Pickpocketing Trauma Again

This is the second time that I have been a victim of pickpocketing within a year!  Once is already enough! This last time occurred after buying a ticket at the machine in Cité Universitaire RER rail station using my credit/debit card.

Last Monday, Paris was still covered in snow as I scrambled in haste to get my RER ticket to Charles De Gaulle for my flight to Budapest.   I do not remember seeing any person over to my side as I tapped out my code, but apparently there was!

I do remember the train was full and I felt squeezed in by the other passengers. I can only surmised it was then when the thief reached in my zippered purse and stole  my wallet full of cards, but it could have been while waiting on the quai too.

I did not discover that anything was missing till I was searching in my purse for my wallet to pay for a bottle of water while waiting to board. I frantically pulled everything out of my purse hoping that it might be hidden in the bottom.

I can’t fully describe the immediate terror I felt in realizing my wallet was gone.  By this time panic had set in and I found my hands shaking and voice trembling.  Flooded with a zillion of thoughts, I first thought, that it had possibly fallen out when I pulled out my ticket at check in, but it was nevertheless to late to go back out of security to look.

My hands shaking so much I could not even handle getting a telephone number to call to cancel my French Visa, my friend had to do it for me. With my trembling voice I managed to explain as coherently as I could my plight and was finally able to cancel my credit card.

Had I been by myself, I would have not boarded knowing that I would have no means of pulling out any forints(Hungarian currency) once there.  Fortunately my kind and generous-hearted travel companion encouraged  that we carry on to our destination.

The next day in checking by bank account online, I knew for sure that I had been pickpocketed  again. The thieves first bought a few tickets to test out the validity of the stolen code, then headed to a Société General distributor at place Denfert Rochereau, which is exactly the next stop after Cité Universitaire.

There, they withdrew 300 euros, then proceeded to another bank and withdrew 130, then  a final 70 euros.  500 hundred euros within 3 minutes and within 9 minutes from the last time I had used my card!

Professionals obviously and all very talented, just like it was last spring at the wine salon, who withdrew the same amount in record time.  By now I am totally paranoid about using my credit debit card, which is how almost all purchases are conducted here.

Next time I need metro, bus tickets, I will use cash to feed the machines, or buy them likewise in cash at the Tabac, where some sell stamps and transport tickets.  I think it would be best to use cash drawn from inside banks to make grocery purchases from now on too.

I was not able to go to the police until I returned from Budapest. So Saturday I trekked to the bank and my very nice director M. Dubois helped me in filling out the forms correctly to be taken to the police, even though this was the second time around.

Monday I spent 2 hours at the commissariat de Police, until I finally was able to talk to a very kind policeman(thank you), who informed that I was the third American seen that day and the 2nd to have been stolen from  the gare Cité Universitaire.

The waiting room was full of French people each lamenting their own stories of misfortune at the hands of thieves. Snatched purses to cell phones, and I even met another American,  likewise longterm resident who was held up at a hotel desk .

The policeman also informed me of being suspicious of using distributors even inside banks that are in a space open for use even when the rest of the banks are closed! Why? Because thieves can fit a device that resembles the facade of a distributor, that copies your card number and photographs your code that can be read digitally by a receiver.  They can use that to make duplicative cards of your original.

Although I thought I was careful in hiding tapping out my code, I was advised to cover my hand completely with the other and tap out the code braille style.   Another new resolution is to always put the card back into an inside zipped pocket in my purse.

Additionally leave all other cards at home, including my French health card, which was stolen with my Visa.  Fortunately I had enough sense to leave my European drivers license home this last time.

Although I am indeed traumatised my latest pickpocketing, the worse was in Marseille several years ago.    While riding in our car close to the Saint Charles rail station, two thieves  pulled up to the open window, reached down and grabbed my purse.  Very stupidly I had stuffed  our passports, cards, all cash and everything else into that one purse.

With not even one centime to our name, and no identification, we were treated by a wonderful French team who aids victims of crime.  They came to the police station, comforted us, gave us food, and some money and even bought us a ticket to get back to Paris, unfortunately forgetting to buy two.

While waiting for at least one of us to get to Paris, a young Ukrainian woman, Zhanna, who heard about our plight , offered to buy us that second ticket. We call her our angel and have since welcomed her into our home for a visit and kept in contact.

By the way, you should know the American embassy could not have cared less, saying they could do nothing because it was a holiday and told us to contact them in two days! So please be aware that your embassy will give you another passport(if it is open), but that is all.

Getting back to my latest misfortune and as I wrote in my previous post, I was determined to not to let this ruin my time in Budapest, certainly in part due to being with my kind friend.  Obviously I am extra vigilante now and fearful of ever using my card again except inside the bank.

Paris, being the most visited city in the world is not surprising a haven of pickpockets, as you will often hear a warning over the loudspeaker in the subways.  A lot of it is perpetrated by young  Roma gangs, but you just never know, as it could be a decently dressed woman or man.

Another  purse snatching accurred in the Milano train station when I was traveling alone, but I chased after the woman thief and got my bag back.   Rome and Barcelona are also notorious for this type of crime, especially by thugs on scooters.

So read all you can on prevention, do as suggested and be as vigilant as possible wherever you travel in the world. Have a backup plan with a contact number back home in case of emergency.

Though subway and rail stations are notoriously full of these scums, there can also be a total stranger aka angel,  as in my case in Marseille.  This time I was lucky to not have been traveling alone, as my friend(thank you) saved the day and our trip!