This was relayed to us by a neighbor. She was at a local cafe recently with her young son.
I was having breakfast with my son at the Green Line at 43rd and Baltimore from 9:15 am to 10:00 am today and I had my credit cards taken out of my wallet while I was sitting at the table. Sadly, I had my purse on the back of my chair with my coat hanging over it with my son on my lap. A woman came in and sat behind me and I thought she was sitting too closely because there were so many other tables around me. I scooted my seat forward away from her. Well, turns out it was not far enough. When she left I felt paranoid about the situation and checked my bag to find my wallet still there. But 4 hours later I got a call from my credit card company questioning several fraudulent charges. Lo and behold I checked my wallet and my cards were gone. Please, please keep an eye on your bags. I was stupid, careless and taking care of my son.
February 5th, 2011 at 4:15 pm
By the way, this post was in no way meant to cast any kind of blame on the Green Line. This could have happened anywhere. We just thought it was important to get the information out there.
February 5th, 2011 at 5:54 pm
I don’t think that you were stupid, just not as cautious as you should be in this, or any, neighborhood.
Joe C.
February 5th, 2011 at 6:19 pm
After reading this I thought I would share a similar incident that happened to my friend at the RX restaurant at 45th and Spruce while we were having breakfast a few weeks ago. A man, by himself, came in and sat at the table behind us. As we were talking I kept getting a feeling that the he was listening to our conversation and slowly turning his chair behind her. She had her purse hanging from the back of the chair and on one occasion I looked at him and he quickly faced front and was looking at the menu, I didn’t want to judge the situation too fast and so we kept talking and her purse was still zipped up and seemed fine. The same feeling came back and I looked again and I saw his hand above the purse, zipper now open, and about to reach in, so I grabbed the purse and put it on to her lap and asked her to hold it and check the contents and to make sure it was all still there. The man quickly became very uncomfortable and immediately got up and made an excuse to the waitress and left in a hurry. At that point after he walked out we weren’t sure what to do and so we mentioned it to the waitress and she was surprised to hear it and said that he had said he was leaving because they didn’t have the sausage he liked. I’m glad we caught it before anything was stolen, and now she’s more careful when her bag is with her. I’m sorry to hear about the previous story, but it seems like there are a few people out and about doing the same thing at different places. We still eat regularly at RX and definitely know that they were just as surprised as us.