People only carry a few things that are more precious than their wallets, so having it stolen can feel like a gut punch. The following are some steps to take if your wallet is gone.
Investigate
Start by retracing your steps and investigating the places you visited before your wallet was stolen. Pay attention to people who were around you at the time of the incident and take note of any suspicious individuals or activities. If necessary, you can Enhance your investigations with Bond Rees private detective services (or with the help of another company). Their expertise can help uncover what happened and provide insights to safeguard yourself in the future.
Cancel Credit Cards
The first thing you want to do is cancel all credit cards. One reason a criminal steals your wallet is to steal your money. There’s not much you can do about the cash in the wallet, but you can protect your credit cards. Call each credit card company to report that your wallet was stolen. They’ll put a hold on your card and help you track any activity. They can send you another card as well so that you can keep making purchases.
Talk to the Banks
Most people have debit cards, as well. Go ahead and cancel those with your bank. You don’t want anyone touching the money in your bank account. Doing this as early as possible protects your money. Your bank could send another card to your home so that you can use your money as soon as possible. You can wait a bit before you do this if you think you might find your wallet, but it’s up to you.
File the Report
You are going to have to talk to the cops about this. Call the police or go to the station. You will need to file this report so that you can get someone to help you track your wallet. You may hesitate or think “do you have to talk to police about an issue like this?” Yes, you do. You may not think filing a report will help much, but you don’t know that. This might help you in certain ways. For example, having this report helps you out in the long run, just in case your credit card companies or your bank tries to give you any trouble.
Deal With Other Replaceables
Okay, some people keep other things in their wallets. Think about what you had in your wallet, like your social security card or any passwords you kept in there. For passwords, you can visit these sites and change the passwords. For your Social Security card, you can look up Social Security office locations online to replace the card. Do this for anything else that was in your wallet. If you’re not sure about something, you may want to replace it just to be safe.
Deal With Your Insurance
You want to contact your insurance companies and tell them what happened. These folks can send you new cards again so that you have them. On top of that, they might even be able to protect you. This one might be a little strange, but some folks might try to steal your money and use things like your medical insurance cards. They could use these cards to get things like an expensive surgery or maybe get a check-up of some sort. You can stop this from happening by reporting the theft.
Place a Fraud Alert
The next thing you want to worry about is your identity. The reality is some criminals might try to steal your identity. They can use it to open up credit cards or accounts in your name. You need to place a fraud alert with all major credit bureaus. These include Experian, Transunion, and Equifax. This is normally done for free, but this depends on your state because some states don’t offer this protection, and you have to pay.
You’ve got all the steps you need to take if someone steals your wallet. Going through all of this is overwhelming, but you have a checklist of things that should make this a little easier. This should give you some peace during this stressful time.
