Safety Tips
Scary Crap (Stories)
- This is not so much scary, but more strange... On early sunday morning, I (Grant) found out that on Saturday thousands of dollars were charged to my credit card at various stores in
barcelona Valencia. Now, the strange part is that I have been in possession of my credit card the entire time I have been in Europe. I now have a permanent hold on my credit card now and have to figure out how to start the fraud reporting process. So, ANYWAY, check credit purchases to your account even if you haven't lost your card! My guess it was an inside job at the stores, and thats how they were able to do it without the card. There was also a charge to a gas station at a small town. I'm wondering if someone got a hold of my number here in Barcelona and decided to have go have a field day in Valencia... [UPDATED 9 July]
- Hm. So I think more recent ones should go near the top, so I'll type here. On Monday night (July 1), I (Blair) had a guy try to steal my purse while I was at dinner. We were eating at the Sbarro on Plaza Catalunya, and I had it sitting in the chair right next to me. A guy sat down at the table behind us (which I took no real notice of), and reached for my purse and pulled it onto the floor. He was reaching down to pick it up and take it when I noticed (I'm really glad I was being observant), and reached back and elbowed him, picked up my bag, and placed it in my lap. He said something in Spanish, which I'm fairly sure was an "apology", got up from the table, and left the restaurant. He was a middle-aged Spanish looking guy, of relatively heavy build. So be aware that not all pickpockets are young guys who can run fast, or women in black gowns, and ladies, never set your purse down anywhere , even right next to you.
- Dan's wallet pickpocketed 5/24
- Two guys and a girl (our age) coming out of the Metro acting extremely friendly talking to us Spanish (Rocky and I), start shaking my hand and stuff, bumming for a cigarette, whatever... before I knew it while one guy had my attention the girl was behind me opening up my backpack... luckily Rocky saw her, told me, and I was able to just walk away without further incident (did you get her digits?)
nope, sorry, didn't get her digits... but now this happened:
- watch you bag on the subway! The subway was crowded, and a guy was leaning up against me and my brothers friend more than a straight guy normally would. At first I thought he was going after my pockets, but then I realized his hand was completely in my brothers friends bag. I yelled at him and he tried to play it off, but anyway...watch yourself. He was wearing his backpack on his chest so this way he could easily hide where his hand was. (His other hand was touching my shoulder, while his eyes were looking right at me)
- On our way back from Paris, James, Marty and I(Juan) overheard some guy's conversation with his girlfriend. The only thing I actually heard was "F...ing Spiks", so me and James looked at each other. Then I interrupted their conversation saying "I didn't quite catch what you were saying...but I think you said 'Spiks'". The guy then started apologizing saying "Oh please...I'm so sorry...I'm just trying to get home...Please". Turns out the guy had the crap beaten out of him in Barcelona. He was a real mess...he was bleeding all over his jeans and his face was swollen. He tried to jump in for an American couple that was getting beat up in Las Ramblas at 5:30am. Apparently he didn't notice the metal clubs the guys were using, so he recieved a nice clubbing as well. I decided to let his comment slide cuz he was a real mess. The point of the story is...be carful where you are at in the late hours of the night. If you see some Americans getting the s..t kicked out of them with metal bats, keep on walking and don't try to think you're superman...even if the Jaeger is running strong though the veins.
- Beware of old women selling flowers near the harbor, especially the place where you can take a skybucket ride over the harbor to Montjuic. Their scam works like this: they want to sell you a small flower for some really low price that you probably don't have the exact coin or bill for. So if you offer them slightly more money than they asked for, they absolutely refuse to take your money and will only accept the amount they asked for. Of course, they will generously "help" you to find the correct amount. As you have your wallet out, they will go through your money on the ruse of looking for the correct amount. Using sleight of hand, they will palm as many bills as possible without you noticing.
- Mary, Bhavita, Neal, and I (Moshe) were waiting for the metro yesterday. When the train came, and I was walking toward the door, some mexican-looking guy about 30 runs out and does this really staged stumble in front of me, dropping his coins everywhere, so he's between me and the metro door. I stop in my tracks, knowing that this is a common ploy to distract you so someone else can steal your wallet from behind. As soon as the guy got down to pick up his coins, he had one of my pant legs in each hand, and held them tightly. He apparently wanted me to trip over him so the guy behind me could pick my pocket in the confusion. I pulled away and stepped back. Knowing what he was trying to do, Bhavita gave him a good hard slap on the back. We quickly got on the train after I made sure I still had everything, and the doors closed with the guy yelling angrily at Bhavita, "Que pasa, mother f—er!!!". Moral of the story: Don't help people pick up their change.
- (6/9/02) It was a Sunday afternoon when I got robbed by 3 guys. Right after I bumped into Dr. Potts in the afternoon outside the Universitat Metro station, I went into a alley. Three guys came and asked me for time, but I ignored them as I think they may be up to no good. I hurried my pace and walked into the open area, and just when I turned back to check on them, I saw one of them ran from behind and jumped onto me. Out of panic I shouted for attention and tried to run, with the guy on my back, but it did not take long for the other 2 guys to catch up and together they got me to the floor. I cannot remember what exactly happened, but I knew I was blindly throwing punches and kicks. I guess they either got nervous or got enough blind hits from me, and decided to run away. They got away with my favorite GT cap, and I got away with a slight abrasion on my left arm. 1 minute after that I met Den, and 10 minutes later Michael. The most disappointing thing was when I was being brought down to the floor, I looked around saw people just standing there watching. Moral of the story, unless you are big and strong like Juan or Tim, avoid walking in alleys Also, trust no one because the locals are not going to help you when shit happens. Jonathan Broomfield
- Madrid is the pick-pocketing capital of the world.
- The beach is not your friend.
- (6/22/02) Sometime within a 10 minute window of 8:20pm to 8:30pm or so between Peter leaving and me (Ben) getting back from dinner, our door was kicked in, and two laptops, two CD players, and my messenger bag was stolen including my wallet (mostly unimportant stuff, all the important stuff was on me). Apparently the 2 sketchy looking french guys who broke in had been seen by a number of tennants of La Cuitat, including a number of GT people, including Peter. Nobody really thought anything of it though, even as the two frech guys were casing out the second floor and a few other rooms on other floors. A number of people (again including Peter) had one of the guys enter the room briefly, look around, and say something in french and leave. Our room must have been the first one left available for breaking in, since they obviously didn't have that much time to do everything.
- This story is mostly anecdotal though as there isn't much of a moral I can think of. None of us did anything careless, they just kicked in the door while we weren't there and took stuff. The only real preventative measure I could possibly offer would be to sit in your room and never leave... ever. Otherwise, if you think someone looks exceptionally sketchy, then they probably are. If you think someone might be casing your room, they very well might be. If you see anything suspicious, you should probably let the people at the desk know about it. Oh, and if anyone wants to borrow a bunch of CD's, let me know, they're useless to me for now. With that in mind... sleep tight – Ben Dines
- I (Trevor Mann) had a pick-pocket attempt last night. I was walking near the beach after a movie looking for a taxi when a guy came up to me. As he approached I wrapped my camera around my left hand and held on to my wallet in my left pocket. The guy was asking if I wanted to buy some hash or some weed. It basically went like it normally does when somebody is trying to sell you something in Atlanta. The guy asked, tried to convince me for a bit that I really did want some then shook my hand. I´m in the habit of shaking hands since I´ve had experiences in Atlanta when people will get pissed if you don´t shake their hand after you refuse to buy something and will follow you around for a while yelling things about racism and stuff. So I shook the guy´s hand and he started one of those ¨secret¨ handshakes and gripped my right hand pretty good. At that point he started looking at his feet and saying something like ¨lock it up man. get in step¨ like he was trying to dance. I tried to pull back becuase it seemed like he was trying to distract me and it was getting strange. He then wrapped his left leg around my right and reached into my back pocket with his other hand (his right one still had a grip on my right hand). This all took about 5 seconds from the time he held his hand out. I broke loose, called him something uncivilized, and knocked him a couple of feet back. He ran off quickly with nothing of mine but the lingering image of my hand on his chest. The drunk guy behind us taking a leak on a palm tree just stood there grinning.
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