A University of Canterbury student who had her bank cards stolen in a night time burglary has been able to trace the thieves' purchases and potentially capture them on CCTV.
Second-year student Ffion Merchant-Williams was at her Christchurch flat on Monday night when she noticed her room was slightly out of place.
"I returned to my room and noticed that the sliding door to my bedroom was slightly ajar," she says.
"I closed it and looked around my room and noticed that everything was slightly out of place."
Ms Merchant-Williams soon realised her laptop, passport, speakers and wallet with her IDs and bank cards were missing.
She then went to cancel her cards and noticed more than $200 had already been spent from them at a petrol station and fast food outlet via payWave within hours of being burgled.
While it might be considered a bad thing that the thief spent her money - they didn't consider those transactions could be traced from cameras inside at least two stores they visited.
Authorities wouldn't release any CCTV footage or pictures to Newshub as enquiries are still on-going.
PayWave was first introduced to New Zealand in 2011 and was met with plenty of controversy surrounding the ease with which thieves could spend money without needing a PIN.
New Zealand Union of Student's Associations president Jonathan Gee says it is important students are cautious around break-ins and thefts.
"Firstly the key thing is to make sure your doors are locked when you leave the house and make sure that your flatmates know to do that as well," he says.
"[And] to make sure that [students] have contents insurance, [so] you've got some protection in that way."
According to police statistics released in previous years, across Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, student areas have been hot spots for burglaries.
Newshub.
