Police: Several Shoppers Had Wallets Stolen In North Dallas
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DALLAS (CBSDFW) - A warning for grocery shoppers in North Dallas. Watch your wallets - a thief is snatching them out of women's purses. It happened to three women - all in their mid 60s - last Friday within hours of each other.
For one Dallas woman, her identity was plucked right out of her purse somewhere between the produce and meat departments at Tom Thumb.
"Stopped at the little Starbucks in the store to get something to drink and reached in to pay and my wallet was gone," she says.
She asked us not to use her face or name - because, she realizes, the thief knows hers.
"It happened so fast," she says. "And they walked away knowing far more about me than I knew about them, and I didn't like that feeling at all."
About an hour earlier, another woman in her mid-60s had her wallet snatched from her shopping cart at a nearby Trader Joe's. Later that afternoon, a third woman the same age had her wallet stolen from her purse inside Whole Foods at Preston and Forest. The thief then used her ATM card to withdraw $30,000 within an hour.
"I panicked. I'd never experienced anything like that before," she says.
For this victim, the thief withdrew $5000 from a teller while she was on the phone.
"By the time I got there, which took a little bit longer than it should have because of Friday traffic, the employee had given her the money and let her go," she says. "So we missed it by minutes."
Police are investigating, and the victim says she wants the thief, believed to be a woman, caught immediately. She also says she's learned a lesson.
"Not to assume, even in your neighborhood where you shop locally, that you're safe," she says.
The bank and the grocery stores do have surveillance video of the thief. Police say this is a good reminder that thefts can happen in seconds, so never leave your valuables unattended.
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