There you are walking down the street with your family and someone coming the opposite way "accidentally"� bumps into you. They politely apologize as they walk past and you tell them "No problem." You and your family are on your way to go and see a movie that you have been waiting for for several weeks. You are all excited and you talk about the movie while you stand in line waiting for your turn to buy a ticket. You decide to pull out you wallet and get your cash ready for the purchase. You reach into your back pocket and there is nothing there! You search your other pockets without any luck. You think that it has fallen out in your car and you go and check it out. You run to the car only to find nothing there. You carefully retrace your steps to the theatre and as you do, you recall the man that bumped into you. It finally dawns on you that it wasn't an accidental bump. He was distracting you with the bump while he was lifting your wallet out of your pocket.

YOU HAVE BEEN ROBBED

Now what? Of course you had some cash in there to go to the movie but how much more did you have? Hopefully you weren't carrying a large sum of money. Then it hits you, you had your credit card(s) in there. How many did you have? What are the card numbers? How will you stop the thief from using your cards? The thief could run up the cards and wreak havoc on your family's finances.

Your family is disappointed not to go to the movie but they understand your problem and you rush home. You call the bank but you have thrown away your statements and you don't know your card(s) number(s) or the code(s) on the back. What will you do?

Luckily, you remember reading this article so you have a solution. You have made a copy of the entire contents of your wallet both front and back so you have a record of every card you have and the numbers on the front and the codes on the back. You have a copy of your membership cards, your library card, etc. You can now call the companies with confidence and shut down all of your cards before there is too much damage to your personal information.

Here are some of the things that you should copy in your wallet for just such an event.

1. Of course your drivers license. You might even be able to use the copy while you are getting yours replaced.

2. Your debit and credit cards. This will allow you to shut them down ASAP. Most of them have an 800 number on the back that you can call. It is small so make sure you get a good copy.

3. Your membership cards. This would include travel cards, AAA cards shopping cards and the like. Although these are not normally used against you directly, the their can use these to get more of your personal information and take advantage of you later.

4. Anything else that could be used to get more personal information about you such as a hunting license or a library card.

Just a quick note - don't copy the cash - You might not look good in orange or stripes.

If you fall prey to a thief or if you just loose your wallet, be sure to have the security of a back up copy. It will make life much easier and save your family from a potential disaster.