Christmas Safety and Security

‘Tis the Season to be Safe

A while back I got into my car (which I park on my driveway) and saw that someone had broken into my car and had did a good job making a mess looking for things. This has happened previously to me (about the same time of year), and back then I did lose some money and an electronic device, so I am careful not to leave anything of great value in my car any more, so the thieves did not seem to get anything of value from this break in. I was surprised they did not even take my DJ Riko Merry Mixmas CD (guess they don’t know good music).

This inconvenience to me (I had to spend a few minutes checking things over and cleaning up) could have been much worse, had this been my wife’s car (which was locked and in my locked garage), because in there were presents and some other things of value, and that just reinforced to me the importance of being secure and safe at Christmas.

A few of the important security things to remember this time of year are:

• Don’t leave gifts in cars, or if you do, don’t leave them in plain sight, put them in the trunk if you have one. For long term storage find a better hiding place for presents than your Van, because you are just asking for troubles otherwise.
• Always watch your credit cards or debit cards at stores. This time of year there are more stories of cards being cloned or just out and out stolen at stores, so watch your cards, and make sure you are billed for what you buy too, mistakes happen. Watch your receipts as well, you need them to return things, and they say enough about you to be a valuable part of Identification Theft, as well.
• If you are planning on paying cash, make sure it is well protected as well (especially in malls and bigger stores), lots of snatch and grab folks out looking for their holiday bonuses as well. If you misplaced your purse, how bad would it be? Do you have a list of your cards and such in case your purse disappears?
• Your house is another area to make sure you are safe, especially if you are going away for any extended period. In our area of Ottawa break-ins soar at this time of year, because thieves know you have got more goodies around. If you are going away, make sure you have someone checking your house, or put in a home security system if you can afford one. For the love of Christmas, do not post on FaceBook “Off to Toronto for a few days!”, why not just put a sign up outside of your house saying, “We are NOT HOME!“.

I am not saying you should have a paranoid holidays, but take some precautions to make sure that you enjoy your holidays and don’t have any security breeches, to cause you problems.