Losing your passport in Costa Rica

If you’ve had to go get a new passport after losing your passport in Costa Rica, you know what a challenge it is. Indeed, many have actually discovered it’s no more the simplest thing to prove who you are. If you’re a first-timer, you need to appear in person with a birth certificate and at least one government-issued ID. If you lose your passport while taking a trip abroad, you have to show up at an embassy or consulate. Worse yet, as highlighted by the current news, your key could have a lot of value to bad guys.

This is because they are so difficult to obtain and increasingly tough to counterfeit. The Wall Street Journal reports that Interpol has  40 million lost or stolen passports in its database already. Subsequently, but those travelers boarded planes 1 billion times in 2013 without their keys being checked against that database).

So what can you do to keep your key safe both before and after you take a trip?

If you must replace your passport, you should submit your present ticket to allow the State Division to cancel it. But while it’s appealing to merely stick a couple of stamps on it and throw it in the closest mailbox, do not! Send it by means of signed-up mail with a return receipt requested so that the Post Office keeps a much better eye on it and you know that it showed up– since if it goes walkabout, you have to go back to square one.

Do not Take It With You If You Don’t Need to

If you have another form of government-issued ID, there’s no need to be lugging around a ticket (and, if you do not, all states concerned low-priced non-driver ID cards, which are worth getting for precisely this reason). Purses get taken, wallets get lifted and IDs get left behind so often that it’s worth a delay in line at the DMV for an alternate ID.

Shop It Safely

Though it’s appealing, don’t save your ticket in your underwear drawer, your desktop organizer, or your precious jewelry box– all locations that are the first look for any would-be burglar or identification burglar. Establishment it someplace others will not believe to look or can’t quickly remove– like a safe. Your ID is valuable: treat it that way.

Keep a Photocopy

If you lose your passport abroad, you will need a photocopy (or a scanned copy) of the initial in order to make your method house. Shop the document like you would the initial: in a safe, secured area that you can access and others can not. If you’re working with an electronic document, see to it it’s an encrypted file or on an encrypted drive.

Report Its Loss Promptly

If you presume your key is swiped or lost, particularly if you’re currently abroad, don’t take an extra day to retrace your steps: report it quickly. The worst thing you can do is wait and wish it shows up– only to discover that whoever made off with it likewise going out of town on it.

It has actually ended up being so widespread for individuals to misplace credit cards and driver’s licenses (or have them stolen) that companies and even states have actually made them reasonably simple to cancel and replace. But when it concerns super-IDs like keys, birth certificates as well as Social Security cards, the procedures are long and challenging since they develop who you are as best the governments can– and because they want you to take additional care not to lose them in the first place.

Losing a super-ID like a ticket can make you susceptible to identification burglary. It is essential after losing an ID like this that you closely monitor your bank accounts and credit to ensure you do not end up being a sufferer. You can monitor your credit totally free using the Credit Report Card, a free device offered by my company that updates 2 of your credit ratings monthly. Any major, unexpected changes in your scores might signal identity theft and you need to pull complimentary copies of your credit reports to make certain your identification is safe.