Reader Question: What to Do When Your Wallet is Stolen

A CreditBloggers reader and financial planner recently wrote in with this question:

A client of mine just called me.  His wallet was stolen while he was in Las Vegas (maybe they did him a favor….kidding).

Anyway, he does NOT have any credit cards, but I told him to contact the three bureaus and implement a security freeze or fraud alert on his accounts.  It appears that it must be done in writing. 

Having your wallet stolen while on vacation is the pits. Just the process of going through the airport's secondary screening line without an ID is a hassle. Moving quickly to report the crime can help mitigate the stress. 

Luckily, the theft of a wallet rarely leads to a serious identity theft case. You only have to be really concerned if you had your Social Security card was also stolen. Otherwise, you just need to be cautious about credit card, debit card and insurance fraud.

Your first step should be to call your debit card companies to have the cards canceled and re-issued. If you've left photocopies of the front and back of all your cards at home, you'll be ahead of the game. If not, you can look up the bank's fraud contacts online.

After this is done, you should call one of the three credit bureaus to place a 90-day fraud alert on your report. You're basically done with the urgent steps now and can work on getting home. A fraud alert is different than a file freeze. A file freeze completely locks your credit records and requires either writing the bureaus or buying their monitoring programs.

Once you're at home, you'll need to talk to your insurance companies about getting new cards. Pay especially close attention to your medical insurance. Since hospitals don't check IDs, it is fairly easy for a thief to use your medical insurance and stick you with the bill.

Keep a close eye on your financial statements for the next couple months. If you spot any fraudulent transactions, immediately contact the bank to report the incident.

Emily Davidson – A former TransUnion insider and a member of Credit.com's expert team. Emily writes about credit reports, credit cards, loans and personal finance as the CreditBloggers.com editor.

Comments

[Jim]

My wife had her purse stolen last summer along with her wallet. They went on a shopping spree for about 3 hours. We were able to get her cards shut down and most of the charges refunded to us. Not only did they use credit cards, they stole money using a debit card. It is sad how easy it has become for someone other than yourself to access your money. Banks eat the costs in the end which is passed on to the consumers who use the products. The bigger problem with this crime is actually catching the ones who are doing it. Instead we always know who the victim is and how we can protect ourselves, but what about the thieves?