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Purse stolen

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gailrmv

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Blah... just needed to vent. This evening I went to the gym and had forgotten my lock. I locked my purse into my trunk of my car. This was around 6:30 pm. I got done around 7:30, came outside and saw that my windshield had been broken and sure enough, my purse was gone. Nothing else was stolen but there was nothing else of value in the car, well, except my North Face fleece. I filed a report with the police and meanwhile my DH cancelled all of my credit cards. Tomorrow I will get my car fixed, get a new license, and cell phone. What a huge pain. It will be quite expensive to replace everything. I feel stupid that I left my purse locked in the trunk, but I had previously been taught that that was a pretty safe place to leave things. This was in a decent area - used to be a nice area of town, has started going downhill lately though. I will definitely be more careful going forward. The most costly items to replace will be the purse itself, my wallet and cell phone. I just hope that I am not a victim of identity theft. The police officer said that most likely the person was after petty cash and will dump everything else. Anyway, just needed to vent.
 

jcrow

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urgh! that sucks! i've been through a car breakin myself. no fun.
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out of curiousity, did you put the purse in your trunk at the gym after you parked your car?
i try not to do that in case someone is watching. people usually think i've overly cautious. but hey, you never know.
 

gailrmv

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Thanks JCrow for the note.
Yes, I did put it in the trunk after I arrived at the gym. In retrospect I guess that was dumb. I suppose you can''t be too careful.
 

Kaleigh

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So sorry, that really stinks!!!!
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Tacori E-ring

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What a PITA!!! People get desperate around the holidays. Such a shame!
 

gailrmv

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Thank you guys, I appreciate the well wishes. The police officer said that the person was likely just after cash. Makes me ill that all my stuff will probably wind up in a dumpster somewhere and I only had like $30 cash in there anyways. My insurance company said that the auto glass would be handled under my auto policy and the purse items under homeowners which would be two claims and two deductables. Since there is a $500 deductible on each, I don''t think it will be worth filing a claim. I do think it will cost me about $700 to replace everything, and that is the cost of the 0.5 tcw ready set go studs at WF that I really want but couldn''t justify spending this year. Now, I get to spend it to replace stuff
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But, as my friend pointed out, at least I can afford to replace everything and I wasn''t hurt.
 

monarch64

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Sorry to hear this Gail...I hope the situation ends up working out. My dad always told me to lock things like my purse/bags/etc. in the trunk of my car while shopping or whatever, and I hardly ever do...I guess I take it for granted that it won''t happen to me. After reading this, though, I will be sure to take extra precautions. I try to at least "cover" things or hide them underneath seats, and I have really dark tinted windows in my SUV, but still...I guess these things just happen. Big hugs to you....
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You seem to be taking it very well.
 

Stone Hunter

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So sorry. I hope replacing everything goes smoothly.
 

kcoursolle

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Oh man, what a bummer right before xmas. Sorry to hear this, best wishes for the new year.
 

Mara

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yikes gail sorry to hear this! i will keep my fingers crossed nothing further happens and maybe you will even find your purse/wallet, sometimes good samaritans come upon them and call you.

i actually sometimes take my laptop home with me and i always feel weird leaving it in my car! i hide it under some stuff in the backseat but it's super easy for someone to just break in and take it. i try to park close to the entrance of the gym but sometimes it's hard and i end up in the back row. but there is typically a fair amount of gym foot traffic...people come and go quite often. but this makes me more paranoid about leaving things in the car then. it's like okay where do you leave them??? i don't feel that safe bringing stuff into the gym either and their lockers kind of bug me with knowing that everyone else uses them too.

i am especially thinking about this now that i am about to open my xmas pressie from greg in a few days, which is a really darn expensive purse. and i know i will want to baby it and it's kind of a big bag so i am paranoid about bringing it with me. so what do i do with it when i'm at the gym? i'm paranoid putting it in my car, and paranoid keeping it in the trunk, and paranoid bringing it in (not to mention what a PITA to carry it around with me around the gym!) and i won't want to put it in the lockers either.

so i guess a question could be what do you gals do with your stuff when you go to the gym and are coming straight from work and have expensive goodies you don't know where to hide?!
 

monarch64

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Mara, my situation is kind of different, I guess...we live in sort of an affluent area although thefts have been known to occur...if I go to the gym (lol) I go there straight from work which is five blocks from our house so I don''t really need to bring along anything valuable. Nor do I have a b-bag to worry about (just a KVZ, which is virtually unrecognizable,hee hee). So honestly I bring my purse into the gym with me, store it in one of the lockers coded with my gym card''s pin, etc. I just really never worry about valuables at the gym.

As far as our home...a couple years ago when we first moved into this house, we had someone come and actually cut the cable cord apart from the phone line, and apparently I interuppted him/her...at lunchtime. I came home to find we had no phone service or cable, and promptly called DH to ask WTF? Did you pay the bill? LOL! He had, and then things got a little scary. He called the phone co. and they said there was a tech in our neighborhood who would come by and check things out. The tech called DH back and said someone had been in our back yard and had separated the two lines and cut the one that would have in all likelihood gone to our phone line in hopes of breaking in, in case we had an alarm system connected to it.

Obviously my coming home for lunch and opening the garage door automatically interrupted him, and the next day we installed an ADT system with a backup generator. Yuck. I felt sortr of sick for about a week. Even though we have a howler of a little dog (and have just adopted another), I knew whoever had done that had super balls, and especially to do it in broad daylight...blach. About a month later, after we''d seen a lot of reports of theft around the neighborhood in the little local paper, the people were caught in some motel room with over $50k worth of stuff. Thank goodness I didn''t end up catching someone in the act!
 

bee*

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Thats terrible-Ive had my car broken into a couple of times and its a horrible feeling when you see it. When I go to the gym, I always do the same as you can leave things in my boot or in the locker at the gym with the lock on. A couple of times if I have large amounts of money in my wallet I bring it with me and leave it beside the machine Im working on, asides from that I cant think of any other way to make sure its ok
 

Ellen

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Aw Gail. I really am sorry to hear this.
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But the cop is probably right, we''ll hope so...
 

jcrow

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that''s such a bad feeling knowing someone was watching you. but your friend has a great point. at least nothing else happened, and you are ok.

i never bring my purse to the gym. if i leave from home i leave it at home and bring my license and phone and a little gym bag. i put that in the lockers locked with my own lock. if i go from work, at work i stick my purse in my trunk before heading to the gym.
 

gailrmv

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Argh, just typed a long reply and it got lost in cyberspace. Thanks everyone for the replies. Yeah, the purse was locked in the trunk, and it was also hidden by my fleece. This makes me think that the person was watching me, however, I'm not entirely sure. I arrived at about 6:20. There was a witness who said at 6:10 she arrived and a guy was peering into vehicles with a flashlight. She got his description and vehicle description that she gave to the police. But she said that as soon as he saw her, he drove off. That was around 6:10. I arrived around 6:20 like I said. Another witness parked next to me said she arrived at 6:45 and my car was fine. So the break in occured between 6:45 and 7:30. I'm not sure if the guy was watching me or if he just picked a car to break into and got lucky. Both of these witnesses got on my nerves - one was going on and on about how she was so glad it wasn't her, she had a bunch of christmas gifts in her trunk, it could have been her, blah blah. I was like, this is making me feel worse, hello? The other witness was going on about how stupid it is to leave anything in the trunk. Even the police officer told me that she was annoying him and really innappropirate to go on with her remarks after what had just happened!

Anyway, you can be sure that I won't leave my stuff in the trunk again, but I don't trust the gym lockers either. They are really flimsy. It's not practical for me to go home before coming to the gym, but maybe I will have to.

So to wrap up, this happened at 6:30 pm (barely evening), my stuff was LOCKED IN THE TRUNK, and this is an OK area - not extremely affluent, but certainly not crime ridden part of town.

The most expensive things to replace will be my purse (new Coach bag that I totally loved), my Kate Spade wallet, and a pretty nice cell phone - you know how those are to replace, they charge the high retail price if you aren't getting a new plan!

ETA Now I have something else to be thankful for - after reading Mara's post - I very often have my laptop with me so I'm glad I didn't today. I am not good about backing it up either, so it would have been extra detrimental!
 

diamondfan

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I am so sorry this happened. It is a total pain and waste of time. And even if you cancel all your cards immediately which most thieves know you will, you are still dealing with so much crap. But, I just recently heard never to lock stuff in the trunk when you get somewhere, because someone could be watching you as you put stuff in your trunk. Especially during the hoidays, how nice, because thieves are looking for packages and stuff. I hope you had nothing irreplaceable in there, like special photos etc...I am just sorry you had to come out and find that..
 

Dee*Jay

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Gail, I''m so sorry to hear this! I had my purse stolen the week before Christmas several years ago and it was such a PITA to get it all straightened out. I''m just glad you are unhurt and everything is replaceable. Big hugs.
 

allycat0303

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What terrible timing for something like that to happen! Something similar happened to my father a few years back. He had put his wallet in the trunk of the car, but they broke the side window to open the trunk. In any case, his belongings were recovered about 4 hours later, when someone tried to use his credit card. They caught the person, but my parents decided not to press charges. In any case, I hope there aren''t any negative experiences that start because of this!
 

diamondseeker2006

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Gosh, I am sorry, too! I have to assume they were watching for people putting purses in trunks. I would think taking a purse in the gym and locking it in the locker would be much safer. At least then, only people with a gym membership can be in the locker rooms, right?
 

Sundial

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Oh Gail that is just awful! We aren''t really safe anywhere anymore are we? I was just at my gym yesterday myself and I hid my purse under the car seat - yikes! From now on I think I will just take my driver''s license and lock it in the glove box before I go.
 

larussel03

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wow, that totally stinks. I''m sorry you have to deal with all that! I have done that before--actually a few days ago I was going to the gym, forgot my lock, so I stuffed my purse into the center console of the car where it was out of sight and thought it''d be safe. Now I know it probably wouldn''t be unless I had it locked away.
 

curlygirl

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Oh you poor thing. I''m so sorry you had to go through this horrible experience, especially right around the holidays. It sucks that you have to replace everything but you need to be thankful that nothing happened to you--everything else is material, your health and well being are the important things.

I live right around the corner from my gym so I always go home first if I''m going to go after work or I go first thing in the morning and then go home and shower and then go to work. One of the advantages of living in a big city where you walk everywhere!

It really is sad when you can''t even feel like your car is a safe place. What is this world coming to?!?
 

AndyRosse

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Oh Gail, I''m so sorry!! Like you said, be thankful you didn''t have your laptop or other expensive and/or irreplaceable items in your car!
 

asscherisme

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I''m sorry that happenend. That just stinks. I have been guilty of doing the same tihing but even worse, I drive a minvan so there is no real trunk, just a back area.
 

Mara

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gail..i know...your story totally hit home for me since i brought my laptop home yesterday and i spent like 5 minutes trying to ensure it was concealed in the car.

for me the gym is literally 10 minutes from my work, whereas if i went home it'd be 30 minutes in traffic then another 30 to get back to the gym so it would really not be feasible at all, that would eat up my whole workout time and i have a strict schedule because i don't want to get home too late on the weekdays....as it is right now i get home at 7pm when i work out and if i did this it would be 8pm.

so i might just have to suck it up and get a lock for the lockers...and then take my purse in with me. i'm such a freak but i think i will get a cheapy plastic bag thing to put my purse inside then into the locker, those lockers just gross me out! everyone's clothes and stuff are in there and honestly people are not that clean in general from what i can see!! hehee. you wouldn't believe how many people don't wash their hands after using the bathroom, ugh!! i am always cleaning off the gym machine before i use it. hehee.

it really does suck that there are those people who always feel like they can just take what it is someone elses...and yes you feel violated when it's your car or home. i had my car broken into a few years ago and all they took were some CD's and my cd player but i felt totally sick about it. i had to get the window fixed and i just felt so weird, like 'were they watching me?' kinda thing even though i'm sure by then they were long gone. blah! hang in there gail.

OH and random safety note for anyone...recently a cop told me during a neighborhood safety thing that you should not keep your garage door opener in plain sight in your car. it might encourage someone to break in...look in your glove box for your car registration which then has your address, take your opener and go rob your house! i mean obviously you aren't home right? apparently this was a huge thing for thieves to do. i guess the same could be said for keeping it in your purse, they'd get your address off your DL. also keep your garage door to your inner house locked so that if someoene DOES get a garage door opener, they cannot easily get in. creepy stuff....how devious thieves can be.
 

FireGoddess

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Holy crap - that garage door opener theft thing is crazy. I never would''ve thunk it. I guess jerk-theives are resourceful.

I am sorry to hear your purse got stolen.....I can''t tell you how many times I''ve done the exact same thing as you.
 

Beacon

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I am so sorry to hear this happened. Really terrible and dreadful especially in front of the Holidays.

When I go to my gym I have a special purse from Target (!) that I take in there. My gym is very nice and in an expensive area, but one of the guys told me there had been some thefts from the men''s locker room. It made me nervous - when might they start on the ladies locker room?. So, I bring that bad looking bag so if anyone is watching they hopefully will not try and get to my locker.

But if you are coming direct from work then it is really more difficult. Mara, I could see putting your nice new bag inside of something elseto stay in the locker! It also might help divert theiving eyes.

Again really sorry to hear about this. It is very disconcerting to think of someone having your stuff.
 

gailrmv

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hi everyone! Thanks again for all the messages. I have a relatively happy ending to the story! So, I got home Saturday night and had a message that a woman had found my purse! I met up with her Sunday and she returned it to me. She works in a bar, and one of her patrons came in and said he had found it in a garbage can outside. Why was he looking in the garbage? Who knows. Anyway, the purse was missing all my IDs, credit cards, cash, and giftcards, but my cell phone was still there and she was able to use the numbers stored in it to find me. I was so incredibly grateful. The phone has been water damaged, but seems like it is working OK. (I returned the new one that I bought and had them restore service to my old phone.) This woman''s kind deed significantly minimized my financial loss. I gave her $30 (all I had with me at the time) as a reward and asked for her address so I could mail her more. She refused for me to give her an additional reward, although I would have gladly given it to her.
I also called the police to give them an update and see if they would dust the purse for prints. The officer I spoke to said that they would not be able to allocate any more resources to my case unless there is identity theft or if fraudulent charges turn up (although I cancelled all my cards promptly)- it''s just their policy. While that kind of stinks, I understand that there are more important crimes to be solved.
Anyway, I was extremely grateful to the kind woman who did the right thing, and it is really heartwarming to know that there are still honest people in the world!
 

Dee*Jay

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Gail, I''m so glad there was a relatively happy ending to your saga! And who knows what that guy was doing digging around in the garbage--but for your sake I''m glad that he was, LOL.
 
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