posted by admin on Oct 31

At some point, no matter how careful we are with our items, we will loose our wallet and or purse. The lucky ones of us will only loose the wallet, the more unlucky will have them stolen. Why is it worse to have them stolen? If you loose it the chances are that the people who find it will largely ignore it. (after taking the cash of course!). The people who steal you wallet though have the intention of trying to take your money, so they will continue to use your details to try and take your cash. What is the main way they do this? Your bank cards.

All your details are on your card, the account number, sort code, and even the security 3 digit number on the back of the card. With the help of the internet they are now in a position to start spending your money for you. When paying for things on the internet there simply isn’t anyone there to see the obvious fact that the shaven headed 24years old man isn’t 68year old Mrs Smith from littlehampton! I don’t care how good a face lift you have done, it just doesn’t pass.

What about address you might think? Surely if you order something you have to then have it posted to somewhere and that can be traced? Well yes it can, but it is very easy to use someone elses address. Finding an empty commercial property in London is easy enough, and collecting the package from the property afterwards is simple.

So what can you do? If you do loose your wallet:

• Cancel your cards immediately
• Check the last time you made a transaction, and if anything has been done after that, follow it up with the bank straight away
• If you are insured, get on to the insurance company quickly. It is in their interests to make sure that things are dealt with well because otherwise they will end up paying for it!

Good luck - and if this is you I’m sorry. Loosing your wallet isn’t a nice thing to go through.