Family looking for men who pickpocketed their Christmas money

A Santa Maria couple is hoping the public will recognize the two suspects who they say pickpocketed a wallet out of their purse.

The incident happened last week at a convenience store in Santa Maria. The couple says the men charged about $2400 on one of their debit cards – and were running the card as credit so they wouldn’t have to enter a pin number.

She says they had to explain what happened with their Christmas money to their 7-year-old daughter.

They want others to know that these men are out there and they believe they’ve hit as many as five other stores in the area.

“This their job, this is what they do, they steal from people,” theft victim Manuel Chacon said.

Chacon says he believes the two suspects may have been strapped for cash – and that this is a example of the state the economy is in.

“We have good family that really just helped us out and she got a scooter, she didn’t get as many presents as she usually does,” Chacon said.

Chacon says his daughter has handled the incident like a champ.

“She was completely fine with it, she understood and she said daddy it’s not your fault.. and for a 7-year-old to tell their dad that, that felt really good,” Chacon said.

The couple has filed a police report. If you know who these two men are, contact the Santa Maria Police Department at (805) 928-3781.

{“html”:”n&#lt;iframe width=” 480″ height=”270″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/nQKCoXWvOKc?feature=oembed” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=”allowfullscreen”&#gt;&#lt;/iframe&#gt;n”,”author_url”:”https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc4OQOsHQOgNfHuuezumj0g”,”url”:”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQKCoXWvOKc”,”thumbnail_width”:480,”provider_name”:”YouTube”,”thumbnail_height”:360,”type”:”video”,”version”:”1.0″,”title”:”Family looking for men who pickpocketed their Christmas money”,”author_name”:”Sean Larsen”,”provider_url”:”https://www.youtube.com/”,”height”:270,”width”:480,”thumbnail_url”:”https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nQKCoXWvOKc/hqdefault.jpg”}