Smash and grabs are happening in Austin (not surprising, given Austin’s crime rate):

“Apparently it just takes a minute to shatter that glass and grab a purse,” said Sharon McMillan.

She was picking her son up from a birthday party at Brentwood Park Saturday afternoon. “So, I quickly parked and left my purse in the car, knowing I would only be just a couple minutes,” she said.

She locked the car doors. But when she came back, a window was shattered and her purse was gone.

(h/t Michael Cargill)

Only gone a couple of minutes. I’m sure you’ve done this too. We think nothing of it. Just running in really quick — to the house, to the convenience store to buy a drink after gassing up, whatever excuse. Crime only takes seconds to unfold.

“I never leave my purse in the car, but of course that day I did, thinking, the car was in sight, and we were just a few hundred yards away,” she said.

The women say they tracked their credit cards, and found that the cards were being used at a few businesses on West Anderson Lane.

“Immediately, we got on the phone with our credit card company and the bank and canceled the cards,” Spradling said. “It was probably 40 minutes from the time we got to the park and until everything was canceled, and already they had $600 on the credit card.”

And the subsequent crime continued very quickly, faster than you could respond. Within 40 minutes, already $600 in fraudulent charges rang up.

Think about it.

You thought things would be safe. That it’s just a couple minutes. But what would it have cost you to pick up your purse (or put your phone or wallet in your pocket, whatever) and bring it with you? Just another second or two, if that? But failing that, look at the cost you now have to deal with. Smashed car window. Time off to get it repaired. Dealing with insurance, and certainly the cost of repairs/deductible. Losing all your credit cards and other identification, whatever else might have been in the purse. Now you have to replace everything, monitor your credit and identity for further fraud. Whatever the specifics wind up being, it’s certainly a FAR greater cost in time, money, emotion, energy, to deal with the aftermath than it would have been to just take your purse or wallet with you.

Learn from their mistakes.