Daughter won't use sensible security precautions for her belongings?

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It drives me nuts that DD2 pays so little attention to taking care to protect herself and her belongings when travelling. She has just left to spend the w/e in London with friends. She asked to borrow the drawstring Uniqlo bag that I bought as a beach bag and stuffed a few overnight things into it. It's fine for non valuable items but things can fall out and more importantly it is a gift to pickpockets. She uses her phone for everything, her rail ticket and paying her way using Apple Pay.
Where I are you going to keep your phone I asked, you do know not to use your back pocket?? Off she went, bag on shoulder, phone in hand.

Last time her phone was stolen (in London) I helped her buy a new one, paying up front before receiving the insurance money. I didn't make her pay me back the difference between insurance and full price. (I refuse to have phones on contract and use giffgaff goody bags). Today I had to bite my tongue not to say what my mother would have said "Don't expect me to help you buy a new phone if you lose this one". I really try not to turn into my mother but the same thoughts are there even if I stop myself from saying them. She is absolutely on her own this time. She previously lost a phone dropping it down one of the loos at Glastonbury and received an insurance payout plus help from Mum. I doubt she will get a third insurance payout and as it's our household insurance I'm not sure I would want to put it to the test and give us a bad record.

I bought her a foldie over the shoulder bag (they were 2 for 1 and I wanted one for myself) and she did appreciate it and uses it for foreign travel. It has lots of pockets and inner hidden pockets to secure items like phones and bank cards and if you don't over fill it can wear it unobtrusively under your coat.
But apparently it's not cool in London. I guess I just have to shrug and leave her to it, there's only so much one can do and the bank of Mum is closed this time. Maybe I should have pre-warned her about that but couldn't bring myself to echo my own mother.

https://www.uniqlo.com/uk/en/products/E483802-000/00?colorDisplayCode=19&sizeDisplayCode=999

https://the-foldie.co.uk/products/the-foldie%C2%AE-sling-bag

She’s an adult. She’s 25, meant to be saving up for postgraduate studies later this year hence living at home again for a bit. Anyway she gets paid next week so if she loses it she can sort it herself.

It just does drive me nuts. She was with a group of friends in Berlin and her friend had her phone pickpocketed within about 2 hours of arrival. She’s had the experience of her own phone being stolen/picked from her bag. But still won’t take sensible precautions. 🤷‍♀️

At 25 she should have her own insurance!

Stop infantilising a 25-year-old woman. She's an adult with a job. Let her get on with it.

Honestly, if my mum had been trying to tell me what bag to put things in when I was in my mid-20s I'd have thought she was mad.

If the Uniqlo link is the bag she’s taken I don’t see the issue. She’ll have it under her arm and as long as she’s aware of what’s going on it’ll be fine. I think most phone thefts are taken directly from the hand while using, so the type of bag is a bit irrelevant to that anyway. I always use my jeans pocket (not back as I’d sit on it - front) or a coat pocket and it’s not been an issue. I’m 61 and was in London the other weekend.

I preferred the Uniqlo one!

You’ve have replaced not one but two phones for her no wonder she hasn’t learned, there have been no consequences for her.

She’s 25, why are you treating her like she’s 14?

Leave her to it and stop enabling her being a dumbass. She is so careless because she hasn't really had to go without her phone because you've forked over money and not made her pay the differences.

I grew up learning about personal security and it is second nature now.

Twenty five?! This is 100% her issue to resolve.
If she chooses to lose or destroy yet another phone she can easily get one herself and a rolling SIM.

At 25 this is her issue to resolve! I lost my first phone which was paid for by my parents when I was 20 years old and I had to replace it myself and I've been on my own contract ever since. At 25 years old I was buying my own flat and regularly travelling into London for work. I was still losing phones every so often including one that fell out of an unsuitable bag at a music festival, but I was replacing them myself. She'll never grow up and become an independent adult if you keep treating her like a child.

You need to remember that a lot of posters on here leave their front doors unlocked because they haven't been robbed. Yet.

Stop covering for her if she loses stuff. Make her take out her own insurance for her phone (and any other belongings she takes with her out of the house) - at 25, she shouldn't be claiming on your home insurance, especially when you've let her do it 3 times already!
If she doesn't have enough cash to get a replacement phone before the insurance payout comes though, then tough, she will have to live off a £10 brick phone for a while.
She will never learn if you keep bailing her out.

Do you wear a bullet proof vest? I mean, you haven’t been shot. Yet.
Lots of people make sensible risk assessments based on where they live which might be different from yours (my door is locked these days but when I lived in a different place where a) there were very low crime stats and b) people dropped in more it was unlocked during the daytime.

At 25 the responsibility is hers. Stop worrying and let her get on with it. She needs her own insurance and to manage her own belongings.

25! It's definitely her business, not yours. Lots of people take her approach. We all make our own accommodations to risk.

Just don't bail her out if she loses something. There's no reason at all why you should. It is potentially quite undermining for her if you step in financially in this way, because it gives you some sort of reason/right to comment on how she manages these aspects of her life.

You are too involved, OP. Both the worry and the helping her out when things go wrong.

Though, for what it's worth, I'm in my 50s, have always kept my phone and wallet in my back pocket. Lived in London, New York and other major cities for years. Not been pickpocketed yet, but the convenience of having these things so easily to hand for 40 years would far outweigh the hassle and expense of replacing them a few times.

I think you need to emotionally distance yourself from this.

Don't assume you are responsible for her approach to looking after her stuff, or for bailing her out if and when she has to replace them because of her own carelessness.

YABU. Detach and stop rescuing her. Doesn’t matter when she gets paid: if she has to fund her stuff before then or wait, let her.

I don't agree with phones in back pockets - pickpocketers paradise. London is going to be a city with more of them. I put mine in a coat pocket at least or a cross over body bag.

Good god she's in London not Baghdad, some of us grew up there without special security bags. Tbh that kind of thing marks you out as a tourist and a target anyway.

On the topic of "We live in a low crime area so leave our doors unlocked", I usually mention my friend's mother & partner. They lived in a supposedly VERY low crime area - and one night, masked criminals burst in, tied them up, beat them and robbed them. Police said "This type of criminal specifically targets such areas."

It's just the same as safeguarding - the principle you should go by is that despite what you perceive to be low risk, if you can easily take a precaution, why not do it? And people who drop by my house knock on the door...

Your bullet proof vest analogy isn't comparable.

I bought leg bags for mine when they were teens - clip round leg and waist and all three love them. Items are right there but safe as no-one can get to them without altering them.

It was mostly as one was very scatter brained - and even the girls wouldn't have handbags or look after back packs as well as I'd have liked. Youngest also has a clip on bendy wire that can clip to belt and bag and atatches to the phone - middle one who nearly lost his phone won't same item.

I was worrying about this when they were teens - and trained them as I was to look back and make sure they have everything from childhood. At 18 and 20 older two at uni it's on them at 25 I be doing nothing but saying that's a shame.

So what? Do what you want with your own phone and the OP's daughter can do what she wants with hers. It doesn't matter if you 'agree' with other people's phone carrying preferences, because it's not your phone.

So she took her things in a bag and was holding her phone which was her card and money (as 90% of under 35s do)? You’re being OTT.

I live in London and often just take my phone in my pocket or a tote bag. Never had anything nicked from either in a decade. It’s London not Baghdad!

Also I’m sorry but that foldie bag looks like something a very sensible older person would wear to a coach trip around France. So ugly.

So? Smart phones are water resistant now. They don’t break if you drop them in the loo