From the unusually high taxi fare to the drive-by burglary and from the pickpockets of the Ramblas to the smartphone snatchers of Dublin, scams and petty crime are an unfortunate fact of travelling life. The good news? Most of these pitfalls are avoidable if you do your research and keep your wits about you, writes CONOR POPE
WE DON’T mean to be alarmist, but there are some very bad people lurking in the shadows at almost every holiday destination you care to imagine, just waiting for your arrival. Whether it’s dodgy timeshares on the Costas, dodgier diamonds in Africa or the dodgiest of Dubliners thieving mobiles, tourists are vulnerable to petty crime, and it pays to have your wits about you.
Don’t pay the ferryman
The rip-offs can start as soon as you touch down. Airport taxis the world over are renowned for exploiting new arrivals’ innocence and taking them for a ride. The most common con will see a driver taking the scenic route to your destination and then charging you twice what it might have been. Alternatively they may turn off their meters and when you get to your destination charge you a flat fare that bears no relationship to the actual cost of the journey – or demand payment up front and then fail to take you where you want to go. Finding out how much a taxi ride from an airport to a particular destination should cost can be done in seconds online or with the aid of a guide book. Agree a price and have an idea how much that price should be in advance.
You should be so lucky
You’ve successfully managed to get from the airport to your hotel for a price that is not outlandish, and you’re sitting in a cafe in the town square leafing through your guidebook. A beautiful local woman strikes up a conversation with you – men are almost always the targets of this scam, for whatever reason. She suggests you go to a bar for a drink. You do and all is well until the bill arrives. While you’re sitting there wondering how a couple of cocktails and a few beers could possibly cost the same as a small two-up two-down at home and, more importantly, how on earth you are going to pay for it, your new friend is disappearing out the back door. Don’t worry, though, she’ll be back later to split the takings with the bar owner.
House of the rising sum
The timeshare scam is so old, it is amazing people still fall for it. But they do. An affable local bounds up to you as you’re strolling along a promenade overlooking the Med and gives you a scratch card – for free. You take it and, amazingly, you win something. Not something worth a whole lot, mind you, maybe a beach towel or a watch. The only catch is you have to go to a nearby hotel to collect your prize. Before you can say “get me out of here”, you’re sitting in an airless room listening to some tedious – and very slick – presentation on the benefits of timeshare apartments, which can be yours for an incredible one-time-only price. The pressure to buy can be intense, the deals are almost always worthless and you will have wasted an afternoon of your holidays.
The rugs don’t work
You’re being taken for a spin in a tuk-tuk, rickshaw or taxi in some hot and steamy city in southeast Asia when your driver turns around and tells you with some degree of excitement that and he knows where you can snag yourself a bargain on a handwoven rug that would normally cost you hundreds in a regular shop in the area. But this shop owner is his brother/ cousin/friend and is willing to cut a deal. It all seems too good to be true. It is too good to be true. The magically priced carpet will turn out to be a dud and may fall apart within days of you unfurling it over your floors at home.
Don’t be fooled
You’re on an escalator on the way out of a metro station when the person in front of you collapses. You rush to their aid but while you’re trying to remember how to put someone into the recovery position, their accomplice is helping themselves to your wallet or the contents of your bag. A slightly less dramatic version of this scam will see someone accidentally spill something on you as you wander through a town. Profuse apologies follow as they wipe you down with a tissue. Meanwhile their buddy is relieving you of your valuables.
Scooter boy
On a Greek island, you decide to throw caution to the wind and hire a scooter to better take in the sights with the breeze blowing through your hair. Disaster! You’ve barely gone five kilometres when your bike breaks down. As you wonder what you’re going to do next, the rental shop owner miraculously materialises by your side and takes you to a garage, where you are quoted some astronomical sum to fix the heap of junk – and, as it turns out, you are liable for the repairs. An even nastier scam will see the person you rented the scooter from following you and then stealing it so they can charge you some ridiculous sum to replace it. And because they have your passport, there’s not really a whole lot you can do about it except pay up. Or go to the police.
Famous blue raincoat
This is as likely to happen in Ireland as anywhere. A driver pulls up, looking for directions to the M50. He engages you in conversation, seems affable enough and then, when he has won your trust, he tells you he’s a rep for an Italian leather company and is in Dublin with samples. He offers you a beautiful Armani raincoat at a knockdown price, so you part with €100. What could possibly go wrong? The jacket is not leather, it is PVC, and will fall apart with weeks – that’s what.
Crimebusters: Precautions to take on holiday
Read up on your destination before you go. Online travel forums such as the Thorn Tree on lonelyplanet.com give insights into other travellers’ experiences, which may come in handy. Know of any scams that might be common in your destination and of unsafe areas that you might want to avoid.
Keep mobiles, cameras and other valuables out of sight. A travel belt is a good precaution, although make sure you wear it under loose-fitting clothes.
Don’t carry your passport, all your cash and all your credit cards with you when you are out and about. If you are leaving valuables behind in your hotel, make sure to use the safe.
Bring a photocopy of your passport and your tickets. If they are stolen, they are much easier to replace when you have clean copies in your suitcase – unless, of course, your suitcase is stolen too.
As with the rest of your life, be confident and decisive! Walk about like you know what you are doing and where you are going. Don’t wander about aimlessly poring over a map; decide where you want to go and how to get there before you leave your accommodation.
The same rules apply at home and abroad. Park in a well-lit, public area, avoid leaving money or valuables in an unattended car and make sure that what you do leave behind is left out of sight.
Be alert try and avoid using your iPod and mobile phone. Take care when taking pictures, as obviously you will not be concentrating on your wallet or bag as you try and capture that beautiful shot of St Peter’s. By placing you handbag on the floor or on the back of a chair in a restaurant you may as well ask the thief to make off with it.
Where in the world: Typical crimes by destination
Barcelona
While there are pickpockets all over the world, if you want to get attended to by masters of the dark art, this is the place to go. The Catalan capital makes Oliver Twist’s London look as tame as a Poor Clares Convent during siesta time. The city’s artful dodgers roam about in gangs and target tourists rambling along the Ramblas and standing in the sometimes long and very slow-moving queues to see Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia cathedral. They are pre-teens, men in their 20s and old dears wrapped in heavy shawls. Trust no one!
Barbados
While nowhere near as dangerous as neighbouring Jamaica, the Caribbean island is not entirely free of petty crime. The thieves tend to be a little more subtle than elsewhere – they won’t bump into you or try to talk to you. In fact, you might not even see them. That is because they are hiding in the bushes or the tree-lined fringes of the beach near your hotel, waiting for you to take a dip or leave your beachside perch to go for a drink. They then nip out and steal what they can before you can say “I’m sure I left my Kindle and Ray-Bans with my towel”.
Tenerife
There was a time when you had to go to Naples or Rome if you wanted young men on mopeds to snatch your bag as they whizzed past at high speed. Today the practice is equally, if not more, widespread in Tenerife. The crime is very simple: a pillion passenger will pull your bag strap taut and then use a knife to cut the straps, and away they go.
Dublin
That’s a nice smartphone you have? An iPhone 4, right? Expensive, I’d say? Oh, look. It’s gone. A growing number of people – tourists and locals alike – who have the temerity to use their phones as they walk some the capital’s meaner streets have come to regret it. Smartphones are easy to spot, petty criminals know their worth and they know how easy it is to get them and sell them.
Madrid
One of the more frequent crimes against tourists in Madrid comes in the form of good Samaritans gone bad. People with cars hired at the city’s Barajas airport are said to be particularly vulnerable. The crime is simple and opportunistic. Your car breaks down at the side of the road, or maybe you’ve got a puncture. Someone pulls in to help you. They start pointing out some mechanical problems, which distract you while their buddy makes off with your belongings. It doesn’t happen every time, obviously, but it is a sufficiently frequent occurrence to have earned it a few paragraphs in some of the most widely read travel books.
Paris
Not overrun with crime – even pickpockets are largely kept in check by police. There are certain scams tourists can fall victim to, however. There is the string scam, which can see you lose money in two ways. As you climb the steps to the Sacre-Coeur, someone slips a piece of string round your finger or wrist explaining that it is either a gift or part of a church collection. It is neither. It could be a diversion aimed at helping a conspirator pickpocket you. Alternatively they might demand you pay them €20 for a bracelet you don’t want and that is worth much less. Failure to pay will see them hassle and harass you until eventually you give in and give them something just to go away.