chick-fil-a, wal-mart and our church. We checked nooks, crannies everything. It was particularly stressful because he had his social security card in there too. Hello identity theifs, we are your perfect candidates. Also his drivers license is not current, so if some good samaritan had found it they would have sent it to our apartment we lived in like four years ago and called our cell phone numbers from wayyyy long ago. What a mess! I was hesitant to cancel all of our credit cards and bank information, because, seriously, what a pain! At the same time I didn't want to have some criminals having a hay day on my dime. Anyway, we got particularly stressed when we saw on a website that if you lose your wallet you shouldn't overreact "carefully retrace your steps and take an hour to look for the wallet, if it cannot be found within an hour cancel all of your credit cards, notify the police...etc.etc.". Uh, an hour? Ours had been missing for like three days at that point. Whoops.
Just as I was resigned to the fact that I would spend all day today canceling all of our financial stuff...I heard a happy scream from upstairs, "I FOUND IT!". It was in the dresser, where we both looked a couple of times. Really, it was magical....and I don't need an explanation, I am just so darn happy that I don't have to spend my life worrying about identity theft. Go and take your social security card out of your wallet. Now. And also write down all of the credit cards/bank cards you have in there so you will know what to cancel. I hope you never have to thank me later, but just in case....
5 comments:
I actually had my identity stolen several years back. It was every bit the nightmare you might imagine it to be. I'm so glad that you found Blaine's wallet! Whew!
glad you found it! my brother in law from seattle lost his wallet somewhere between here and sandy and he didn't find it, so you are lucky!
Nice timing on your post- my wallet was stolen last Sunday. They used my card to buy gas and groceries, and we canceled the cards before anything else happened. I was a little comforted that they seemed to need it for food and gas, instead of extravagances. I am imagining a "Jean Valjean" type culprit, and only wish whoever it was would have been thoughtful enough to take just the card and leave the costco membership, temple recommend, receipts to return Christmas gifts, and all the other little things they probably don't care about but are creating many inconveniences for me. So my bit of advice is to never leave your wallet in your diaper bag unattended, even at Church. Yep. Church.
Yeah, that was a good feeling to find it. I wrote up all my thoughts on the matter on our family blog but that's a little wordy (about three times the size of this post!) to paste here so I'll just say--yep I feel lucky and blessed to have found it and I have learned a lot from the experience!
I read your post Kristi (having already read Blaine's) and went straight to the copy machine, emptied the contents of my wallet on the glass and made a copy of everything in my wallet. I shall now file it in hopes to never use it. Good suggestion!
(Course there is probably a website that tells you this is a dumb thing to do in case someone robs my file drawer and then they would have all my card #'s etc.)
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