lpennin104

I hate to be an alarmist but I have seen a dramatic increase in pick pockets on the Paris metros, in particular line one with 3 incidents at the Palais Royal metro stop. Keep your hands on you wallets at all times starting in the station, through the turn style, on the quai and getting on and off the train, not to mention the train itself. Sometimes it is an older woman with her adult daughter and a little girl, sometimes a group of girls pushing their way down the aisles of the train taking things as they go. I hope the metro system does something about this.

Christina

People should always be careful with their belongings, but it's good to remind people. It is much more common on some of the lines and that is one of them. Lots of tourists on that line in the center who don't pay attention to their things. Of course, if you can keep your hands on your wallet, it is in some location that it can easily be removed, it seems to me. It would be better advice to have your wallet in a location where someone, including you, cannot easily keep your hand on it. I would never have my wallet that open that I could be putting my hand on it in public. I think men may do that, though, a lot of them just have it in a pocket in their pants.

avalon

I have trouble finding my wallet myself. It is chained to the inside zipper compartment inside the zippered compartment of my purse/ Insid the inner zipper compartment is another zippered bag that has my extra cash and credit cards!

Fidel

It's a little shocking that it's packs of young girls who are expert thieves, and double so that the metro won't do anything about it.

Ackislander

Avalon, what happens if I pull the bag over your head and run through the turnstile before you can catch me?

Not to make you paranoid becaause you are taking excellent precautions, but awareness is all.

PalenQ

simply put your valuables - money, c cards, passport in a money belt or security device that is worn under your clothing - any bag could be snatched - my friend was mugged in Madrid and the thief tried to get her day pack off her and even though my friend wanted to get it off and let him have it since it had no valuables in it she could not and he could not and in the struggle she ended up bloodied - thus IMO beward of wearing day packs in the metro or any pickpocket-prone area.

Gretchen

The groups of girls are what we have seen often--Opera stop. They will wait untill the doors are about to close and rush on, pushing and shoving as if to get in before the doors close. Then they pickpocket near the door and jump off as the doors are closing. One had her hand inside my coat--I yelled to DH who also slapped a hand inside his coat. They jumped off and waved impudently at us as the car passed. Just don't let anyone press against you seemingly being crowded.

sassy_cat

Just a couple of weeks ago we were navigating the metro with three 14 yr old girls in tow.

They had been extensively warned about pickpockets but received a real wake up call when an older women put her hand in my daughter's sweatshirt pocket as she was climbing the exit stairs at Passy.
Luckily the pocket was empty and my DD shrieked as 14 yr olds tend to do for a myriad of inexplicable reasons.
After that we noticed the girls seemed much more aware of their surroundings and carried their purses in front of them (they had very little money on them and nothing valuable just in case).

I'd also told them that other scammers might approach them and suggested they just shout 'NO!' and keep walking if this happens.
A older guy smiled at one of the girls and approached her babbling something she couldn't understand but then just as she screamed ' NO!", I clearly heard the word 'Chelsea'.

He was a soccer fan and was referring to her souvenir shirt that we'd bought in London the day before! Imagine his surprise when a fellow fan screamed 'NOOOOOO!' at him!

PalenQ

So I echo Fidel - if this type of street crime is so rife as it apparently is - what don't the Paris cops do something about it? Seems like they could easily catch these folks by putting decoys looking like clueless American or foreign tourists around or security cameras.

Too rife it seems so why not crackdown - this type of stuff inevitably will hurt tourism if folks report so much of this as this thread shows.

Come Parisian cops do something about this blatant pickpocketing of foreigners by what seems a fairly small clique of operatives.

sassy_cat

Pal, we did see the French police do a sweep through the Gare du Nord just after we arrived on Eurostar.
We noticed the 'deaf' scammers with clipboards and petitions made a swift exit and although we didn't hang around I imagine they returned just as swiftly.

So it is being 'discouraged' by the French police and I've also witnessed the hawkers around the Eiffel tower pack up their trinkets and leave as the military waved them off with their guns.

nytraveler

Every subway and bus system in the world has pickpockets and they tend to focus on those with the most tourists (since locals tend to be much more alert). Cops can do a limited amount since the pickpockets spot them immediately and move on to another stop. And I don;t know any city that can keep many dozens of cops hanging around subway stations to protect tourists form themselves. They are busy dealing with major or violent minor crimes.

This is a case of people being more responsible for themselves, aware of their surroundings and taking some basic precautions - not manking themselves victims. And yes, you do need to be even more aware in stations right next tomajor tourist attractions.

I've now been to europe(actually did a count now)more than 90 times and hae never had a problem. But I'm a native New Yorker and being aware of my suroundings is second nature. I have seen foreign tourists here in NY do things that are just plain silly - and it's only the lack of a thief in the immediate vicinity that prevented loss of belongings (leaving a purse on a table while going back to a buffet), leaving a large purse on the counter in a ladies room instead of taking it into the stall, leaving a pusse on a counter in a busy shop, leaving a purse in a CVS shopping cart then walking further down the aisle, men leaving a wallet in the pocket of a jacket hung over a chair and putting a wallet in a back pack on ones' back. I'm sure all of these people would be upset if their valaubles were chosen - but in fact they were asking for it to happen.

Padraig

PalenQ wrote: "Seems like they could easily catch these folks by putting decoys looking like clueless American or foreign tourists around or security cameras.2

Passing oneself off as a clueless American tourist is beyond the range of most Europeans.

Michael

The public PA system in the métro frequently warns travelers to be aware of their surroundings.

In my three weeks in Italy (Rome, Naples, Florence) and a week in Paris I came across no bothersome panhandlers or pseudo-panhandlers intending to pick my pockets. Other pick pockets are obviously less recognizable, but we did not have our pockets picked. I wear a pouch on my belt, have done so for years, with no problems whatsoever--my wife's purse was pickpocketed in the Barcelona metro a few years ago but the thieves did not get anything.

I notice that panhandlers were very few in all the train stations of the cities I mention, and in the notorious Milan train station. I think that there is a conscious effort to clean them up.

RM67

Police on transport systems are often in plain clothes so as to go undetected by pickpockets. I know this because I saw a pickpocket apprehended by two men who identified themselves as transport police as they reclaimed stolen items from the thief and returned them to the bemused victims.

nytraveler

Yes- but the number of cops that can be assigned to this is very limited - based on the number of stations and pickpockets.

Cops need to spend the bulk of their time on more serious crimes. (There are now many riding the subways in NYC - but they are looking for terroists - not pickpockets. If there is a violent crime they will step in - otherwise not- since they have a very different assignment.