Wallets: Lost, Stolen, what's your horror story?

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

[myrna minx]

1. I was mugged one night, punched in the face and dragged on

on bare my knees by the man who was trying to wrestle free my purse from my wrist. My purse, my credit cards, drivers license and my SS card( I had just been hired for a new job so I had not yet removed it from my purse) were returned to me from a man who called 411 to get my number. He had found my stuff strewn across his yard. The mugger just wanted cash. I was so relieved to have my SS card returned. I was terrified that my identity would be stolen too. I was so grateful to that good Samaritan who returned my stuff.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

2. now thats a real horror story.

wow. :hug:

luckily you just lost some cash in the end

[myrna minx]

4. He lucked out. I did have $20.00 in cash that day, which was unusual,

because I hardly ever carry cash. I was really lucky that I had my keys in my hand too, so he didn't get away with them. Whew. It was an ordeal, but I was really fortunate. :hug:

[MorningGlow]

3. Stolen right out of my purse in the breakroom

Yet another reason not to work retail--the breakroom didn't lock and the door was in a back corner of the store. Someone snuck in and boosted my wallet--takes a lot of nerve--an employee could have walked in at any time. It was found three days later a few miles away in a supermarket dumpster. Money gone of course--three whole dollars!--and I didn't have any credit cards at the time, so it wasn't too much of a hardship. Just needed to get a new license, so then I had two.

I'll bet the thief was royally pissed off that s/he only got $3. But hey, what did s/he think retail workers would have in their wallets? Hundred dollar bills?

[Phillycat]

5. I was having a rough spring, very distracted and forgetful...

One day, I went to WaWa (like 7-11) and when I got back outside, I knelt down on the sidewalk to juggle some things, put my iPod back on, etc. I walked away and left my wallet lying on the ground. This is in the midddle of Philadelphia.

Someone turned it in to WaWa, not only with the credit cards and license still intact, but all the CASH was still there! 60 bucks!

I have some freaking guardian angel. And to whomever turned it in, BLESS YOU. Your karma ROCKS!!

[Dukkha]

6. lost a wallet in the Atlantic Ocean

while running down the Ft Lauderdale beach late at night with about $100.00 in it
it was mailed back a few weeks later by a beach front hotel with lots of sand and no cash

[Sugar Smack]

7. I left my wallet in San Francisco

So I had to jump thru HOOPS to board the plane back. *BLEAGH* Treated like a garden-variety terrorist. Little fucking me.

[momophile]

11. same thing happened to me...

except it was my heart.


Okay, I made that up.
:hi:

[Sugar Smack]

17. *LOL*

:hug: :loveya: You are SO loved, anyway!!!

[barb162]

8. Stolen right out of my desk while at work

and recovered minus cash by the cleaning people that evening in a trash can in the men's washroom on another floor. The cops told me that in the next building over, they got reports of 200 a day like that

[SOteric]

9. More horrible than all of those.

The only time my wallet was stolen was when I was at a party with a dozen of my close friends. It was never recovered, and in truth, though I struggled with it, I eventually came to realise that I didn't want to know which of my close friends had stolen it.

[ScreamingMeemie]

15. Oh that's awful SO...

:hug: I'm so sorry that happened to you. When one learns this of a friend it's devastating. Were you able to carry on the friendships without always wondering? I would always be wondering. :hug:

[SOteric]

20. I had to resolve not to wonder.

That's the hard part, truly. I didn't want the event to affect my friendship with the 11 people who were blameless. And since the other was a person I'd also regarded a friend I had to chose to forgive. I tell myself that whichever of them did this must truly have been in need and too ashamed to admit it to the rest of us.

It has, however, affected my willingness to leave my wallet laying around unguarded even in the company of my close friends. Thanks for the hugs, MizzG. :hug: Yer a keeper.

[MissB]

10. Dh loses his wallet about once every two years.

Keys get lost once a year or more. Brilliant man, but absent minded.

[cally]

12. I've lost my wallet three times and had it returned twice.

The first time, I was 19 and moving to DC. I dropped my wallet with lots of cash in the bus since I was moving and hadn't yet opened a bank account. The busdriver returned it.

The second time, I left my purse in a shopping cart. :eyes: Two paramedics saw someone try to steal it. They chased him down and turned it into the store.

The only time it wasn't returned was when I was 16 and it was stolen at a HS football game.

[underpants]

13. Sherriff called my mom to tell her that they couldn't find me

I had apparently dropped my wallet coming out of a small general store on Rt.40. Someone found it and the Sherriff put together a search party. A few days later they called my mom. I was at college the whole time.

[ScreamingMeemie]

14. I left my entire (yes ENTIRE) purse at the gate and boarded a plane for LAX

We had an early flight. I was juggling two kids, a wandering husband, a carry on mesh bag I always use and my purse (Which contained $1000 in cash and $1000 in travelers checks my wallet etc). I kept checking and rechecking my purse. We were called to board, boarded the plane and got settled. We were in the back of the plane. As the front of the plane was boarding, I went to check for my purse again. Gone... I almost peed, threw up and had a heart attack right there. I completely flipped out, got up and tried to get to the front of the plane. It is difficult to get to the front of the plane when 90 people are walking toward you and another 10 are blocking the aisle putting their stuff away. I started to panic and cry. A steward (what a nice guy) shouted from the front to ask what the problem was. I screamed that I had left my purse under my seat at the gate. He then told me that a passenger had turned it in to the boarding counter. He came back with my most beautiful purse. I asked him if he knew who the passenger was. He pointed her out and she was an older black woman traveling with what appeared to be her grandchildren. I tried to give her $50 dollars (everything was intact in my purse) and she wouldn't accept it. I asked her to stand up. She did so and I threw my arms around her and gave her a big old bear hug. This lone woman had saved my vacation. My faith in humanity was restored and I hope a lot of people on that plane learned a lesson. :) It warms my heart to think of it to this day.

[livetohike]

16. My purse was stolen three weeks ago after my car was broken

into. I am still working on getting all of my I.D. replaced. Stupidly, I even had my Social Security card in there.

[Race4Peace]

18. District Honor Chorus, Armstrong Atlantic State University, just last Friday

I was running out to the bus on the way to the hotel, and we were coming back the next day anyway. it fell out of my tux in the parking lot, and i didn't know it.


it rained all night. hard.


the next day in that same lot was a Mustang show, and saturday morning, one of my friends got a call. we both sprinted to the lot on water break to get it.

it was full, but my student identification card was ruined. Had that been a Harley-Davidson show, i would never have seen it again.

[Thegonagle]

21. C'mon. Don't generalize like that.

My next door neighbor is a Harley-Davidson guy, with lots of tatoos, a democratic voter (as is his wife and daughter), and a stand-up nice dude. He would have returned your wallet.

[Catchawave]

19. Wallet stolen and turned up 2 years later

at the bottom of a local golf course pond that was being drained for maintenance. Money was gone, but some very soggy checks (how they got my phone number) and id's were still there.

Wish the a*hole would have just dropped it in a mailbox :mad:

[Thegonagle]

22. I've misplaced mine for weeks at a time. Also had it stolen.

I left it on the seat of my car by accident. Theif broke my window with a large chunk of a concrete brick. I think there was a $10-bill in there, plus my drivers license and a cash/Visa-check card. Never saw it again, but no fraud was attempted. Probably just a homeless person who saw an easy score while dumpster-diving behind my downtown Minneapolis apartment. Probably threw my wallet in the next dumpster.

[UncleSepp]

23. Pickpocketed at Heathrow... on a layover

I went to get on the next leg of the flight, to Frankfurt, and had no wallet. The agent did not want to put me back on the plane without ID. I pointed out that if I didn't fly, my luggage couldn't fly, either - and that since I had gotten on the plane in Miami, my luggage was in the back, and it would delay the flight considerably for them to have to get my bag off of the plane. The agent was happy to shoo me onto the plane and onward to the German authorities. In Germany, it went fine. The border protection police were very nice, and I was able to get temporary identity papers using a phone bill for my apartment there. They bought me a coffee and had me wait in a cafe, and then came back with my papers and instructions for where to go to get a new passport.

Several months later, I got my wallet in the mail, in a plain envelope with no return address, with no money but with all the stuff including the credit card and the old passport.

[BlueStorm]

24. My memory sucks..

Flat out. I can't even remember people's names, not like I used to and I think it's the meds I'm on.

I have left my wallet at the store, at a restaurant.

As if that is bad enough, how about your DRIVER'S LICENSE?
Yesterday, I went to my mom's, and as soon as I got there, she wanted me to get her a pack of ciggies across the street. So I go. I get the ciggies and I leave, as soon as I get back to her house (which is just around the corner) I look in my wallet to see if I had put my DL back in. To my horror and anxiety it wasn't there. So I drive back to the gas station, get out of my car and as soon as I do, I look on the ground. There it was, on the fucking ground!! I must have dropped it. I am so glad that no one picked it up.

Blue

[emmajane67]

25. This is my specialty.

1st time, had my whole bag stolen from under a table in a bar. It was a whole backpack full of stuff. It was stolen by a 'pro skater' who had been chatting me up earlier but who I had ignored for the affections of a 'guy in a band'. End of the night comes; no house keys, no jumper/jacket, no money for a cab, nada. When the police called the next day to say they had found the contents of my bag strewn across a parking lot I was relieved, my passport was still in their, but no money, cds, tapes, stash. Grrr.

2nd time, got home in the middle of the afternoon and walked in the back (kitchen door) left back door wide open (which is common where I come from) and put my bag on the breakfast bar. Thought I heard a bike coming down the drive round the back of the house but thought nothing of it and that a friend (ie. person on bike) would walk in any minute, alas no, and when I went to get something from my bag 5 minutes later it was gone. Freaked out, locked doors, and never lived in the best house on the worst street again.

3rd time, I had extended my overdraft and got $200 cash out of my account to cover my final bills in a flat I was living in before I moved house. Took off my jewelery (most of which was extremely sentimental, 21st jewelery from Grandparents or items handed from grandparents, to parents to me) and put it in my bag like always, left the bag on the couch in the living room and went to bed. In the morning bag is gone. I knew who had done it too and did everythign I could to get him to return it; called police and reported a break-in, cried to him, the works. Not many people on my 'hate list' but this guy made it. Luckily the University financial hardship fund that part of our fees went too rushed a cheque through the system and covered the money part but the jewelery I will never get over losing. I hope to do my best to replace it some day.

4th (and last time), I got pick pocketed in Chinatown. Didn't realise for 24hours by which time I had been well ripped off on 2 cards. Got all the money back and all the money was spent on food and train travel so in some ways I wasn't too mad, the person may have been needy.

For the last year I carried my money and cards around in a small fabric pouch so it didn't look like something worth stealing.

The funny bit is that I have travelled a lot in 3rd world countries and all these places where people go on about how you'll be robbed no doubt and nothing, nada, not even close.

[dropkickpa]

26. Once

I was extremely drunk at a really dodgy afterhours club, and it fell out of my pocket in the bathroom. I cancelled all my cards the next morning when I realized I'd lost it. Two days later, I got a phone call from my brother asking "Did you lose your wallet at the _____?" Turns out someone had found it in the bathroom, taken it up to the bar, and the bartender ended up starting a chain reaction of phone calls until someone remembered I was my brother's sister, called him at work, and I got my wallet back. Not a single dollar was missing, and I was so happy to not have to go through the hassle of replacing all of my ID. I gave the bartender girl a $20 tip next time I saw her!!