Yesterday I got quite a surprise. As I arrived at work, I went to remove my laptop computer out of the trunk of my car, and lo-and-behold it was not there! Someone stole my laptop out of the locked trunk of my car during the night. I was stunned and shocked. This became an emotional experience for me. On top of it all, I was meeting with a mortgage broker that evening, so I had a printed copy of my credit report in the backpack that my computer was in. This means whoever the thief is, has a copy of my name, address, birthday and social security number. After filing a police report, I immediately called Equifax to protect my identity, but there’s really not a whole lot you can do until someone steals it. I also subscribed to their monthly credit monitoring service.

The police said that 3 people on my street within a block of each other called and reported stolen items. I guess with the poor economy I should look into how I can protect myself and my family from any other incidents like this in the future. I’ve spent the past 24 hours trying to do damage control.

Today a coworker emailed a video about an item called a bump lock that only licensed locksmiths are supposed to have. The video snippet talked about how people can buy these on the Internet, and how they easily open most locks. I am afraid that people are going to start getting desperate if the economy does not start improving.