Puglia, Calabria, and a little of Basilicata regions in the very south of Italy, explored on a leisurely car trip. Wonderful, unique, and mostly crowd-free, I say visit NOW before big-travel discovers (and ruins) the region.
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TripAdvisor rejected my review of a B&B in the south of Italy. I shouldn’t have cared, but I did. I had taken the time to advise other travelers about a property that fraudulently promises attributes it does not have or offer. My review of Residenza il Barone in Tropea, Italy, is now posted on this blog almost exactly as uploaded to TripAdvisor, with photos. It’s also posted in a popup here on Hotels.com, the platform on which I booked our stay.
Yes, I do care. I want to know what is objectionable about my review. What invalidates it? The replies I have received from TripAdvisor are a baffling series of robot responses that have nothing to do with my review.
We cannot publish your contribution as it does not meet our review guidelines. Please only provide reviews based on substantial experiences you’ve had while traveling and be sure to include enough detail in your review that other travelers will find your advice helpful.
TripAdvisor, July 23, 2019
Wait. I stayed three nights in this place! I wrote substantial things about it! Before I realized I was communicating with AI (artificial intelligence; or artificial idiot), I wrote asking:
Why should Residenza il Barone be allowed to falsely advertise and book an accommodation on TripAdvisor? They claim, but do not have:
Thiefhunter to TripAdvisor, July 23, 2019
• A balcony.
• Air conditioning
• Toiletries.
Then, after another series of nonsensical emails about departments and forwarding and… just look at these, all in different emails:
I finally got more emails that vaguely attempted actual reasons; however, they do not pertain to my situation:
To select my hotel in Tropea, Italy, I researched on TripAdvisor. When I found Residenza il Barone, I clicked the View Deal link. I was transported to Hotels.com, which offered only an “apartment” and listed its attributes, including balcony, bidet, air conditioning, breakfast available, and free toiletries. Residenza il Barone is a B&B; it was not clear to me that I was being shown a property that is not, in fact, a B&B.
I booked the “apartment,” understanding that it was in a separate building. However, it did not have a balcony, functioning air conditioning, bidet, breakfast, or toiletries (not even a bar of soap).
Whyyyyyyy should I care about this? The trip is over. We enjoyed Tropea, if not the accommodation. Yet, I continued to attempt contact with a responsible human at TripAdvisor. Finally, from TripAdvisor’s “content integrity department”:
We use an automated filtering system that pulls aside reviews that may require special attention or which are flagged as possibly violating our review guidelines. It appears that your review was flagged by this system because it doesn’t comply with our submission guidelines. As a result, I cannot publish your review — and because our process is proprietary to our business, unfortunately I can’t share any additional details about why your review was filtered.
TripAdvisor Content Integrity, August 1, 2019
TripAdvisor continued to shower me with emails containing useful and relevant (haha) reasons for the rejection of my review:
Whaaaaat? In the end, TripAdvisor advised me that “Your case is being handled by our highly-specialized team…” and “I’m afraid I can’t share information about our investigation process or the automated filters which aid us”.
Needless to say, my frustration had built too much to drop this without learning what triggered the rejection. I tried a phone call. Even that resulted in irrelevant robotic replies. Perhaps I’ll get a call back from a supervisor. If so, I’ll update this report.
An eleventh-hour phone call from a supervisor, an actual human one, shed some light. My review used the word apartment and I had put that word in quotation marks. That, believe it or not, was the whole problem.
Apparently, an accommodation called an “apartment” belongs in TripAdvisor’s “Vacation Rentals” section and is kicked out of the “Hotels” section. Obviously though, I want it attached to the hotel (or B&B) that sold me the apartment, in order to advise future travelers.
And, my use of quotation marks signified to the moderators (I say robots, they say humans) that my review includes hearsay.
The supervisor suggested that I resubmit my review simply describing it as a room. Hmmm, that’s tricky, considering that it is precisely the “apartment” that I mean to warn others about. I have tried. I submitted a review today without any quotation marks, and without the word “apartment” (except for one instance I missed!). We shall see if TripAdvisor accepts it. If so, I will link to it.
I sanitized my review and submitted it four more times. (I had missed an instance of the word apartment in one, and some quotation marks in another. In my final submission, I took the content-integrity supervisor’s advice and moved a different paragraph to the top “to trick the filters.” This last one took several days longer than usual to be rejected but, sure enough, it was, for the same old reason:
We noticed that your review for Residenza il Barone may not be submitted to the correct listing on TripAdvisor. A review must relate directly to the business to which it is submitted.
I give up. Especially in light of today’s BBC article, TripAdvisor defends itself in fake reviews row. “…in the case of one hotel in Jordan, TripAdvisor subsequently removed 730 of its five-star reviews.” In other words, TripAdvisor let 730 fake reviews pass through its brilliant AI filters. What chance does my legitimate review have if TripAdvisor’s artificial intelligence determines that mine is fraudulent? “We have fraud detection tools that are far more sophisticated…” said a UK based TripAdvisor official. Clearly, TripAdvisor needs some human oversight with the ability to bypass its filters.
Don’t be fooled into booking the “apartment.”
Ahhh, Tropea! that’s what all the Italians said when they heard that beach town would be the last stop on our journey through the sole of Italy. So beautiful!
It sure is. So popular is Tropea that the B&B I wanted to stay in was fully booked six weeks before our visit. This is the story of a “sister property” switch, a mean step-sister that does not live up to her sterling siblings, and false claims made by the property owner. There’s also a TripAdvisor mystery, which I’ll save for another post.
Bottom line first: when you go to book a room at Residenza Il Barone in Tropea, don’t be fooled into booking the “apartment”, as I was. Let me tell you about the apartment. Its location is excellent, over a restaurant at Piazza Tre Fontane, a few blocks away from the advertised location. You unlock a heavy door and ascend 14 steep stairs. This brings you into a drab and charmless room with adequate furniture: a dining table and chairs, a sofa, and a sideboard. There’s a mini-kitchen, too, with fridge, sink, and stove.
Poor lighting: In all this space, there is ONE lightbulb. The lamp, hanging over the table, was barely enough for me to do my paperwork.
No Air conditioning: The apartment claims to have air conditioning. And yes, it had a portable unit on wheels standing in the room, with an extension cord nearby. (See my photo.) It was 85° (see photo), so we turned it on. Cool air came out the front; hot air came out the large exhaust hose, which was loose on the apartment floor—inside! We went to visit the owner, Roberto. Yes, he said, you have to open the door. So we stuck the wide exhaust hose out the door, leaving the tall door open a good six inches—through which came plenty of heat. In actuality: the apartment does NOT have functional air-conditioning.
No Balcony: The apartment claims to have a balcony. It does not. It has a four-inch ledge. (See photo.)
No toiletries: The apartment claims to have “free toiletries.” It does not. Not even a single bar of soap.
Climb up to bed: The bed is up a very narrow spiral staircase. (See photos.) There are 14 stairs, each 15” wide. If you are anything larger than slim, if you are elderly, if you have the slightest problem with stairs, you will not make it up. You cannot bring a suitcase upstairs. In fact, it’s difficult to carry anything up the tight stairs. Think about this if you usually get up during the night. The bathroom is downstairs.
Hot sleep: There is no air conditioning upstairs. (Not that there is any downstairs, either…)
No breakfast: This is not a B&B. There is no breakfast.
Residenza Il Barone gets consistently good reviews. Watch out if you are routed to this B&B’s apartment as an alternative. It’s not in the same league and is sold with false claims.
Even more strange is TripAdvisor’s response to my review. I’ll write about that next.
Doug Nabhan, a lawyer in Richmond, Virginia, shared his experience:
It was 4pm in Naples’ central government plaza…
Two on a scooter.
Violently tackled from behind.
Stolen: my wallet and Rolex.
I am a very seasoned traveler having traveled to 80 countries, many of them dozens of times. I never go out with my big wallet holding my passport and I never travel with a real Rolex.
This time, in Naples, Italy [of all places! —ed.], I had violated both rules.
I had a real Rolex on because I had been in a business meeting in Rome and I had my big wallet because I was leaving to go back to Rome in the morning. I got up from a little pizza place and walked into the public square where all of municipal buildings are. It was broad daylight and there were army vehicles there.
I had walked only about ten yards from the restaurant when of course I heard a motorcycle coming and thought nothing of it. The next thing I knew he literally ran into me and knocked my feet out from under me. I landed on my face and hip. He grabbed my wallet and threw it to the guy on the bike and then wrestled my watch off. It happened in three for four seconds.
I went back to the Army vehicle where the officer would have seen it but for he was facing in the opposite direction. The officer was very kind and called the police who arrived in 30 seconds. The police were furious. They made some calls and had video of the incident in twenty minutes. I got to see it. The police were very impressive and I was convinced that if they found the guy they would beat him to death!
What really makes me mad is that I actually liked Naples and the people. Everyone thought I was crazy to like the place.
For a couple reasons I was lucky. Everything was insured and I did not get injured worse. I also had a solid gold crucifix on and a huge gold ring on.
This happened Easter weekend this year and I am still very jumpy. I’ve given it a lot of thought. The most important thing is simply not to have jewelry on that is expensive. Obviously they have spotters all over the place.
Why not dress some people like tourists with a wallet and a watch and set them up? Seems like an easy way to solve the crime wave.
Oh yes, Doug was so lucky. Sometimes, scooter-theft victims die from their brutal attacks.
Doug had responded to my survey on pickpocket incidents. Yes, he did file a police report after his scooter-theft in Naples. [I haven’t compiled results yet, but the great majority of survey respondents did not file police reports.] An experienced traveler, Doug’s incident shook him so badly that even months later here he is visiting Thiefhunters in Paradise to learn about pickpockets and scippatori, Italy’s famous scooter thieves.
When Bob Arno and I first began our thiefhunting, we too, broke our rules, just like Doug did (and in Naples, of all places!). We were walking in Quartieri Spagnoli during siesta; I had a purse, Bob wore a real Rolex. The streets were deserted. We didn’t hear the silent Vespa that rolled up behind us with the motor off until two thieves jumped off and tackled Bob while the third started the engine. I hit one thug over the head with my lethal umbrella (broke the umbrella—not the head!) while Bob bellowed “POLICIA!” Luckily, the trio absconded with nothing. Even now, more than 20 years later, I still flinch and turn at the sound of a scooter.
Scippatori go for handbags, Rolexes, phones, and any valuables they can quickly snatch. Their speed, desperation, and brutality make them especially dangerous. As Doug concluded, the best defense is to avoid looking like an attractive target. Don’t wear jewelry. Don’t carry a purse. Don’t brandish a phone or camera. Don’t have anything grabbable.
Scippatori are currently flourishing in London, where they’re called “moped thieves.” The bandits maneuver their scooters and motorcycles right up onto sidewalks, sometimes in slow motion, snatch phones and handbags, then weave through traffic to make quick getaways.
Doug suggests a sting operation to solve pickpocketing and scooter theft in Naples. Something of the sort was set up by a German newspaper in, I think, the 90s. They had a journalist walk along a street with a handbag chained to himself (or herself). Predictably, the bait was taken! But the backseat scooter-rider-thief who snatched the chained bag was jerked off the fleeing machine, injured—and sued the paper!
In Naples, the thieves are mostly locals and mostly known to police. Pickpocket has long been just one common—almost acceptable—profession in Naples. Police there, when approached by a victim, usually just throw up their hands and blow a puff of air, as if it’s simply another tourist tax. It’s interesting to learn that the police and army officers were responsive to Doug. Maybe, finally, they’re ready to crack down on low-level criminals. Or maybe Doug found a particularly sympathetic officer. Pickpocketing and tourist theft is so embedded in the culture, I wonder if it can ever change.
I know what Doug means about liking Naples. The people are incredibly warm. Even the pickpockets: first they steal from us (a fake wallet) then invite us for coffee! I call it the City of Hugs and Thugs.
Read How to Steal a Rolex.
Read Where to Carry Valuables
Read about the Thieves of Naples
Read Revelations of a Rolex Thief
Read about Watch-Stealing
Read about The City of Hugs and Thugs
Watch the National Geographic documentary Pickpocket King about thiefhunters Bob Arno and Bambi Vincent, filmed in Naples with professional career pickpockets.
Read about Scooter snatch theft in London Now
[dropcap letter=”H”]otel lobby baggage theft is common precisely because people think it is not. We tend to feel we’ve entered a safe zone when we enter our hotel lobby.
And of course, it feels that way: compared to the city on the other side of the door, it is cool (or warm, if it’s winter), quiet, and peaceful. All the hustle and bustle of the street disappears, the crowds, the traffic, honking, sirens, beggars, hawkers, weather. The lobby may have flowers, scent, soothing music, something to drink, smiles. Compared to the outdoors, the lobby is the very nirvana the hotel advertises.
Bob and I went to Rome recently for a film shoot with a German production company. We arrived two days before the film crew, but we happened to be in the lobby when they arrived. All ten of them entered with their luggage and crowded around the reception desk. Several tossed their backpacks into a corner while they checked in and introduced themselves to Bob and me. Eyeing those unguarded bags, I decided not to be a worrywart, a killjoy, and a hysteric. I thought I’d do my best to keep my eye on the bags.
The lobby was mildly chaotic with check-ins, greetings, and the driver back and forth with luggage. Next thing I knew, one of the crew lunged toward the luggage and grabbed the hand of a crouching thief.
It happened so fast it almost didn’t happen. The thief ran out the door empty-handed. Bob and I took off after him.
Bob ran faster and further than I did, and eventually caught a man who claimed to be a friend of the thief’s. We had not gotten a good look at the thief in the lobby—not that this guy knew that. Strangely, he didn’t object to my openly filming him. He also gave us his mobile phone number. Marco, a member of the crew who’d caught up with us, called the number right away to see if the number was correct. The friend-of-the-thief’s phone rang. None of us could identify the thief, so after talking for a while, we said goodbye.
Meanwhile, a police car had parked in front of our hotel. In the back seat was a newly-arrested pickpocket and outside of the car a victim was identifying the pickpocket to a policeman. That incident was totally unrelated to our attempted baggage theft. One of our crew used the opportunity to tell the officer about our almost-theft. We didn’t speak with the handcuffed pickpocket or the victim, but we wished we could have since we’d come to Rome to shoot a special on pickpocketing. What a coincidence!
The moral of the story is that baggage can’t be safely ignored in a hotel lobby. Not even through two glass doors, not even with a crowd of pals around, not with the receptionist facing the door, not even for a minute. But this story gets weirder. Much weirder!
At midnight, Marco’s phone rings. We’d had a good day of filming, a good dinner together, and we’re all standing in Piazza Barberini enjoying the night air and the energy from our successful shoot.
Marco doesn’t recognize the Italian phone number calling him but he answers his phone. His face darkens.
“I saw you and I know where you’re staying,” a man threatens in English. “I’m the guy who was in the back of the police car. In front of your hotel.”
What? None of us had ever spoken with that perp. We hadn’t given any of our phone numbers to anyone.
The thief continues: he knows who we are. We better not put any footage on Youtube. And he hangs up.
Marco is shaken. The rest of us are confused. Who was the man on the phone? He was certainly not the one who tried (and failed) to steal a crew member’s backpack in our hotel lobby. Neither was he the friend-of-the-thief. This guy was handcuffed in the back of a squad car during all that action.
Bob and I come up with a theory. A small band of marauding thieves had been prowling the area. As one attempted hotel lobby baggage theft, another pickpocketed a man on the street. A multidisciplinary criminal outfit on a self-enrichment offensive. Unspecialized opportunists on a hit-and-miss venture.
Bob phones the mystery thief. “Bob Arno, I know you,” the pickpocket says. “I’ve watched your film. I’m sitting here in a cafe with about 30 other pickpockets and we’ve all seen it.” No longer threatening; he’s positively jovial. He had heard the police officers talk about our tv shoot while he was being booked at the police station. He was let go (of course), and later reunited with his friends. The one whose phone Marco had called, and the one who had tried to steal a backpack.
Knowing Bob Arno from the National Geographic film Pickpocket King, the three paranoid thieves thought Bob had filmed the attempted baggage theft and did not want the footage put online.
Bob phoned the pickpocket once more:
The next day I call him, via Skype. We bond, and have a good conversation. And he spills some secrets: the size of their network, how they work and where, and how long they stay in one country. About thirty of them, all Moroccans, make up the gang. He is friendly and quite educated. This surprises me. This is nearly always how we start out: digging and drilling down for information. Gentle, easy question at first, slowly building some sort of rapport. Eventually we can map their entire operation, including girlfriends, snitches, fences, and on and on. Some of these efforts can take years, and they are not all successful.
All this resulting from a hotel lobby baggage theft that didn’t even happen. Read about Marianne, an actual victim of hotel lobby baggage theft.
Think you’d notice a bag thief prowling around your hotel lobby? You haven’t met “Pedro,” a very different practitioner of hotel lobby baggage theft. Pedro, a multi-talented thief working in Paris, told us:
If you want to make money, you have to go to the big hotels, the five-stars. You use psychology, so you’re not suspected. You must be well-dressed. If you look like a good man, the person working the doors doesn’t keep you out. You are a good man! You have to feel like a good man to avoid security.
Look and feel like a good man. By that Pedro means appearing respectable, unimpeachable. Unlike our bag-thief-wannabe in Rome, Pedro doesn’t snatch and dash. He stands right beside you—orders coffee beside you in the lobby bar. He’s a good actor—you don’t suspect him. You don’t raise your antennas because he’s near. In fact, your guard is down. You’re in the hotel lobby!
July 26th, 2015 was a typical hot summer day in Rome. My family and I decided to visit the Bhorgese Museum on the north end of the city. Having thoroughly enjoyed the gallery and garden, we made our way to Spagna metro stop to pick up the A line to back to the center of Rome.
This is when it got interesting. There was a throng of people waiting to get on the train. All of the warning signs were there that this was a pickpocketer’s dream. As we pushed through the doorway like some giant human amoeba, I recalled feeling a slight brush; a nudge, a hand, a map being pushed against me. Whatever it was, it made me instinctively put my hand on my iphone in my left pocket.
Imagine my surprise to find someone else’s fingers firmly levitating my iphone. I turned to the left and pushed back against the mousey devil behind me and told him to keep his hand off my phone. Sure enough, I noticed he had been poking an old tourist map at my waist, attempting to conceal his bad intentions.
I felt a surge of adrenaline and indignation, as I loudly proclaimed our fellow passenger a pickpocket, to which, all turned and gazed upon him (awkward moment).
Still bothered by his trickery, I thought to myself, time for a close-up picture of my failed pickpocketer friend. This, of course, made him uncomfortable. I noticed that he attempted to cover his face with the map. Leaving no doubt about his mal intent, he rapidly exited the train at the next stop to a smattering of applause.
I felt vindicated and empowered—He had failed! He picked the wrong target. Though I looked the part of average tourist with my baseball cap on, I’m probably the worst person to try this foolishness with. You see, I have spent the last 25 years studying the subtle details of those molecular pickpockets, Viruses, which take over cells that they slip into. I’m used to analyzing every last detail about small things.
He couldn’t have known that he picked the wrong guy. But since he is just like the viruses that I study, I couldn’t help but have many questions about this fellow; How? Why? Does he feel any moral dilemma with his craft? I even felt a bit of a thrill after foiling my pickpocketer. No doubt, I enjoy this high-stakes game. I’m ready to troll for the next one when I’m in Rome again.
Dr. Virus
P.S. Love your website. Keep it up. If the Rome Police won’t do anything about it, at least we can expose the threat. I think the best thing to do is to take pictures of these people and post them online.
Venice pickpockets are identified on a poster taped up all over Venice. Take a good look and you’ll realize it’s pretty hopeless to identify and avoid them by face alone. They look like any women. Italian? Maybe. Foreign tourist? Sure.
The crowds are thick and move slowly through the narrow Venetian alleys. Families with strollers are road blocks, and day-trippers laden with shopping bags bump along causing bottlenecks with their wide loads. Oglers, window-shoppers, umbrella-hoisting tour leaders of the timid, hoards of school children, and counterfeit bag sellers all slow the flow of traffic to less than a crawl.
Good news for the pickpocket! For a pickpocket, the only situation better than a tight crowd is a tight crowd that can’t move.
And yet, somehow, the wily, invisible thief insinuates herself in amongst the happy, distracted people, the hot and bothered people, and slips away like that elusive kernel in the popcorn bowl.
Pickpocketing is not a natural phenomenon in this island labyrinth. Without the crowds, it’s a city unsuitable for escape, and too expensive in which to live.
Venice has a vigilante-sort of group, developed in 1996, called “Cittadini non Distratti,” (Undistracted Citizens). Made up of retired businessmen, it had about 400 members some years ago when Bob and I met its founder. They are the eyes and ears against pickpockets, since the paid police do not do anything. Shop merchants and locals call one of ten “operatives” when they see pickpockets or suspicious characters. Operatives zoom over quickly and investigate, then call the police pickpocket squad (which used to be a force of six. Without checking, I’m willing to bet there are no dedicated officers left at all). Renato Serena, back then head of the group, had handcuffs, a sort-of badge he flashed, and the quasi-authority to arrest. Locals prefer to call the vigilante group over the police because of all the governmental red tape, reports, redundancy, going down to station.
The Municipale Police are only interested in Venice, Signore Serena told us, not in Italy or Europe. The squad can’t really arrest or jail; they “just open the door to the next city so the problem become’s someone else’s.”
Serena claimed that the pickpockets were 90% Romanians—even way back then. They can’t afford to live in Venice, but stay with friends in apartments on the mainland with the gang leader. The boss, he said, makes a lot of money and owns a restaurant and hotel back in Romania. After the leader was deported to Romania, the pickpocket gang was not as successful. The leader had guided the team, telling them when/where/who to hit.
The past few years, Cittadini non Distratti has complained that pickpocketing in Venice is getting much worse.
In July 2013, the frustrated group announced that they were photographing known pickpockets and posting their pictures around the city. According to recent news reports, Cittadini non Distratti is still active, still saving tourists from pickpockets.
Pickpocket paradise, but still requires nerve and patience
Luciano’s morning hit was tense. He had ridden the trams during what should have been rush-hour, but for the relative desertion of the business world. The city was shut, shop fronts literally shuttered and padlocked for the summer holidays. Luciano had tried and failed four times that first hour, backing off each attempt at the last second. Once the tram lurched and he bumped clumsily into his mark, and once he thought he was noticed by someone sitting nearby. The other two efforts just weren’t right—he couldn’t get the right angle.
Finally, he got close to a businessman in a sport coat. It was one of the last crowded trams of the morning. The mark was hanging onto a ceiling strap with one hand and trying to read a folded newspaper in his other. His jacket was hanging open. Luciano, hating face-to-face work, broke into a sweat. He used a floppy leather portfolio to shield his hand as he slid it against the breast pocket, where he’d seen the weight of a wallet.
His partner Stefano was so close Luciano could smell the espresso on the blocker’s breath. Yet, they never looked at one another. Luciano willed his hand to be steady and light. He willed the mark to keep reading. He hoped the leather [wallet] wouldn’t snag on a fold of fabric.
Pinching the wallet between his middle fingertip and the nail of his first finger, he slipped it out. It was a smooth move—textbook. He slid it down to thigh level along with his brown portfolio, and Stefano’s hand was ready as if by instinct. Stefano then plunged the wallet into his own deep pants pocket, and covered the bulge with a plastic grocery bag. At the next corner he stepped off the tram before it even stopped. Luciano stayed on two blocks longer, heart pounding, then got off and met Stefano midway, as usual.
Stefano had already dumped the leather. They split the proceeds equally.
“Why should the blocker get an equal share?” we had asked Luciano. “The skill is yours. The pressure is on you.”
“The risk is the same,” he answered.
Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Six: Public Transportation—Talk about Risky…
I was happy to discover that all three windows opened in my beautiful room at Hotel Luna Baglioni. So many hotels seal up bedroom windows, forcing guests to rely on air conditioning.
This hotel, right on the edge of Piazza San Marco in Venice, was near perfect in every way. (I won’t gripe about the concierge’s bad restaurant recommendations.) Snuggled within the thickest, most luxurious bed linens ever, flanked by Fortuny chandeliers, I could almost forgo the streets of Venice for the comfort and ambiance of this room. Almost.
The windows opened from the top, tipping down slightly—just enough to get a little breeze going. It was both the heavy curtains and the window hardware that prevented a wider opening.
I had a daily battle with housekeeping: I’d leave the windows and curtains open. Housekeeping would slip in and close the windows and curtains.
One day I returned after breakfast, re-opened the layers of curtains, and re-opened the window. Lo! It opened sideways, and all the way!
WTF??? Is this my room? I felt almost dizzy with confusion, having opened this very window repeatedly with a different outcome each time.
Closing and opening the window a few times, paying close attention, I figured it out. Notice the handles. Straight up opens the top. Turning the handle further to the horizontal position opens the window sideways.
What complicated hardware! I rushed around to try the other bedroom window and the one in the bathroom. Both worked the same way. I like it!
So, we’re standing at a bar near the train station, drinking espresso with pickpockets in Naples (how we got here is described in Part One of this story) right after they stole our wallet. Bob attempts to describe his profession. In a combination of French, English, and a little Italian, he tries to explain that he’s an entertainer, a performer, a stage pickpocket—which leads to…
“First let me explain,” Bob said, “I work in casinos. I do big operations. I also do theaters. I am an artiste.” He looked around for someone wearing a watch. “Let me show you.”
Bob reached a long arm out to a newcomer in the bar and lifted his watch, his customary proof of comradeship.
“Oh, bravo!” Mario and Tony laughed. “He took the bus driver’s watch! Good job, well done.” The driver got his watch back and faded into the background. Is it logical, or odd, that pickpockets and bus drivers hang out at the same bar?
“Me, I steal credit cards,” said Mario. “Visa—wait, wait, listen to this! You speak all these languages. If you work with me we’ll make so much money. I know all the cities. Florence, Venice, Viareggio…. We can work in Rome, Naples…”
Mario clearly did not capish Bob’s explanation about casinos, theaters, and artiste.
“But there’s no money in Naples!” Bob scoffed.
“No, no, here is good! Here I steal credit cards. Then I go to a shop and buy Rolexes. Rolex! You understand? Then I sell them, get money, and I share with my friends.”
Mario was convinced that Bob worked at casinos and theaters as a thief—a real artiste. It was only later that we realized the ambiguity of Bob’s earnest attempt at a job description. Unintentionally reinforcing the error, Bob laughed, bumped into Mario, and lifted the wallet from Mario’s back pocket.
“Oh, I see what you do! Multi-bravo!” Mario said, and in Neapolitan explained to the bartender what had happened. “He took my wallet, he’s pretty smart! We came in here to have coffee together.” Mario didn’t mention the other part, that he’d taken Bob’s wallet first. But the bartender probably knew that.
“I have some friends at shops who help with these things. We’d make a good team, you and me. If you work with me, I can give you each a thousand dollars a day!” Yes, each! “Have you been to Ischia? To Capri?”
Mario’s cellphone rang. “Bueno. I’m by the Vesuviana. Okay, I’m coming over there. Ciao.”
Mario and Tony spoke to each other for a moment in Neapolitan, trying to figure out why Bob does this. He does it as a hobby, they concluded, just for fun.
“Madam, you want to try?” Tony offered me a taste of his almond milk, which looked intriguing but, was I going to drink from a stranger’s glass? A known thief? Bob and I were concurrently on the trail of the “yellow bomb,” in which patient thieves in Turkey spike drinks with Nembitol or benzodiazepine, then rob the knocked-out victim.
“No, grazie.” Looking at Tony, I pointed to the t-shirt he had draped over his shoulder satchel. I pointed to the t-shirt and smiled, tapped my head like “I know,” then waggled my finger and shook my head. The international pantomime worked, and Tony laughed. “No good,” he agreed, and stuffed the shirt into the satchel. I hadn’t noticed the hanging shirt when we were on the tram together but, if I had, it would have signaled “pickpocket” in a big way.
“Tomorrow I go to my family,” Mario said. “My wife is in Calabria with the children. I am driving to Calabria this evening to be with them, and I’m coming back tomorrow.”
I tried to picture this bus-working wallet-thief heading off to a seaside vacation.
“Here is my mobile phone number,” Mario said, handing Bob a piece of paper. “Call me. Any day is good.”
“But we’re leaving Napoli,” Bob began.
Mario interrupted. “Listen to me properly. The 18th and 19th of this month I will be in Florence. Florence is very, very good. I know everything about it. I can find out right away if the credit cards are good or not. And you would be a perfect partner because you speak French, English—”
“And I speak German as well,” Bob said. Wait—was he buying into this?
“So you come with your wife and we’re going to take credit cards only for Rolex. We’ll work on the train that goes from Florence to Monaco to Paris.” Mario made a stealthy swiping motion. “There’s a lot of good stuff we can do together.”
“That’s difficult for me.”
“Listen. I get on the train that goes to these places, Vienna, Florence, Monaco, Paris. I go all day long and I take only credit cards. We make seven- to ten-thousand euros in one day. If you want, tomorrow, call me.”
Omigod. That’s nine- to thirteen-thousand dollars. Now I pictured Mario roaring down the highway in a Ferrari, adoring family eagerly awaiting the hard-working dad at their private summer villa.
“I can’t call you tomorrow, but maybe the day after. We’ll be in Venice for three days.”
“You work in Venice?” Mario looked surprised. “Okay, but you pay attention. Be careful there.”
“Yes, I know,” Bob said. By now it was too much to explain.
“If you do it properly, this is a fabulous job. Especially in Venice.”
“But there’s a vigilante group there.”
“I know, I’ve been there for Carnivale. I know the place.”
We said our good-byes and thanked Mario for the coffee.
“This is Napoli! You are my guest,” he said. Right, the same guest he’d tried to rip off half an hour ago. We ambled back to the buses, the four of us, splitting to opposite ends of the waiting passengers.
Bob and I, a bit stunned, wanted to get on the first bus that came along. As one pulled up and we moved toward the door, Mario shouted from thirty yards away: not that one, next one. Then he and Tony hopped on another and, presumably, went back to work.
Over coffee we had chided and joked with these high-end pickpockets, conversing easily in French. Having accidentally established ourselves as professional colleagues, we rode the misconception to our advantage, encouraging Mario to tell us about his world. As Mario spoke, I recorded him with a visible, hip-held video camera, which I tossed around casually. I was worried about being caught with the camera running. Bob and I were jolly and friendly, belying our nerves and disapproval. Tony was reserved, possibly due to his lack of French. Mario was enthusiastic and embracing, but was he feigning? We thought not.
Naples has a history steeped in crime and a people sincerely warm and jovial. It just might be the thievery capital of the world. I’m not sure, though; there are so many contenders. Myth and history tell us that it’s is the birthplace of pizza, but today this gritty, passionate, mob-infested city is better known for its pickpocketing. Who’s involved? Who lives in the underworld? Who’s on the fringes? It’s impossible for an outsider to know.
“Do you have any books on the Camorra crime family?” Bob asked later in a book shop.
“Camorra! The Camorra is a fantasy,” the shop owner replied dismissively. He was smiling though. In Naples, one only whispers about the Camorra.
Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Six: Public Transportation—Talk About Risky…