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Wendy Smith was having dinner with four friends at Milestones on Sussex Drive on a sunlit evening in June when she sensed a slight tug on her pink purse, hanging on the back of her chair.

She reached around to ensure the purse was safely there. It was.

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But she didn’t realize — at that precise moment — the purse flap was opened and her wallet appeared to have been gingerly lifted out and stolen. In the next three hours, almost $15,000 was fraudulently racked up on two credit cards, mostly at the Rideau Centre across the street, in high-end stores like Apple and Harry Rosen.

“It still feels like an assault to me,” she said this week. “Somebody took personal stuff from me. It’s a little bit humiliating and it’s very unsettling.”

As distressing as it was — she is not liable for the charges — the police response only added to her frustration.

When Smith, 51, called to report the crime, she was first told to fill out an online form, which she did, and that it could be two months before an investigator was assigned.