This article appears in Dec 18-24, 2008.
Not to look a gift elephant in the castle…
To the person who turned in my wallet Sunday evening at the restaurant – Thank you for being that honnest. I’m grateful you didn’t steal my identity or credit card, truely.Merry Christmas, I hope you put to good use the full pack of bus tickets you too
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The tickets could have been gone before this person got to the wallett.
yeah, it makes no sense for someone to turn over a wallet complete with credit cards in tact but lift the bus tickets that were inside. Not saying that it didn’t or doesn’t happen. I just think its unlikely the type of person who turns in a wallet is also a bus ticket thief.
I wouldn’t be so sure they didn’t steal your identity. With identity theft the thieve usually waits about 6 months or so after returning your wallet with everything in it (well in your case everything minus bus tickets) to make you think “oh I don’t have to worry about identity theft because everything’s still in the wallet.” This person could’ve very likely copied down the numbers on your credit cards/bank card/SIN card, etc….. If I were you, I’d make a beeline to the bank and cancel ALL your credit cards and get a new bank card with a new number on it complete with new pin. I just went through a seminar on identity theft, and it’s easier than you may think to have your identity ripped off.
I had my wallet stolen a while ago but got it returned with everything intact except the credit card. By that time I’d already cancelled both debit and credit (they were pretty frigging stupid thieves, I have to say). But yeah, I think I’d cancel it ASAP anyway even if I got the cards back at the time of learning they were missing. It’s easy to copy something down as Pretty Kitty says.Is there any fraud that can be committed with a health card?
If you have the health card, you can get all sorts of other id-I think if you just have the health card number, and maybe the drivers license number etc to back it up you could claim they’d be stolen. that woudl take a pretty determined theif to do it, but it could lead to some huge identity theft if they had the social insurance number and all that other stuff…right up there with getting a false passport and wreaking some havoc……..i’d look into it, and change all that stuff yourself, just to be on the safe side.you cant know also if the tickets were stolen or just fell out or what and by whom. I once found 100 on the floor of the foodcourt in halifax shopping centre- how can you turn that in? you can’t. I asked around to the people at the tables nearby, and we hung out for a bit there (we were eating lunch) just to see if someone came running back looking for it, but no dice. What I’m saying is the recipient could very likely have just found the tickets, and had no way of turning them in for you.
Pretty Kitty, that’s some really good advice. Someone I knew had left her wallet with her things while at the gym, and didn’t notice anything amiss when she gathered up her belongings because she wasn’t missing any money. A few hours later she went to use her credit card and realized it was gone. She called VISA to report it, and the thief had already rung up almost $3,000.00 worth of shit from Scotia Square right up Spring Garden Road. They work fast and they’re smart. Cancel and renew everything!
You should consider yourself lucky actually that it was the only the bus tickets that was taken. I think you did pretty good for someone who LOSES their wallent only to have it turned in. ID and replacement cards would set you back much further. Well it’s a good thing Christmas is coming maybe you’ll get some in your stocking.
I found a guys wallet once on the street and when I returned it to his wife (I made a trip back into town to return it), he wasn’t home at the time, she asked me where all his money was. I decided then to never return a wallet and just drop it into a mail box.But then I found one last year about this time and tracked them down (no address in it, just a pile of money and credit cards). When they came to pick it up at my work they game me a bottle of wine and a x-mas card. That was nice.
So…did you find your bus tickets yet? Probably on top of the dresser next to the hairbrush, right?