On Friday I had my handbag stolen from the front seat of my car in my local Tesco's car park whilst I was loading my shopping into the car. It was a split second occurrence which I didn't even register until I saw my phone laying on the floor near my car and was confused as to how it got there, which was then coupled with the sudden realisation of what had happened as it dawned on me that my handbag had been stolen.
Thank the lord, my mobile phone fell out of the bag as the thief was running away as ironically, that was probably the most valuable thing that was in there in terms of monetary value. I never carry cash around me, apart from the odd five pound note and some change, but my bag was very big and heavy thanks to the huge diary, purse full of cards, countless receipts, and various notebooks I carry around with me and so I am guessing they possibly thought they would find some valuables in there - perhaps a laptop of tablet or too or a fairly significant wad of cash.
A witness saw it happen and said that the thief had been watching me from their car - quite a scary thought. I consider myself to be quite a street-savvy person with my wits about me, so I am most annoyed that they managed to catch me at one of the times I was most preoccupied, worrying about whether I had everything for eldest's impending birthday. They obviously intended to target someone, so on the plus side, one could say that it least it was me, with not much of financial value in my bag, and not some poor old lady with her weekly stash of cash in the bag who may have lost more and been affected more. I also think I would have been completely lost without my phone, much more upset, and I know I wouldn't have got it back, so I am so grateful that the universe intervened and it fell out of the bag as they ran.
Although there was nothing of much monetary value in there, to me my filofax, and the work notebooks I carry along with a special birth announcements book I was carrying for work were actually very valuable to me and I was so upset I had lost stuff which was so personal to me, along with a couple of hundred business cards in various boxes which again had no monetary value to the thieves but were worth a lot to me in terms of the cost to replace them and the amoun of personal information accessible in my bag,
The ex-cops in my family suspected that this was a classic run and grab case and that the bag would be dumped, as the thief didn't have the brain cells to steal the blue tooth handset on the seat, or the change sitting on the top of the dashboard so they were purely chancers rather than organised criminals. Nethertheless, the weekend has been spent cancelling all of my cards and trying to rework my diary through various phone calls and various facebook pleas, and also trying to make a list of what was lost.
Today, three days later, my handbag was found in a ditch, around ten miles away from where I live. by two lovely lady dog walkers. Most of the contents of the handbag were still there - along with my filofax and all my notebooks etc with my priceless information in, Unfortunately, the thieves left everything strewn all over the place. They must have basically emptied out my bag, taken what they thought had any value (hardly anything - a bit of change, a purse spray, lipstick and perhaps a couple of other bits) and just left everything else strewn out over the muddy ditch, exposed to the elements. Ironically, I am pretty sure that the only thing they were looking for was cash which I never carry, or tech equipment which there was none in there. What upsets me most was that as they left everything out, everything is absolutely ruined. So not only did they steal my stuff, they then couldn't even be bothered to put it back in the bag in the vague hope that some of it wouldn't be ruined for it's original owner. I will have to buy a new filofax and notebooks, and new business cards, and try to salvage and dry out some of the receipts, so it is costing me a bit of money to replace it all - although at least the information is not lost.
I suppose I am giving the thieves too much credit as why would I not expect these low lives to have a complete lack of respect for peoples stuff or empathy for the people they steal from. All I can say is that I'm a firm believer in what goes around comes around and so I am hoping that karma will come and bite them firmly on the backside and soon, so if by chance the thieves are reading this as you now have all of my personal info - I sincerely hope that it really does!
The lessons I have learnt from this are:
1) Never carry huge amounts of cash with you.
2) Try to limit the amount of stuff you carry around, and take stuff out of your handbag regularly.
3) Be on guard especially in public places such as car parks and supermarkets and town centres which thieves seem to target.
4) Always open the boot and lock your car if you can, or check your surroundings when loading stuff into the car, and make sure you lock it as you return the trollley.
5) Alternatively, keep your bag with you at all times.
6) Don't think you won't be targeted and be blase.
7) Back up your diary online - Although I did have some appointments in my online diary. I will definitely be putting everything in there from now on!!
8) Don't carry all of the business cards you own in one place!
9) Perhaps invest in a smaller shoulder bag for shopping if you can.
10)There are some lovely people in the world who try to make wrongs right! I have also had some lovely messages of support from friends and family and I valued everything single one.
 |
| The ditch my bag was dumped in |
No comments:
Post a Comment