With the season of holiday shopping and travel in full gear, and police are reminding everyone to use common sense to prevent theft?
Got gifts, purses, laptops, GPS units and coins?
Hide them out of sight (even the empty boxes!!) or, better yet, bring them inside your house. Don't give a passing Grinch any ideas. It only takes seconds for someone to yank open an unlocked door and swipe your purse while you are distracted.
We may not consider it, but the boxes in our trash give away what's inside our home. Did you ever think that your trash could make you a target for holiday theft?!?!
Former Secret Service Special Agent In Charge and National Security expert Robert Caltabiano talks to us about the dangers.
"When you're going to get that big, flat screen television, or that new laptop, or that new cellphone, and we start throwing the boxes just the way they are in the trash, you're letting everybody know what they're getting," Caltabiano says. "When you're out and about and no ones home, maybe someone wants that new television..."
How do we combat possible thefts?
- Don't throw your boxes out right away... especially because you don't even know yet if your electronics are going to work properly!
- Put those boxes into your garage and hold onto them through the holidays. After the holiday, throw them out on a rolling basis -- not all at once
- The same thing goes with receipts or anything else with your name on it
- Once you are ready to dispose of your holiday shopping receipts, tear the papers up into tiny pieces so that your information is not legible or accessible
- If you're not going to be home for Christmas, let a trusted neighbor know
- If there are packages that have not been delivered, have that neighbor or another trusted individual pick up those packages at the post office
- Even if you ARE going to be home, consider scheduling packages to be picked up at the post office as opposed to letting them be delivered to your home
- Packages that are sitting out are extra vulnerable to theft situations
Holiday deliveries do not have to end in disaster!
Let's all help each other out this season and heave a safe and healthy Christmas!