Pumping gas feels like the most routine thing in the world. You pull up, swipe your card, and zone out for two minutes while the numbers tick up. But for one La Vergne, Tennessee woman, that brief distraction was all it took for thieves to make off with her wallet and hundreds of dollars in cash.
Dawn Barbee thought she was doing everything right. She pulled up to a Walmart gas station, stepped out of her truck, and started paying at the pump like millions of people do every single day. What she didn’t notice was someone quietly slipping in through the passenger side of her vehicle while her back was turned. By the time she finished fueling up and reached for her wallet, it was already gone.
“I got back in the car to put my card back in my wallet and my wallet wasn’t there,” Barbee recalled. “I was like, I know I just had my wallet.” After searching around the area with no luck, she called La Vergne police. Officers reviewed surveillance footage and confirmed her suspicion: she had been deliberately targeted. The thief had parked at a nearby pump and waited for exactly the right moment to strike…