PSA... Put your phone number in wallet/ valuables

[descovy]

Hey all!

Let me give you a tip that will save you a lot of grief, especially if/when you lose your wallet/valuable

Put your phone number on it!

#1. I work at Target and in the weekends work in the cash office (safe). Lots of "found" credit cards make it back there, and many get destroyed a month later because they are never claimed. Full of drivers license, credit cards, school id's. I can see your name and address , but I can't CALL you and tell you your purse has turned up. Imagine the stress you are going through... You lost your wallet, I found it, but I can't tell you I found it!

Today there was a wallet in the safe. Lots of cash, credit cards, I'D. I could reasonably tell it belonged to "Amy Smith" so when I found a handful of business cards under the name "Amy Smith" I was able to call her at 8am and notify her that her wallet had been found. She just lost it last night, so imagine the hours of headaches she was spared, just because I was able to call her on the phone. BTW... They weren't even "professional " business cards. They said "Amy Smith, mom of 3" and included address and phone number... Easy enough for anyone to do.

#2. Two years ago I was at a cake conference at DW. Would you believe I set down my digital SLR camera, and couldn't remember where!!! A CM was able to call me withinan hour because I had made labels with my name and cell number and placed one on my very expensive camera.

#3. As a side note, consider putting a label with your home phone number on your cell phone. In the Cash Office at Target, we get a lot of really nice cell phones(and iPods!). But when the battery dies we can't try to investigate, and sadly, these too, get destroyed.

So, RIGHT NOW, before you forget, slip your phone number in your wallet. May you never know the headaches you will save yourself!

Love, your friendly Target cashier

 

[snykymom]

Hey all!

Let me give you a tip that will save you a lot of grief, especially if/when you lose your wallet/valuable

Put your phone number on it!

#1. I work at Target and in the weekends work in the cash office (safe). Lots of "found" credit cards make it back there, and many get destroyed a month later because they are never claimed. Full of drivers license, credit cards, school id's. I can see your name and address , but I can't CALL you and tell you your purse has turned up. Imagine the stress you are going through... You lost your wallet, I found it, but I can't tell you I found it!

Yes, you can. You can call the nunber for the credit card company, and ask them to contact the cardholder. They're always happy to do it.

I once found a set of keys. (And you don't want to put your identifying info on your keys or a thief would know where to go to steal your car or burgle your home!) There was a store tag for CVS on it. I called CVS, gave them the tag number, and my phone number. About an hour later, the keys' owner called me and I was able to return them.

 

[FlyingDumbo]

It is actually super easy to find someone if you have their id. Oh and you could mail it back as well. Send them a postcard to come pick it up. Call 411! Call the credit card company! Call the local police. I can think of at least 10 ways to try to locate someone who left something valuable behind. It seems cruel and irresponsible to destroy them. Try facebook. Try google. Try spokeo.

Sounds pretty ridiculous that no one in the cash office could come up with a solution other than destroying these things. Seriously?

 

[GoofyforDisney3]

At first I was thinking maybe there was a policy against making a call but if you are allowed to rummage around to locate the business cards then you should be allowed to look in the phone book for a phone number or call the police to come get the bag. You probably wouldn't need to go far since a lot of security are off duty officers.

 

[VAfamily1998]

Yes, I agree with the others to call one of the numbers for the cards in the wallet. If you are finding student ID's you should be able to call the school and they should be able to get in touch with the student. Heck, if you know the address you could even send them a brief letter--especially since you say you wait a month before dstroying the items.

 

[ohlas]

Its not her its target Im sure they have some crazy rules over lost stuff, plus if she works in the cash office she worksssss. target doesnt take slacking off well. Target also gives .02 cent raises to 9 month employees.

 

[msjprincess]

I now put my cell phone number in my wallet. A couple of years ago DH and I found a wallet on the beach in the Outer Banks. We did look up the guys number and left a message but it never dawned on him to check his home phone. So it wasn't until he got home to MA that he found out that we had his wallet.

In the OPs case though I understand why you can't return wallets if you have their ID. The PO will mail it to the person for free.

 

[Luckyflower]

Why jump all over the OP for some friendly advice? I am sure that she has thought of looking people's number up in the phone book, but not everyone is listed. Or there could be multiple listings if it is a common name.

I used to work for a mall management company and I would try to track down people whose valuables were turned into lost and found. It's not always as easy to track people down. A little contact information placed in a wallet, or on a cell phone would bring people and their vaulables together a lot faster!

 

[Luckyflower]

In the OPs case though I understand why you can't return wallets if you have their ID. The PO will mail it to the person for free.

Certain things can be dropped into any mailbox. (I have seen reward cards, AAA cards, etc with that disclaimer, since the postage will be paid by the company.) I have never heard of the PO mailing anything for free? Is this new?

 

[mamacatnv]

OP good advice!
I for one consider myself pretty sharp and honestly I don't know if I would have immediately thought to call one of the credit card companies regarding the wallet and its owner.

 

[msjprincess]

Certain things can be dropped into any mailbox. (I have seen reward cards, AAA cards, etc with that disclaimer, since the postage will be paid by the company.) I have never heard of the PO mailing anything for free? Is this new?

I don't think so. That's what I've always been told and when I brought the wallet I found to the PO they just took and mailed it back to the owner.

 

[descovy]

Okay, I can take my flogging like a big girl.

As other people have stated, there are other ways to get a lost wallet to somebody. (I guess we'll ignore the stash of ipods and cameras that also get lost.)

Here is my point of view. I am locked in a tiny room at work. I do NOT have internet access on the computer (just my cash-reporting program) I do not have a phone book either in there (which are going the way of the dodo bird)

Sure you can wait for one of my hassled managers to take the time to look you up, take things to the post office, but my lil hiney will get fired if I walk out of Target with a wallet I found in the safe.

Call the credit card? I hadn't thought of it honestly. I might try it in the future. I just know when I call MY credit cards I get stuck in "press one for this, two for that." And I work weekends so my options are limited too.

My point is, while all these other tips may technically work, they are going to take time. Time you will spend panicking, trying to cancel/replace all your stuff. Something as simple as a business card with a phone number can save you a lot of greif. If you prefer not to do that, fine by me. I was only trying to relay my own experince, "as a finder, and as a loser," and only trying to help.

Sorry for annoying anyone.

 

[pixiewings71]

I worked in the cash office at Target for years....once a week I would go thru the wallets/phones/etc that were in lost and found. I was looking for ID or a way to contact the items owner. With wallets that had an ID I would write a small note that said something to the effect of "we have located a lost item that may be yours, please stop by your local Target store (address here) to claim your lost item. upon confirmation of the item being yours we will release the item to your custody." You have to remember that a lot of people move and don't have updated information on their ID. We never said WHAT the item was, just that they needed to come see the Store Team Lead to claim it. If it was a wallet we would have the ID to confirm, if it was a cell phone we would ask them to ID the item themselves, by giving a phone number that was in it (other then their own) or to confirm a photo or something like that. We never mailed anything off to the address on the ID except the letter, we had a lot of items that were never claimed and we destroyed them after 2 months, we never destroyed them any sooner than that. With credit cards and bank cards we would return the cards to the issuing bank with a "found" note attached, never had any problems with that.
My cell phone has ICE numbers, when we find cell phones we call the ICE number to let them know we found the phone. My camera, I take a photo of a piece of paper with my name and phone number on it, hopefully if I ever do lose it someone honest will pick it up and call me. My wallet, I don't carry a lot of cash or credit cards around so if I never got that back the biggest pain would be replacing my driver's license.

OP you have a good idea and perhaps Target policy has changed but when I was in the Cash Office (I was in there 4 of the 5 days a week I worked) we did try to notify people of lost items.

 

[descovy]

I worked in the cash office at Target for years....once a week I would go thru the wallets/phones/etc that were in lost and found. I was looking for ID or a way to contact the items owner. With wallets that had an ID I would write a small note that said something to the effect of "we have located a lost item that may be yours, please stop by your local Target store (address here) to claim your lost item. upon confirmation of the item being yours we will release the item to your custody." You have to remember that a lot of people move and don't have updated information on their ID. We never said WHAT the item was, just that they needed to come see the Store Team Lead to claim it. If it was a wallet we would have the ID to confirm, if it was a cell phone we would ask them to ID the item themselves, by giving a phone number that was in it (other then their own) or to confirm a photo or something like that. We never mailed anything off to the address on the ID except the letter, we had a lot of items that were never claimed and we destroyed them after 2 months, we never destroyed them any sooner than that. With credit cards and bank cards we would return the cards to the issuing bank with a "found" note attached, never had any problems with that.
My cell phone has ICE numbers, when we find cell phones we call the ICE number to let them know we found the phone. My camera, I take a photo of a piece of paper with my name and phone number on it, hopefully if I ever do lose it someone honest will pick it up and call me. My wallet, I don't carry a lot of cash or credit cards around so if I never got that back the biggest pain would be replacing my driver's license.

OP you have a good idea and perhaps Target policy has changed but when I was in the Cash Office (I was in there 4 of the 5 days a week I worked) we did try to notify people of lost items.

It has changed a bit. We used to have a cash office specialist. Those went away company wide last year. Our CO Spec did have the ability to write letters. She also had email access to our auditors, etc...

That has all changed now. No one in the CO is "in charge." There are a few of us cashiers that are trained in the CO. Our 3 GSA's are also trained in the CO, but quite honestly are horrible at it, and don't like to be there. Our GE-ETL is a brand spaken new college grad, and is the only one with email access, or "in charge" yet she has a very vague idea of what we do in here.

So you have up to 6 TM's who float in and out of the CO, none of us has the power to do anything about anything. I've been "told" stuff is destroyed 30 days out, but frankly havent seen with mine own eyes. It isn't done by us. It is done by management.

Most of the other employees just let that stuff sit and rot in the safe forever. I at least try to look and see if there is something I can do. I don't have all day to play PI. But a quick phone call, I am happy to do. I have lost my wallet before, and would appreciate if someone could do the same for me. Waiting for a detatched ETL to get around it doing antything about it would take forever... at that point, you have gone through the hassle of replacing the lost id's & cards. Again, a well placed business card could get you reunited with your lost wallet a whole lot faster...