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[booty]

Pickpocketing is rife in these cities. Almost everyone I know has either been robbed or had an attempted robbery on them. I was unfortunately robbed three times from my front pocket and my inside coat pocket. The Metro is also dodgy during the rush hour as people cram on the trains to get to work. They are professionals and the cities are getting worse.
Is it true that Madrid, Rome and Barcelona are the worst cities for these verminous scoundrels?

[Moore]

Wow: from your front pocket - those people are evil!

I think Madrid is a bit better than Barcelona: after 5 years here I only suffered one very clumsy attempts at a pickpocketing (a couple of lads slapping me on the back asking me if I was English and feeling for my wallet in my back pocket at the same time). I just laughed that off and told them my cash was in my front pocket and by that time of night there was only my taxi fare left anyway.

The other one was a bit more alarming going up calle Preciados (the main High street of Madrid) very late at night after more than a couple of beers, I got an attempted mugging with the South American strangle-mugging thing where they try and grab you with their arms round the back of your neck and pincer you until you lose consciousness: luckily I managed to keep my lungs full of air while yelling my head off and finally got his arms off me and could run away. That one left me very shaken as I'm not the smallest person I know and normally feel quite safe walking around most places at night. A good friend of mine suffered the same fate a few months later, even more surprising as he's a six foot five Austrian in very good shape and they got him for everything he had.

That said, the last time I visited Barcelona for 2 days, on day one someone tried to rob my camera, and on day two someone tried to mug me going back to my hotel, so that really put me off the place.

The moral of the story is: always take a taxi home if it's late and you0ve had a few drinks - it's not that expensive. As for pickpocketing, if for any reason you do lose your credit card, just go to the nearest cash machine (ATM) and the emergency cancellation numbers are usually displayed on the screen, so at least you won't get saddled with a huge bill.

Hope this helps somebody

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[SirKirby]

[El_Che]

valencia is also rife with pickpockets and bag snatchers. whilst, i've been lucky to not have been a victim myself, i know plenty of others who have.

i would recommend that when using cash machines at night you lock yourself inside the bank before carrying out a transaction. many crooks will follow you in very quietly and once you have entered your PIN, distract you and withdraw money before running off.

[jonniboy]

[spiral78]

Do you guys think that pickpocketers also tend to target people in groups (large or small?). It seems to me that all the pickpocketing horror stories I know from Prague - and there are many - happened to people who were distracted by some kind of socializiation, and more rarely to loners or pairs (we have no beach here )

[Moore]

Don't know about pickpockets, but sounds plausible.

I did actually see a bag snatcher get caught once though: we were watching an international football match in a very crowded Irish bar in Tribunal when a girl at the back leapt up yelling "oi, he's nicked that girls bag!" and a mate of mate who was standing by the door managed to grab the fleeing (amazingly fast in a mad crowded bar) figure and pinned him up again the wall by his neck. It turned out to be a very slightly built, well dressed, well kept old Spanish bloke. My mate more or less confusedly grabbed the bag back and kicked him out of the door, any pickpocket revenge fantasies evaporating when compared with the idea of hitting an old man.

Anyone with the b*lls to walk into a bar packed to the ceiling with slightly drunk and lout-ish looking English lads and snatch a bag certainly deserves some sort of twisted credit though.

_________________________________________________________________________
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[wildchild]

upon my first visit to Madrid, going down the escalators of the metro, I looked back up the escalators and made eye contact with two young gitanas who apparently had been following us. once eye contact was made, they gave up.

Later, in Pamplona for the San Fermines, I saw a couple robbed in the park as they were lying, kissing. such a sensation, information overload, you become unaware of your surroundings, eh? the guy simply walked up, grabbed the bag, walked away.

then, that night, following the marching bands, everyone singing and dancing together as we wormed our way through the streets, one guy behind me put his hands on my shoulders, smiling, dancing, we formed the snake. The guy behind him reached around him and put his hands in my pockets. luckily, he didn't get anything.

finally, in the San Francisco barrio (very sketchy)of Bilbao, after way too many drinks, I decided to leave on my own, using the fa�ades of the buildings to keep me upright as I walked. needles to say, it wasn't long before I was grabbed, struggled free, fell, and saw a huge screwdriver on the ground. Next thing, the guy is gone and so was my wallet. luckily not a big loss.

[spiral78]

We've had two encounters with young (gypsy) girls when we were in Spain on holiday. They had newspapers they were ostensibly trying to hawk and they run the papers right up against you, and their hands go into pockets before you can blink.

The thing they don't count on is a male actually shoving them. They're really just little girls....

It's a crappy set-up.

My friends have had cell phones stolen from coat pockets when the coats are on the backs of chairs in a restaurant or pub.

I guess there are a million ways to accomplish this

[SirKirby]

Don't draw attention to yourself and/or look an easy target...

Don't look like a tourist, don't publicly look at large foldout street maps, don't talk very loudly in English (or Japanese or whatever...), don't get yourself so pissed you don't really know what you're doing, don't leave your handbag on the back of a chair in a bar or in an Internet cafe...

Walk down the street in any big city and ask yourself if you were going to make a living bag-snatching, who would you target...? Don't look or behave like them!

Spain is no worse than any other country, nor are Barcelona or Madrid worse than any other tourist destination in Spain.

[spiral78]

I agree with Sir Kirby. Pickpockets are endemic in any big city, and it's not fair to paint Spain, or Madrid or Barca, as worse than any other place.

And, good general advice.

Any way you draw attention to yourself increases the risk.

[mdk]

There is Barcelona and then there is Spain...

I have walked through northern Spain and now through Extremadura and Castille. I would be very surprised to have any problem in these places. Picking pockets is just not Spanish. You guys are being plagued by "foreigners" just as I was the many times I have gotten ripped off in those places.

Carry a pouch inside your clothes for stuff you don�t want stolen.

[sheikh radlinrol]

[MO39]

Yes, but was the perp who picked your pocket Spanish?

[sheikh radlinrol]