Those begging children are reckoned to be worth £100K a year in London according to a BBC investigation last week. Their parents/minders were traced back to a village in Romania where they live on streets lined with huge houses. I doubt the children go to school anywhere.

I was pickpocketed in Rome with the use of a fake baby. It's a shame but you have to keep a distance from any stranger you encounter.

Oh yes, the gold ring on the sidewalk. It does get around, e.g., young lad in front of me in Rouen. I tossed him some coins.

I just got an evil idea. Gold colored rings must be really cheap wholesale. Let's buy some and take them with us on our trip. When the inevitable gold ring finder offers us one, offer him a half dozen!

They all seem to have the same ring. It's a broad, plain metal band that doesn't look like gold at all. It looks like brass, but I don't even think it's that. It's a really ugly ring (in my opinion).

Oh, AJPeabody, that's what DH suggested to fund a longer stay in Paris!

Well AJPeabody, you don't even have to buy your gold rings. They're ubiquitous.

Two years ago I found one on the street and henceforth was able to brandish it at the finders. They would just smile and move on.

cls2paris: Many years ago, my sister and I were returning from Italy by way of a mountain pass--St Gotthard, I think. It was probably at the end of our Easter vacation. I didn't realize that the pass was closed because of snow and that we'd have to have the car put on the train to go through the pass. I was working for the U.S. army, so we had gas coupons, but we had no money since we'd deliberately spent all our lira.

We were really stuck. I decided I'd just stand by the side of the road until I saw a car with American forces plates, and I'd bum some money from them. As luck would have it, the second car that came by was driven by fellow teachers, so I was able to borrow from them.

So it does happen, but I would bet that your "American" was a scammer.

Actually, the woman who approached me with the deaf/mute charity petition or whatever behind Notre Dame was alone, there wasn't anyone else around her. So I don't know what her scheme was, if it was to ask for a donation or what, but I didn't care. I never sign petitions like that anyway, even if they are real, so it wouldn't matter.

I was actually interviewed a couple times by people on the street in a couple French cities that were real interviews, though. I can't recall what one was about, something to do with social services or something, it was a written survey. The other one was actually a French TV channel, I was interviewed on how a liked a certain film I had just viewed at a cinema in Montparnasse, and I was on TV that night. I remember it was a horrible film with Angelia Jolie and Antonio Banderas, also (Péché Originel )

Wow, I've read all these posts and have to say I don't know what to do. I found a gold wedding band in Paris last year. It is a man's ring and it is real. We've had it in our safe deposit box for a year now. We created a fb page and I paid to promote the page in Paris in hopes that someone would contact us and no one did. Now, I see my page has been removed by facebook, probably because they think I'm part of a scam. We found the ring in the 16th arrondissement the first week of July 2011. No one approached us, in fact there was no one else around or we would've asked them if it belonged to them. I've been holding on to the ring in hopes that fb would do the trick. I guess we'll go ahead and cash it in. I'm sad, because the ring looks pretty old and worn. I would guess it's at least 40-50 years old.

I cannot help but have my doubts, but here goes.....why did you not just turn it in to the police?

Exactly - bringing it home didn't help anyone. If you weren't going to bother to go to the police, why not leave it there? And whoever lost it might have returned.

And you reopened an old thread on scams to post this?

Advertising a gold ring on Facebook does sound like a scam and I don't know how anyone could ever find that. If anything, I would have used Craigslist, then you'll really get a lot of replies.

Your post on here sounds totally bogus, also, by the way. How you paid to promote the ring. And how sad you are but you took it out of the country and kept it.

I agree with the above, you could have turned it into the French police if you seriously want the owner to possibly get it back. Turn it in in the area you found it, it's not that hard to find the police station, your hotel could have told you. Or the "mairie" or quarter's town hall. Even now, you could mail it to them with a letter.

okay, I'll help, this is the email address of the police station in the 16th arr., you can email and ask them what to do if you are serious (I'm sure somewhere there can read English if you can't write in French):

[email protected]

The lost and found service of the Paris Police is at this address:
Préfecture de police
Service des objets trouvés
36, rue des Morillons
75732 Paris Cedex 15

This is their email address:
prefpol.dtpp-sddep-botf-objetstrouve...erieur.gouv.fr

This is their phone number, although it has a toll of 12 centimes per minute: 08 21 00 25 25 (0,12 € la minute)

Legally, you are entitled to keep something you find if there is no one to fetch it with proper ID, with a waiting period of up to 18 months. But the police handle that.

Old thread but gold ring scam happened yesterday by opera garnier. Told her VERGONA (Italian for shame on you) as soon as she approached me. Don't know if she understood but I love that word!