Safe Talk

Students are often overlooked or ignored when it comes to safes. People don’t realize what expensive items students have—they may not own jewels or have home deeds but have you seen how much computers cost nowadays? Or phones and iPods? Those items alone are well worth the cost of protecting them. And what’s more, most students aren’t lucky enough to live in a home secured with proper alarms and anti-burglary devices but rather live in dorms, dorm-style apartments or low-rent apartments near campus. Especially in the case of dorms, rooms may not have proper locks on them and the effective control of who has access to the dorm may not be done well. I know when I was in college we had key card entry to our dorm—this seems quite secure, right?—but many people just propped open the door to let anyone nearby in. My room did have a lock and key but who knows who else had access to a master key or an additional key to my room.

Students should get in the practice early of protecting their important belongings not only because it would be a shame to have them stolen, but also to develop habits that will be with them for a lifetime. Safe use will cut down on instances of theft (which is usually opportunistic and relies on important items being left in the open) whether on a college campus or in a first apartment.

For those of you with limited space, Safe and Vault Store has specialty, small-size safes that are perfect for college dorm rooms. Check out these affordable laptop safes and see if they wouldn’t be perfect for your student’s valuables while away at school.

As anyone who has gone to college and lived in a dorm room knows, you’re living in very small quarters with a bunch of other college students in a building that often has pretty relaxed security measures. My college dorm had key-card entry, but that didn’t stop people from propping open the door to let others in, or letting in a stranger who swears they’re just going up to see a friend. Most of the time, these are honest people making honest mistakes but it only takes one thief entering the dorm under false pretenses to cause a lot of havoc and heartbreak.

For example, my brother was hanging around his dorm a few years ago. It was right around Christmas time and people were packing up for the holidays. Amid all the new faces (parents, brothers, cousins) in and out of the dorm, he didn’t notice the man (or woman) who slyly entered his own room and stole both his very new and expensive and laptop computer and iPhone. While no one knows for sure, I’m fairly certain that some unsuspecting parent or student let this thief in to have his pickings of the empty dorm rooms. Pretty scary, huh?

Of course we didn’t know then, but what if we’d just bought a small safe for his room – a place to keep his laptop, his phone and his passport while he wasn’t in the room. This thief wouldn’t have been able to be quite so sly or sneaky with a heavy safe tucked under his arm or in his knapsack.

The lessons learned were two-fold: 1) computer insurance is essential! (Even amid all these unfortunate events, my brother ended up with an entirely new laptop courtesy of Apple), 2) take precautions. We could have spent $100 on a small safe instead of the potential $1500 to replace a new computer, and $300 for a new iPhone. Of course the likelihood of this happening to you are slim, but what if? Do what you need to do to never need to ask yourself what if.

Did you ever had anything taken from your dorm room? What do you do to prevent something like this from happening?

Laptop safes and car safes are fast becoming a necessity in the fight to protect against identity theft. Recent studies show that even though consumers are becoming more aware of how to protect themselves from online identity theft and fraud, offline theft is still the biggest source of data and personal information loss in America. (more…)