Every one of us has lost his wallet or had it stolen at some point, if you haven’t you are lucky and you should take necessary precautions for that not to happen, because in today’s society lost wallet can bring you a lot of trouble. First and the most common case today is the identity theft and of course credit card abuse. Every other document you had in your wallet may be used for some kind of scam or several others criminal uses, like finding out all about you in order to steal everything from you. There are few things you need to do in order to prevent that from happening. First you need to take more care about your wallet or purse and if you still somehow get your wallet stolen or lost you should know what to do next.

First some prevention tips to avoid losing or getting your wallet stolen, or in case it gets stolen for you to be prepared. You need to have all of your documents copied, something like a backup, that helps you deal with the situation if your belongings get stolen. Always avoid putting your wallet or documents in your backpack, it is an easy target because it is not in your line of sight. That is especially important if you are going to be in large crowds, and the most important thing, carry just the necessary things with you. If you don’t need a credit card leave it at home, the same goes for any other documents, you have to be careful.

In case you do get your wallet stolen or lost here is what you should do. First of all make a list of items that were in your wallet, from credit card to birth certificate, every possible document that has important information on it. With that information go straight to the police department and file a report, but that doesn’t end there. The next step is to contact credit card fraud agencies and report your cards stolen, also report to the state agency if your driver’s license and registration are missing. Any information containing your bank account should leave straight to the bank to block that account and notify them of the theft. You need to take care of all that in order to prevent identity theft and other criminal possibilities. After that you also need to notify your health insurance, you don’t want anyone else using your information for medical purposes. Notify your auto insurance agency and ask for a policy replacement. Also notify any other organization with which you might have some sort of a card that has your information on it.

Once you know all this you can successfully deal with losing your wallet and your documents. But it would be much smarter to keep an eye for your wallet so you wouldn’t end up in that situation, but if you do, this will help you get started and you can find any other information on what to do when you lose your document online.

Tags: account, bank, care, credit card, criminal, document, identity theft, important, insurance, necessary, prevent, report, stolen, take care, teens, wallet, wallet stolen

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 8:01 am and is filed under Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.