Are you properly prepared if something were to happen to your wallet or purse? If it were lost or stolen? If you’re like most of us, you walk around every day with a potential gold mine in your wallet or purse for an opportunistic criminal. Have you ever thought of what you would do if you were victimized by a purse snatching or pick pocketing? Or maybe if your wallet or purse was simply just lost or stolen unknowingly? Do you have a plan if this were to happen? In the event of a lost or stolen wallet or purse, are you prepared for the worst?
Fortunately, advice for being prepared in the event of a lost or stolen wallet or purse is pretty straight forward. One of the best tips to prepare yourself is to start by “archiving” everything that you carry around with you every day in that wallet or purse. Take everything out and make photocopies of the fronts and backs of all of the cards you are carrying. This isn’t just about credit cards. Any membership cards that you have, your driver’s license, library card, health insurance card or any other forms of identification you might be carrying – make front and back copies of ALL of them. Locate contact information for lost or stolen cards for each different identification form and write each of these contact numbers right underneath the photo copied ID. This way, you have all of the information you may need at your fingertips in the event of a mishap and you can get a quick jump on replacing them. You’ll also know exactly what was in your wallet or purse at the time so you won’t have to recall off the top of your head from memory what you were carrying.
Everyone should know how important it is to contact your credit card issuer immediately if your card is lost or stolen. By having all of this information photocopied and readily available, you can start the process immediately without delay. While you’re maximum liability on any major credit card is $50 (assuming you contact the card issuer within 48 hours of losing the card), it’s in your best interests to limit any financial loss and avoid any fraudulent charges entirely. Even though, you’ll ultimately not be held liable for anything more than $50 on any one card, you’ll still have the time consuming headache of getting those fraudulent charges identified and reimbursed back to you by each card issuer. The card issuers don’t just give you a free pass and reimburse you with no questions asked. The process, unfortunately, requires time, energy and worst of all — paper work. (Ugh!) Card issuers will require that you fill out forms for their Fraud Prevention Units that are necessary to process your request for an investigation into the fraud and any subsequent reimbursement for the bogus charges made.
The other key piece of information you should keep handy is a list of the phone numbers to all three major credit reporting bureaus. Additionally, I would recommend that you put the lost or stolen contact number for any major credit card that you carry as well as the contact information for the major credit bureaus in your cell phone for easy access. This way, you can contact them at a moments notice, no matter where you are, and have your account number(s) put on hold and new card(s) issued immediately.
Here are fraud alert contact numbers for the 3 major credit bureaus, major credit card issuers as well as Social Security:
Equifax at 800-525-6285
Experian at 888-397-3742
Trans Union at 800-680-7289
Lost or stolen contact information for all major credit card issuers:
American Express: 800-992-3404
Bank of America: 800-732-9194
Chase: 800-432-3117
Citibank: 800-950-5114
Discover: 800-347-2683
Capital One: 800-955-7070
In case you think your Social Security number may have been compromised in some way, I’ve included the Social Security Administration Fraud alert hotline:
(SSA Fraud) line at 800-269-0271
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