Losing your wallet is an extremely annoying, time-consuming (and scary) experience. Reporting it to the police will make replacing the items inside it much easier and less costly.
Photo by Ryan Loos.
A couple of weeks ago I had that sinking feeling when I patted my pocket and the reassuring lump of my wallet wasn't in there. I convinced myself that I must have just left it at home, but when I got back from work and turned my room upside down I realised that no; gone it was and so commenced the joyless task of calling all of the various authorities – banks, RTA, etc.
You can't imagine how much of your life you keep in your wallet until you try to replace it all, and it's not just the regular cards, it's the photos and odds and ends you keep there for a rainy day – my favourite guitar pick was in that thing….
So anyway, cue call after call with the same content 'Hi, my name's Peter. Wallet: gone. Cards: need.' Some of these are quick and easy – banks replace your cards free of charge. Places like the RTA, on the other hand, do not. Would you believe that Qantas charges for a replacement Frequent Flyer card?
Fortunately the first thing I'd done was to call the police to see if it was handed in and raise an incident report. It turns out that a lot (not all, but most) of the organisations who issue cards will ask 'Was your wallet lost or stolen?'. If it's stolen and you have a police report number you can generally get your cards replaced gratis. This saved me $36 with WA Vehicle Licensing – not a huge saving, but when it comes to avoiding the insult of having to pay to replace all the cards after the injury of losing the best part of your proof of identity I'll take that as a small win.
So the moral of the story here is that if you DO wind up in the unfortunate situation where your wallet's gone walkabout and taken your life with it, make sure the first call you make is to the police.
This story was sent in by a reader over at Lifehacker Australia, but a quick Google search reveals that this is good practice in the US, too—whether its your bank cards, driver's license, or even your gym membership card, a police report is more likely to get you a free replacement. It's also a good idea to keep a running record of what you have in your wallet before you lose it, since you'll need to provide as much detail as possible when you file the report.
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