Lori Fullbright: Protect Your Purse & Save Yourself A Headache

I know you know this. I know you’ve heard it a million times before, but yet I feel I must say it again… PROTECT YOUR PURSE.

Just recently, I saw three purses hanging on the backs of chairs at a restaurant.

I watched another woman set her purse at her table, and then walk off to the salad bar. It was just sitting there, unguarded for anyone to take.

I know you think it won’t happen to you because that’s what every victim tells me during the interview, after it happens.

 I know it’s easy to get complacent, because of all the times you’ve…

1. Hidden it under the front seat or in the backseat
2. Tossed it in the trunk after you arrive somewhere
3. Put it in your shopping cart and walked away from it
4. Hung it on a hook on the back of a public bathroom door
5. Driven with it in the seat next to you

You name it, and nothing ever happens. But it can. It will. It does.

If you’re like me, your purse contains so much of who you are: your driver’s license, your checkbook, your credit cards (NEVER your social security card or those of your children!).

Once a thief gets your purse, they have your address -- and if your keys are in it, they also have access to your home.

I always advocate for people to keep their keys and phone out of their purse at all times.

It’s such a hassle to try to rush home and contact the bank and cancel cards and replace things.

It’d be nice if we could avoid carrying a purse altogether, but that’s rarely practical.

If someone steals your identity, it could take you months of your precious time to fix it.

Crooks are opportunists, and they’re fast. Any opening we give them (leaving our car running to keep warm while we run into the house to get something we forgot or while we’re in the convenience store getting a coffee), they‘ll take it.

When you’re shopping, the safest place for your purse is on you -- not in the child seat of the shopping cart (even if you’re using the baby seatbelt), not in the backseat buried under your purchases, and not hidden under the front seat of your car or under a blanket in the back seat.

It needs to be on you.

If you plan to put your purse in the trunk, do so at home before you arrive at your destination. If you have an internal trunk release, crooks will watch you put it in the trunk, break your window, pop the trunk release button and have your purse.

Every few months, make a copy (front and back) of all the cards you have in your wallet (including your company healthcare card and other non-credit card items). That way, you’ll know immediately who to call and what to list on the police report.

Don’t leave your purse in the car while it’s parked in the driveway and don’t leave it sitting on your kitchen or dining room table while you’re working in the yard, if your garage door is open.

I know it seems like a hassle and that we shouldn’t have to work this hard to protect something that belongs to us in the first place, but unfortunately, taking these precautions is necessary to protect us from a huge, time-consuming hassle.