Dear Sir,
My wife and I are Canadianoctogenarians loving our golden years at Lakeside … despite a few hiccups.
The most serious one so far happened on July 2 when my wife had her wallet lifted while shopping at Walmart.
With shoppers now required to pack their own groceries, it is easy for confusion to reign at the check-outs, especially for elderly persons – a relatively easy target for professional villains.
The criminals obviously realized our debit card was the kind that anyone could use without being questioned. And use it they did, immediately going for valuable items in the same Walmart they knew could be easily resold, to the tune of about 20,000 pesos. Less than 20 minutes later they were at Soriana doing the same thing for another ten grand, before the bank recognized something was amiss and cancelled the card.
Soriana’s management and customer service people were far more cooperative than Walmart’s and told us the baddies would be on their security cameras. Walmart’s folks really didn’t care, on top of which they also told us that some of their security cameras were broken.
Sure enough Soriana’s cameras caught the culprits, along with their vehicle, The police in both Ajijic and Chapala were alerted, appropriate reports filed, and we have been assured that they will do everything within their power to bring the guilty parties to justice.
Meanwhile, while trying to quarantine ourselves, we have been compelled to visit every ID issuing government office in the area, including Immigration (numerous times), the driver’s licensing office, the DIF office, and police stations in both Ajijic and Chapala to sign statements.
Despite all of this, our love affair with lakeside continues, and we hope enough other people will hear about this to sufficiently reduce the number of “easy-pickins” and send the villains elsewhere.
Bob & Shirley Semken