Yesterday morning I became yet another statistic. I was pick pocketed on the Paris Metro.
My wallet, which contained my credit cards, Laser, cash and various other bits and pieces, was stolen. So I spent a good part of yesterday hanging around Parisian police stations.
I was able to cancel all of my cards fairly quickly – hats off to the AIB call centre staff – they’re very helpful and efficient.
Hats off to the RATP (Parisian public transport) staff who were also incredibly helpful.
Thankfully nearly my entire family are here in Paris with me this weekend, so I wasn’t left completely cashless and without any way of paying hotel bills etc.
The thing that bothers me, however, is the big “what if?”.
How the hell would you pay for your hotel bill etc., if your wallet was stolen in a foreign country.
Years ago I would probably have been travelling with a bunch of traveller’s cheques, so I would have left what I didn’t need during the day in my hotel. These days we’re all using the Euro and it’s a plastic economy, so you carry your VISA and Laser / Cirrus with you everywhere. You’re not likely to leave either card in your hotel room, are you?
How to Screw Up Your Holiday
Travel guides and such still usually recommend that you bring at least some money in traveller’s cheques for exactly this reason. In an emergency, I suppose, you could get someone at home to send you money via Western Union or one of those.
That’s a bad turn. Hope the rest of the holiday made up for that incident. When did you realise you had been pick pocketed?
@Robert – I suppose Western Union would be an option …
@Cormac – I realised it was gone when we were leaving the metro
What a crappy thing to happen! I don’t know what I’d have done if it had happened to me, but it’s good to have family close by!
Michele
It might seem a tad naff but I’d stick your vital plastic on a slim cash belt that you can tuck inside your trousers with your other vitals. You’d be very aware for someone trying to put their hand inside the waist of your trousers/jeans. http://url.ie/4hu
The other thing you can do is get a sort of underarm holster which you put underneath your shirt/T Shirt. It’s not quite so secure but if it’s hard for you to get at, then it’s even harder for a pickpocket. http://url.ie/4hv
This happened to my parents when they were coming back from Greece overland. They drove all the way to the south of France and had their stuff stolen from a hotel room. No-one would/could/wanted to help them, so somehow they managed to get the car and the little cash they had to last to the ferry to the UK where they could get help.
They were lucky. NO doubt there are many worse stories than this one.
R
@Donncha – very lucky! If it had happened in LA I’d have been in a lovely mess
@Ralph – I was thinking about getting something like that after this. I was also thinking of getting another credit card to use as a backup in the event of this kind of situation arising. I think AMEX might be a good option.
Sorry to hear about your misfortune – hope things improve!
Sorry to hear about your misfortune – hope things improve!
When i travel the country I bring at least 3 cards… I give two of them to my friends that way we would all have to be robbed in order loose all of are money… And I always keep a $100.00 bill in both of my socks…
@Niall – thanks 🙂 I’m flying back tomorrow night, so I’ll be able to get everything sorted when I get back
@Raymond – that might work if you’re travelling in a group, but I rarely do. I’ve tried putting cash in my socks in the past and just got blisters!
In a European country like that paying a hotel bill is an easy issue to solve. Explain to the hotel what has happened, call a friend in Ireland, and get them to call the hotel and settle the bill.
A friend was in Cusco, Peru and he was mugged, including taking several items of clothing – they even took his shoes, leaving him standing on a street at night with nothing, even his diabetic bracelet was taken. He went back to a nightclub he’d been at, and asked some Europeans he’d met there for money, and then once safely back in the hostel thanked his lucky stars for the sensible level of duplicate items he’d brought with him.
I had my video camera stolen, and my wallet pick-pocketed all the same day when I was in Madrid last spring.
I was beside myself with anger. Even if I turned my back for a second on a water bottle, it would get ripped off.
Gotta be more careful in the future.
Anil