One call cancel

Even in this age of automation, certain processes remain antiquated.

Sunday my friend got her purse stolen in East Hampton.

This alone is a jaw-dropper. But then she had to go about tallying and canceling everything that had been in the purse. I went through the process a few years back when my wallet got stolen. It was a massive pain but it was also during the summertime. I had time to do it. My friend had to call in sick to work.

She canceled her credit cards. She went to the DMV to get a new license. She explained to the parking lot guard in Atlantic Beach that the pass she paid $270 for was stolen and she needs another.

She discovered, in the process, a host of fun facts such as that the prompt one needs to enter for a lost or stolen card is last on the menu for most credit card companies. Or that often one can get disconnected midway through a conversation with a credit card company employee about the lost or stolen card.

All of which got me to thinking about how useful a one-stop service for these types of situations could be. The credit bureaus have all of this information on file anyway. Why don’t they have a service wherein, when one gets a purse or wallet stolen, they call it and for a fee of say, fifty dollars, get all their credit and bank cards canceled?

In fact such a service not already existing is a little strange.

Perhaps that's a good thing, though. If there are things such as this that obviously could help people and haven't yet been tapped, just think.

What else is there?