Four cows appeared like a mirage, sizzling in the squiggly heat waves off the never-ending road. Our hot, monotonous drive across Egypt had dulled my mind. Beige and blue miles of litter-strewn nothingness and finally—I’m hallucinating? Had Egypt Air not lost our luggage and required hours of driving back and forth, I’d never have seen the cows.
Four cows squashed sideways in the bed of a pickup, bouncing down the highway, foaming at the mouth from… anxiety? thirst? delirium? Our driver told us they’d be driven 300 kilometers. He didn’t say they’d arrive alive.
On the set before filming this live segment for ABC News, Bob Arno stole a wallet from one of the camera operators. The producers asked him to do it.
Bob snuck away with the wallet, brandishing it to the other nearby staff who’d gaped as the theft occurred. They were unaware of Bob’s topic—theft and scams—or at least of his skills.
Almost simultaneously, a uniformed security guard blasted into the studio—the scene of the crime—having witnessed the thief on his monitor.
“He was ready to throw your criminal butt out of our studio,” laughed host Susan Casper.
“We can’t export your found lost-luggage because it contains an artificial hand which requires the permission of the ministry of health.”
I’m starting with the punchline of our recent Egypt Air debacle. “Shall we retain the artificial hand and release your bag?”
Lost luggage
We’d flown to Cairo and on to Hurghada, where only two of our bags made it. The lost case contained our stage props, including the gypsy costume you see in the photos. I wear a doll in a sling, which appears to be supported by what is actually a fake arm. The arm is sewn to the doll.
Apparently Egypt’s ministry of health was not concerned about exporting an artificial child.
The missing prop bag was still in Cairo, Egypt Air officials said, and would arrive on the next flight to Hurghada. So next morning, we made the hour-long trip back to the airport and—of course—no luggage.
Promises… delays…. Finally, the bag arrived in Hurghada. A driver was sent to pick it up. It took too long though. By then we were down to the wire. The driver, finally on his way back with the bag, gave his ETA as 20 minutes. But we were forced to move on. We could not wait. After all, we’d come to perform and the show must go on. Props or no props.
The suitcase was passed to DHL, who was to ship it to Dubai, the next stop on our Middle East tour.
“We need a detailed list of what the case contains,” DHL now requested. Our exhaustive reply included “Fake female arm with jewelry and sleeve (stage prop).”
DHL piddled around with lazy, ineffective emails and before they were ready to ship, we’d left Dubai, too. It was an unfunny comedy of errors, and we were beginning to wonder if we’d ever see our bag again. Instructions were revised: DHL must now ship the bag to the U.S.
We were already incredulous over this real-life display of inefficiency–and then the punchline came. We figure someone was fishing for baksheesh. “After inspection, we found item like artificial hand. We can’t export artificial hand.”
OMG! Seriously? Are we supposed to offer a bribe, or what? Was this extortion? Was Egypt accusing us of an illegal arms export?
I wrote back indignant: “This is NOT an artificial hand, it is a hollow PLASTIC PROP for our show!” I pointed out that the “fake female arm” was number 22 on the proforma invoice I had submitted, and attached a photo of myself with the artificial hand holding the artificial child.
And that was it. The bag showed up at our house the day after we returned home.
More lost luggage
But that’s not all. We flew home on Qatar Airways. We checked our three bags to our final U.S. destination. Upon landing in Houston, we claimed our three bags, took them through customs, and re-checked them for our US Airways flight. All three went missing!
Two days later, we had them back. So I’m not complaining. Just reporting an extreme travel farce. Travel is glamourous!
It’s not that we’re any less savvy. It’s the darn handbag. It’s simply easier for a pickpocket to slip his fingers into a bag than into a pocket. Or worse, to grab the whole bag. Our research proves it: pickpockets prefer women!
Anti-Theft Tips for Women
Don’t send signals that you’re worth the thief’s effort. Forget the flashy jewelry when you’re out and about. Knock-off watches and costume jewelry are no better; the thief can’t tell they’re fake.
Public restrooms: Rude, but true: you may or may not notice a hand reach over the door and snag your bag off the hook at the most inopportune moment. Loop it around the hook and keep your eye on it. Dropped coins in the stall beside could be a distraction ruse.
If you carry a purse, try to give it nerve endings: hold it snug against your body, never let it stick out behind you, especially never let it stick out behind you open.
Use a wide-strapped bag and wear the strap diagonally across your chest, or a short-strapped one with the purse tucked under your arm.
Keep your bag closed properly. If it has a flap, wear the flap against your body.
Keep your wallet at the bottom of your purse.
Never hang your purse on the back of a chair in a public place, where it’s out of your sight. Keep it on your lap. If you must put it on the floor, tuck the strap under your thigh, or put the chair leg through it.
Be sure your purse is in front of you as you enter revolving doors, board trains, etc.
Never leave your purse in a shopping cart or baby stroller.
Never set your purse down in a shop so you can turn your attention elsewhere.
To prevent a drive-by bag snatch, walk far from the curb, on the side of the street towards traffic.
If your bag is snatched, let it go. It may be impossible to fight the instinct to hold on, but try to ingrain that thought. You can get seriously hurt in a bag snatch.
Secure your fanny pack zippers with paperclips, or anything to slow a thief.
Fanny packs may not be the height of fashion, but they are very safe if you secure the zippers, which are easily opened by practiced thieves. Use a safety pin, a paperclip fastened to a rubberband around the belt strap, or string. Anything to make opening the zipper more difficult.Hotel lobbies are not secure enough to leave bags unguarded.
Business travelers:
Don’t leave your purse, laptop, or briefcase unguarded at hotel breakfast buffets. “Breakfast thieves” specialize in stealing these at upscale hotels.
Always make sure your hotel room door closes completely when you leave.
Do not carry your electronic card key in its folder marked with your room number.
In nightclubs, do not leave your drink unattended. Drink-drugging is a growing problem.
Just about now, millions of people are thinking about summer travel. For many, it will be foreign travel. Novice or expert, it doesn’t hurt to review a few travel safety tips. Thefts everywhere are on the increase. And you want a theft-proof vacation, right?
Make these theft-thwarter tips a practice whether you’re far away or not so far, and you’re much less likely to become a sad statistic.
Bags
•Count them often and watch that everything is loaded into your taxi. Sometimes they’re not.
•Keep an eye on them in the hotel lobby; anyone can walk in and grab them when you’re not paying attention. It happens.
•Assess the risks of hotel lobby luggage storage before taking advantage of the service. Is it a locked room? Are they just in a heap in the lobby? Is there free access to them?
•Be aware that carry-on allowance may be severely limited on flights originating outside of America. Roll-ons allowed within the U.S. may be required to fly cargo on foreign flights. Choose a lockable carry-on, or keep a canvas tote handy to shift your valuables and necessities into if your bag is taken away for cargo.
Smartphones
The young pickpocket tries to nab the phone one-handed under his paper. (Frame grab from video.)
•Do not leave valuables sitting exposed on a café table. Thieves can swipe smartphones as swiftly as a magician.
•Don’t flaunt it, or your iPad. These are highly valuable swipeables, and “Apple-picking,” when these electronics are snatched from users’ hands, is becoming more frequent and more dangerous.
ATMs
•Cover your fingers as you enter your PIN.
•Do not become distracted by activity around you. Fake fights are sometimes staged, or you might be asked for assistance.
Hotel Rooms
•Do not carry your electronic card key in its folder marked with your room number.
•Check outside window access before leaving your window open when you’re gone or asleep. Do a hotel room security check.
•Always make sure your door closes completely when you leave your room.
•Remind yourself to empty the safe with a note in your shoe.
Public Transportation
•The moments of entering and exiting crowded public transportation are your most vulnerable and a thief’s most rewarding.
•If you’re in a crowd, be particularly aware of your valuables. Suspect bumps or jostles: they may be a distraction technique.
•Do not leave your bag unattended on a train. Do not leave it on luggage racks at the end of the carriage. Be aware of it if you place it on an overhead rack.
•If you’re pickpocketed in a crowd, try demanding the return of your item. It might mysteriously hit the floor. Shout out, too, on the off chance an undercover police officer is nearby.
A Lisbon pickpocket demonstrates how he steals a wallet.The pigeon poop perp squirts fake bird droppings on his mark, then points it out and offers to clean it off—while he cleans the victim out.
Pockets
•No, they’re not safe for valuables.
•Yes, buttons, zippers, and velcro give a fraction of a drop of extra protection in that they take the pickpocket an extra second.
•Use under-clothes pouches to store your stuff safely. Or try Stashitware, underpants with a safe pocket.
•Remove valuables from the pockets of a jacket before hanging it on the back of a chair.
Old Tricks
•Escalators: Recognize the Pile-Up-Pick. The person in front of you drops something just as the escalator ends, bends to pick it up and causes a pile-up. As people compress in the crash, the person behind you picks your pocket.
•Helpful cleaners: Heads up if you hear “something dirty got on you—let me help you clean it off.” He’ll clean you out.
•Electronic equipment surreptitiously offered on street corners is tempting, but you’ll walk away with a block of wood, and wonder how it happened. Heads up on the bait-and-switch scam.
•You cannot win pavement wagers. The three-shell game, three-card monte and others are designed to extract your money. The operator is in complete control and fellow players are shills.
•If you buy art or furniture to have shipped home by the store, take a picture of it just to be sure you get the right items. The very act of photographing seems to increase your odds.
Four pickpockets at work on a crowded tram.
Bottom Line
•Don’t attract thieves by looking like a wealthy tourist. Don’t wear flashy jewelry. Or replicas—the thief can’t tell your Rolex is fake or your jewelry is costume. Leave it in your hotel.
•You can never obtain 100% total security, but aim for a compromise that is comfortable for your travel style.
•Remember: the idea is to increase your awareness and decrease the opportunities for an unfortunate incident.
Have a great summer and a theft-proof vacation! And happy travels!
“Horn OK Please,” in one form or another, is written prominently on the back of almost every truck—large or small—in Mumbai. The signs intrigued me. Why is the horn okay? What’s the point of the invitation? Mumbai is a constant cacophony of honking without additional encouragement—or maybe because of it.
Indian truckChicken truckFree mortuary van in Chennai, India
What I learned, finally, after years of silent, befuddled amusement, is that “horn ok please” actually means “please do not use your horn.”
You know: yes means no.
Even the chicken truck says “Horn OK Please.” Only the free mortuary van lacks the sign, due to its protruding casket.
Pickpockets, thieves, and con artists aren’t to be blamed for all losses. When you travel, don’t rip yourself off due to ignorance or naiveté.
So you’ve done your research, studied up on foreign currency, and made the long-awaited journey to elsewhere. After touchdown, you trudge through immigration with no surprises. You have whatever visas are required, perhaps your yellow immunization card, onwards tickets, proof of transfer tax or visa fees paid, whatever foreign officials can throw at you. Now you need a taxi.
Who knows if you’ll find an organized taxi queue or a pack of hustlers? Chances are, your research has suggested that you only use official taxis and agree on a rate before stepping in. Taxis can be a traveler’s first rip-off. Try to get a vague idea of what the charge should be, airport to hotel. Your hotel may be able to tell you via email before you leave home, or your travel agent; at the least, ask at an information booth in the airport when you arrive. Still, you can’t always protect yourself from unscrupulous practices.
For example: the tired traveler flies into flower-filled Changi Airport and instantly feels at ease. It’s neat, clean, functional, and aesthetic. Rules are adhered to in Singapore. The streets are as safe to walk as the tap water is to drink. What sort of thief can operate in such an ostensive utopia?
The traveler collects his luggage and changes a little money at the airport booth, then jumps into a taxi to his hotel. “Fifteen dollars,” the driver might say as he pulls up to Raffles or the Regent or the Mandarin; and in most cases, the visitor pays and that is that.
Many American tourists’ first sense of Singapore is not at all that of an exotic Oriental land, but rather, that the place resembles the modern city in which they live. Therefore, a surprising number of American tourists happily, ignorantly, accidentally pay their taxi fare in U.S. dollars. What taxi driver will refuse an instant bonus of thirty percent? That tourist has been self-ripped, so to say, and the driver is hardly to blame.
More cunning, though, is the driver or shop clerk who recognizes your naiveté and slips some worthless or worth-less money into your change. This happened to me once in Singapore. A taxi driver put a few Malaysian bills into the stack of Singapore bills he gave me as change. The pink Malaysian bills look remarkably similar to the pink Singaporean ten-dollar notes. So similar, in fact, that the passing of them could have been just an accident. But the ten-ringgit Malaysian notes were worth less than half the value of the Singaporean tens.
Other self-rips include pavement wagers, which I’ll discuss later. These include the three-shell game and three-card-monte. Like casino games, you bet against a house advantage. Unlike casino games, you cannot win.
I’ve already described a prevalent, greed-based self-rip called the bait-and-switch scam. This one occurs when you’re offered a deal too good to be true, a camera, for example, at such an irresistible price. You think it might be stolen, but that’s a detail you just don’t want to know. You test and scrutinize the item, you hem and haw, you buy it, and you get self-ripped. Read more on bait-and-switch.
What about tipping policies—are you prepared? Do taxis and waiters expect a hefty twenty percent? Do locals simply round up to the whole number? Are tips considered an insult? Are they included in the bill? Are they included in the bill with a blank total on the credit card slip, encouraging you to not notice and add more (or, to be fair, allowing you to lessen the included tip)? Tipping ignorance may lead you to self-rips. The State Department travel site won’t help you here, but internet research, travel guidebooks, and some great apps will.
Get out and travel! Explore our fascinating world…
Bob Arno and I are travel enthusiasts. We adore the variety of London one day, the next Johannesburg, Mumbai, New York, Florence, Sydney, Cairo, Buenos Aires… all in a year’s work. The last thing we want is to frighten travelers.
We believe that awareness and forewarning put a serious dent in the number of needless thefts that occur. One wallet stolen: it’s a small crime, not devastating, and its likelihood and consequences do not spontaneously occur to people traveling to unfamiliar destinations for business or pleasure. Since the threat never enters their minds, they are not prepared to protect themselves.
Yet, the after-effect is annoying at the least, troublesome and humiliating at worst, with the added potential of identity theft, which begins with stolen information.
Bob and I say awareness is your best weapon. We say do your research, raise your antennas, and go forth: explore and savor the natural and cultural differences that make each country and city unique. Rejoice in your fortune to be able to travel. Bon voyage and travel safe!
Who steals bag tags, and why? It couldn’t have fallen off.
I had just received my Star Alliance 1K tags from United and, having lost many previous luggage tags, I added a sturdy cable tie to the wimpy strap provided by the airline. I attached one tag to the bag I check and one to my roll-on. (Yes, I realize I’m a little OC.)
It was my first trip with the new tags. Bob and I flew from Phoenix to San Francisco, then on to Monterey. Both flights were on small aircraft where I was made to give up my roll-on plane-side. In San Francisco, the tag was still attached. When I got my bag on the Monterey tarmac, it was gone.
The unstolen luggage tag on the bag I check.
No “equipment” had handled the bag; only humans. It was lifted onto the plane, then taken off. I can’t see how the tag could fall off or break. But who would steal it, and why? Does it have value on the black market? Or did someone want a souvenir with my name on it?
Do you like hearing the sounds of lovemaking from the hotel room next to yours?
I’ve had my fair share of overhearing neighbors in hotels. Not surprising, given the number of nights I spend in hotels each year (average: 240).
Sex sound effects are certainly superior to the sounds of snoring, or worse, fighting. I’ve been kept awake entire nights by both. Yeah, travel is glamorous.
Unlike next-door-snoring- and next-door-fighting-wakefulness, other people’s nighttime sex sounds put me into a sort of dreamy, foggy trance—as long as they don’t go on too long. One night, wakefulness dragged on and on and the neighbors’ lovemaking sounds—loud and dramatic as they were—became repetitive and predictable. I had no urge to tune in, as with a fight or loud conversation. It wasn’t interesting. Still, I lost a night’s sleep.
I can’t help wondering about the noisy neighbors. What do they look like? How long have they been together? Do they always sound like this? Maybe they’re each married to others.
Mornings-after are amusing if I get a glimpse of the couple. Once we got in the elevator together and went down for breakfast in the hotel restaurant. I sipped my coffee stealing glances at the two strangers I had intimate knowledge of.
A few years ago we stayed in the antique-filled East Concubine Suite of the five-room Red Capital Residence in Beijing. On its intricately-carved opium bed was a porcelain headrest and a note suggesting that couples take care in their positions so as not to damage the ancient bed.
Soon after we turned out the lights we heard the amorous sounds of our neighbors. Bob was convinced that it was a recording, piped in for realism. Thankfully, the moans and gasps did not continue all night.
What about daytime sex sounds? I hear them about the same way I notice people’s tattoos and rubberneck accidents: with a squeamish fascination of private things exposed. (I know tattoos are not private, but I was taught not to stare—but I want to stare—and at tattoos, I sometimes do, though not without a slightly naughty sense of illicit license.)
On an amusing, tangential note, I used to live next door to a prostitute. While she did not conduct business at home, she did take appointments. Her answering machine blasted each john’s message. “Hey honey, remember me, Jim? I’ll be in Vegas next week. I’m the one who…” And here we were treated to usually unfamiliar, vivid, and sensational details. On beautiful days when her open windows faced mine, it was impossible to ignore the variety of plaintive and seductive messages left by hopeful men seeking Cinda’s services. Compelled to overhear the men’s intimacies, I had this same sense of unwilling spying and illicit knowing.
So here’s my survey, travelers: do you like to hear the sounds of sex from an adjacent hotel room? Yes? No? Comments? If you’ve read this, you have to answer.
It happens. For the most part, it’s rare. At the risk of tempting fate, I’ll admit that we’ve never been victims of hotel theft, though we practically live in hotels (200-250 nights per year for the past 20 years.)
Of course we take some precautions and listen to our own advice, particularly based on our version of the hotel room security check. But travel makes us weary and sometimes we become lax. Laziness is part of reality.
Though I believe in locking valuables into the room safe or alternatively, into my largest hard-sided suitcase, there’s always the security-versus-convenience trade-off to be considered, not to mention the gut-instinct and informed-decision. In other words, a lot of variables. I might start out vigilant, then slack off. In my book, I said:
Electronic access points on the underside of a keycard lock.
I also consider the relaxation factor. If you stay in a hotel for several days, a week, perhaps more, you get comfortable. Maybe you get to know the staff. Maybe you let down your guard. If I were a hotel employee bent on stealing from a guest, I’d wait until the guest’s last day in hopes she might not miss the item. Then she’d leave. Are thieves that analytical? I don’t know. But I like to make a policy and stick with it.
Logical, but idealistic. I can’t say that I always follow my own rules. I get complacent. I get tired of the drill. Constant travel is draining.
A looming threat is door-hacking. For a few bucks, anyone can build a small electronic gizmo that will open keycard locks made by Onity, which are currently installed on millions of hotel room doors around the world. The electronic lock-pick, revealed in July 2012 by hacker Matthew Jakubowski, opens our belongings to yet another potential risk. Perhaps our safety, too.
Fixing or replacing door lock hardware will be expensive, so some hotels have resorted to simply plugging the tiny access port—with a removable plug. Hotel security chiefs tell me that most hotels will do nothing until they get a rash of theft reports. Now, the thefts have begun.
