University of California’s official hotel for the parents of its college students is run by Radisson Hotels. Each room door at USC’s Radisson Hotel has this handsome door knocker. I call it a masterknocker.
Knock fast, boys. Knock-off.
Luggage self-check? There’s nothing new about self-checking in and getting boarding passes from an airport terminal. The KLM check-in machines at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport were the best I’ve ever used.
This was the first time I’ve ever completely checked my own luggage. In fact, we didn’t speak with a human at all before our flight.
The luggage self-check machine was actually sort of fun to use. Instructions on the large screen were clear and simple. “Scan the barcode on your boarding pass” gets you started. Then it asks how many bags you’re checking, and tells you how to place your bag on the platform in the little luggage cave.
The machine spits out a bag tag and tells how to attach it. No need to peel off a backing; the label is ready to stick. The luggage self-check machine then waits for you to do as it has instructed.
Once you’ve confirmed that your bag tag has been attached, the machine swallows your luggage.
A gate rolls down, the luggage platform rises and rotates, the back wall slides up, and the suitcase is dumped onto a conveyor belt.
The luggage self-check process is repeated for each bag. Finally, the machine prints out a baggage receipt.
Unanswered: What happens with an overweight bag? How is the payment done?
It’s all very quick and efficient. There was no waiting when I used the system. The machine communicates clearly and politely, which is about the best we can hope for. You won’t get a rude or stupid bag-checker, but you won’t get a friendly one, either.
And yes—all our bags arrived at our destination.
Just a reminder: don’t leave your purse in your grocery store shopping cart. It just takes a second while you choose a ripe avocado or compare product labels. You won’t know your wallet’s gone until you go to check out. Meanwhile. the shopping cart pickpocket will be long gone.
A certain brand of thief makes a career of this M.O. They stalk their marks and wait for the opportunity given them. Avoidance is simple: just keep your purse on your shoulder. Do not set it in the cart at all.
Here’s an example, but this happens everywhere. Especially, it seems, in Florida.
White-painted, white-draped “ghosts” are picking pockets in Stockholm’s most beautiful district, the national paper blared. Police are quoted: “The thieves are constantly finding new methods. Most often, prior to the theft, there is a distraction of some sort. These people are very aggressive and pushy which causes people to become quite perplexed.”
What? This sounded fishy to us. We’d noticed these people in Gamla Stan, Stockholm’s old town, all summer. Some approach with a begging hand or cup. Others appear abruptly and, oddly, lean in closely making kissy sounds, then bound off. Others offer to pose for photos.
How could these be pickpockets? Why would a pickpocket dress in such an obvious costume? Why would she face her victims so imploringly? How would the thief disappear once he’d stolen?
Sometimes they’re just a distraction, the police explained, according to Dagens Nyheter. They have partners who do the stealing.
So thiefhunters went looking for ourselves. Yep, they’re still there.
Costumed: dramatically.
Aggressive: yes.
Stealing: no.
Sometimes we saw partners, sometimes we didn’t. No matter—this M.O. did not make sense.
We tried to speak to a white-faced man in a sheet. He claimed to speak Italian but none of Bob’s rudimentary Italian worked. We’re pretty sure he’s from a country east of Italy. The man was cagey, but polite. He smiled blankly. He didn’t try to break away, but occasionally shook his cup at Bob, as if to remind us of his mission. If he understood anything we said, he didn’t let on.
Later, when approached by a begging white-clad female, I raised my camera and took her picture. She tilted her head and tipped her cup. I shot another few pictures and backed away a step. She advanced with a bland smile, apparently willing to continue this dance as long as it took.
But, of course they smiled and waited patiently. As we observed the ghosts in the act of begging, we saw almost half the people they approached drop coins into their cups! I’ve never done a survey of begging methods, but this seems like a high rate of return. These ghosts have a successful operation. They’ve found an M.O. that works. They’re smug.
We called on our friends in the Stockholm Police Department. “The white-robed and white-painted people in Stockholm are beggars. There is no evidence whatsoever that they are pickpockets,” Officer Rolf Edin said emphatically. Their pushiness may cause people to believe that they are pickpockets, he posited.
Also, the policeman said, some of these white-robed beggars do some sort of performance, which gathers a crowd. “And pickpockets are drawn to a crowd like flies to a sugar cube,” he said, but that doesn’t mean that the white-robed beggars are in collaboration with the thieves.
Then what of the big bold newspaper headline, Police warn of white-clad “‘ghost gang’?
“So far, it has not been possible to stop the ghost gang, which is believed to be behind several pickpocketing thefts,” the paper quoted police. Well, the named officer claims to have been misquoted, we were told.
Right. The paper ran the sensational headline. The writer chose to interpret every general statement about pickpocketing in Stockholm as an indictment against the mysterious white-dressed beggars. She didn’t answer my questions to her, except to acknowledge that she did speak with the officer she quoted. Somehow though, she got the story terribly wrong.
We surreptitiously tailed many of the white-dressed beggars as they looped the streets. In addition to the Stockholm police, we spoke with many people who work on the streets that the white-dressed beggars haunt. Shop owners, managers, living statues who see everything all day… They all said yes, they see the white-dressed beggars many times each day. No they haven’t seen them steal, haven’t seen any problem, haven’t had any complaints. Most of them had not even seen the accusation in the newspaper, though one had seen the suspicion raised in a tv news report.
Thiefhunters’ take: Nope. The white-dressed beggars are not pickpockets. They’re beggars. Why are they dressed in white? Good question. But why call them “ghosts”? One is wearing a wedding dress and veil. Another is in rainbow clown hair, for goodness sake. Answer: “Ghost Pickpockets” is a great headline! It sells papers.
The white-dressed beggars who jump into your face are certainly irritating; but pickpockets they are not.
Strange signage in Norrtälje, Sweden.
We all know what the red diagonal means. What do we make of this combination?
This was a regular-looking street sign on an ordinary road. After seeing this sign, I did notice the same sign elsewhere, without the red diagonal. And no, the red was not graffitied.
Any other ideas as to the meaning of this odd sign? Swedes: what do you say?
Pickpockets in Pisa are so active we don’t even have to go looking for them. They’re right there. Are they everywhere? It seems so!
We arrived by train, stepped out of the station, and filmed the growing crowd at the bus stop across the street where the “red” bus stops before going to the Leaning Tower.
By the time the light changed and we crossed the street, the bus had arrived. Everyone heading for the Leaning Tower mobbed the bus doors. We panned our camera across the scene and inadvertently filmed a pickpocketing-in-progress.
What we got on camera took six seconds. The victim was a Japanese woman on her way to board the bus. Her husband and four children were somewhat behind her.
This is the most common scenario. The pickpocket hits during the boarding, hoping that you’ll get on the bus and he/she won’t, putting instant distance between you and him/her.
In this case, the victim felt something—she wasn’t sure what—so didn’t board.
The pickpockets were a girl and a woman. They crowded in behind the Japanese victim, who felt something and momentarily clutched her bag. At this point, analyzing the movements of the thieves on the video we got, we can only infer that the older woman dipped into the victim’s gaping shoulder bag, took the wallet, and extracted the cash from it. The victim whipped around as the pickpockets strolled away with exaggerated nonchalance. The victim hadn’t identified who the thieves were—or if there were thieves at all.
“Did they steal from you?” Bob asked, still filming.
The victim was utterly baffled. The thieves had taken her wallet, extracted all the cash, and returned the wallet.
“Why would they return it,” she wondered. She repeatedly opened her wallet to inspect the contents in disbelief. The bus departed while she and her family huddled, trying to understand what had just happened.
The victim said she had just purchased bus tickets for her family, and therefore knew that she’d had about a hundred euros. She said that that was the reason she hadn’t yet zipped her bag closed.
So why would the pickpocket return the victim’s wallet with all its credit cards and ID? We’re hearing of that occurance more and more. Yet, we know that all those documents can be monetized. They could be money in the hand of the thief.
Well, if you get your wallet back, and all its contents except the cash, you’re much less likely to bother filing a police report. You know a police report will take hours out of your day and you know you’ll never get your cash back. So what’s the point?
Meanwhile, the pickpockets in Pisa aren’t fingered. They don’t get arrested or fined. And that’s one more incident that never makes it into statistics. The city’s happy about that, and so are the police. If the pickpocket didn’t steal more than €400, and didn’t steal your property (wallet, documents), nothing will happen to her. It’s as if it never happened. That’s why I say that pickpockets are an invisible species.
“Pickpockets are an enigmatic breed. Most are never seen or felt by their victims—or anyone else. Mystery men and women (and boys and girls) moving freely among us, they’re as good as invisible. So how can they be quantified?”
And so, pickpocketing remains the travel industry’s dirty little secret. Unreported incidents = low statistics. And pickpocketing retains the ridiculous label: “petty theft.
Sigh.
We had a huge suite at the Eurostars Grand Marina Hotel in Barcelona. Surrounding the spacious bedroom, there was a sitting room, an office, a giant closet full of blond wood drawers and cabinets, and a multi-room bathroom. The suite had 12 sliding doors within it.
That’s why I had to laugh when I found the soap. Look how tiny it is! About an inch by an inch and a half!
To be fair, I should say that the personal products in the bathroom were plentiful, of high quality, and even tied up with a bow. But what made the strongest impression on me? The ridiculous bar of soap!
This is my view out the taxi window. Or rather, this is my view OF the taxi window. I’m outraged. This is the entire window!
Over-reacting? This is in Stockholm, one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I’m just arriving and this is what I see of the city. No gorgeous buildings, no bridges, no sparkling water. And then I’m leaving, on my way to the airport, anticipating a final look at fir trees and birches that seem to grow right out of the granite base of Sweden, and the infinite shades of green that define the countryside. Maybe I’m a first-time visitor—and this is my first impression of Swedish hospitality!
I’m talking to you, TaxiKurir. For a $100-ride to or from the airport, I want my view. I make the trip often—ten or more times every summer and several in between. So maybe you’ll feel my absence when I travel with your competitors instead. Right. I know you won’t.
Believe it or not, the next TaxiKurir cab I took had even less view out the taxi window. In place of the large “F” sticker was an even larger square one. Wondering about the window on the opposite side? Same huge stickers. No view out of either window.
With the solid headrest in front of me and windows obliterated left and right, I’m feeling a bit claustrophobic back here. TaxiKurir is not the only cab company in Stockholm.
What are they thinking?
Answer: they’re not.
The Pigeon Poop Pickpocket Ploy as perpetrated in Barcelona is devious. We discover the original Pigeon Poop Perp, who pretends to offer goodness. In response, naturally, his victims trust.
The leisurely ploy is perpetrated by the “clean-you-off-clean-you-out” good samaritan impostor. Bob and I met many of his victims before we finally found him—or rather, he found us.
We’d been staking out a suspicious trio at Temple de la Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi’s spectacular cathedral and Barcelona’s number one tourist attraction. It was a long amble back to La Rambla. We zigzagged south and west block by block, with no particular pattern. It was a pleasant route we invented, strolling past fabulous architecture, under lush green trees, while a cool wind blew and pigeons cooed.
At the corner of Consell de Cent and Girona we saw a beautifully ornate pastry shop facade which reminded us of one in Palma de Mallorca. We decided we’d peek in, see if they served coffee. We were still debating and postulating about the pickpocket team at La Sagrada Familia as we crossed the street in front of the pasticeria.
As I stepped up onto the curb I felt a slight wetness on the back of my knee below the hem of my skirt, as if I had splashed in a puddle. Not impossible, since it had rained recently. The rain had actually been the day before, but I just sort of knew it had rained, in the back of my mind, without really thinking about it.
Reflex made me glance into the street for the source puddle but in that same instant I knew there was no puddle. I asked Bob to look at my back but I knew what it was. I was horrified and exalted simultaneously. We were about to meet a charlatan, a gentleman thief with a fiction, an ersatz Samaritan and the most elusive of pickpockets.
Bob confirmed my disgusted suspicion: I had thick blobs of brown yuck on the back of my clothes, and so did Bob.
In that instant of offended confusion, while we admired each other’s backsides and laughed and grimaced, before we could organize our thoughts in that tenth of a minute, a man in shorts swept up to us, map in hand, sunglassed and baseball capped.
“Iy, look,” he pointed out. We swung around. “Bird, bird.”
Where did he come from? Out of the blue, it seemed. Still, we knew who he was. We knew what he was.
“Come, I help,” he offered with compassion and authority, ushering us into the pastry shop we’d been headed for. He already had a neat pack of Kleenex tissues in one hand, a small bottle of Evian in the other. He was more prepared than we had expected. Bob put his video in record.
Employees didn’t seem surprised in the pastry shop. They observed our intrusion with the vague interest of ranch hands regarding mating dogs. The man-in-shorts pressed a tissue into Bob’s hand and turned me around by the arm.
“You clean,” he said to Bob politely but insistently, indicating my back. He didn’t want to appear unseemly. You clean her and I’ll clean you—out. That was the idea. We’d heard the story many times from victims. While the husband cleans the wife, the man-in-shorts cleans the husband. Rather, he pretends to clean the husband. What he cleans is the pockets. And disappears before you know it.
Neither of us were good researchers this time: I didn’t cooperate fully, out of repulsion. And Bob was too busy filming to do his part. He was supposed to clean me off. But every time the impostor coached Bob in his role, Bob just said okay, fussed with his new camera, and failed to come to the aid of his wife. How could he videotape the scam if he were a participant? But how could the game continue without all the players?
Our man-in-shorts got frustrated and tried to slip away. We managed to waylay him though, outside the shop. We tried to get him to talk to us, to show us his squirt contraption, to tell us where he’s from. He was insistent about no video, no camera, but he didn’t rush off too obviously. He backed away slowly, trying not to look suspicious. Finally, he broke into a little trot and dashed into the handy metro stairway. Was its proximity coincidental? We think not.
Barcelona police, it turned out, had been looking for the man-in-shorts for years. They knew his M.O., his territory, and that he was Peruvian. And they knew he always wore shorts. That was it. They now had his scam and his face on video.
We walked back toward La Rambla looking over our shoulders, hyper-observant. Bob and I disagree on the participation of the pastry shop people. I say they were in on it. I say the man-in-shorts buys his bread there and always leaves a hefty tip. I say they were awfully quick to bring out a roll of paper towels and laundry detergent when the man-in-shorts left. I say everyone’s a suspect. Bob says it’s impossible, they couldn’t be in on it. It just happened to be the corner where opportunity struck for the man-in-shorts. He couldn’t do his thing on only one corner in all the city.
J. S. Brody, an advertising executive in New York City, was a victim of the man-in-shorts. He remembers being astonished at the amount of bird droppings on his backside and his mother’s. “What do you have here, eagles?” he’d asked. The pigeon poop pickpocket ploy had taken place several blocks away from the pasticeria. For the clean-up operation, the pigeon-poop practitioner had drawn them into the lobby of an apartment house. So much for my theory on location.
Exactly ten years later—to the week!—Bob and I were strolling in the same neighborhood when we were squirted once again. We were astonished to see recognize the very same pigeon poop pickpocket. Read about our reunion with the pigeon poop pickpocket.
Adapted from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Seven: Scams—By the Devious Strategist
A young pickpocket tries to take the wallet of a man being frisked by a police officer in downtown Rio. According to Globo, the man was accused of having stolen from a woman, which he denied when the police officer arrived. The boy attempted to steal the man’s wallet three times. The minor was arrested.
The photo is too good. So good it looks set up, or posed. But I’ve seen the desperation of some pickpockets. I’ve seen outlandish, brazen attempts. So for now, I choose to think the photographer got a lucky shot of a real theft, or theft attempt.
This is from G1 Fotos on globo.com from September 4, 2013. It’s the fourth image in the slideshow.