The Kindest of Pickpockets

[Ed. Note: This is a restored blog post from 2008.  It was written back when chipped credit cards were new.]

So here we were in Paris, where I was shooting the new, blue-lit Eiffel Tower (France is marking the start of its six-month presidency of the European Union by lighting up the Eiffel Tower in blue with yellow stars, recalling the EU flag.)  The trip was over, and my wife and I, being non-snooty travelers, decided to take public transportation to the airport rather than hiring a cab.  We must have been easy-looking targets, carting our luggage around and trying (and failing) to get past the subway turnstyles.  Another subway rider who appeared to be in a hurry was behind me, and reached over me to try to help get the turnstyle unstuck.  Half a minute later, success.  Me and my luggage were through the turnstyle, and the stranger, interestingly, did not follow me in.

      

(More pictures of France can be seen at http://friedmanarchives.com/France .)

15 seconds went by when I suddenly asked myself, "Where's my wallet?"  Another 15 seconds elapsed when I finally came to the inevitable conclusion: "I had been pickpocketed!!!" 

Of course now all those warnings I've been reading about, to watch out for pickpocketers, just now registered.  We couldn't really report the incident; that would have made us late for the plane.  I looked around in desperation, thinking maybe it just fell out of my pocket or something.  And there, still on the other side of the high-walled turnstyle (and untouchable) was the guy who took my wallet.   And he made eye contact with me, as if he was trying to tell me something.  He pointed to the ground.  (Was it the ground?)  He stayed and continued to point until I figured out the meaning of his ambiguous gesture: he was pointing to my wallet that was on top of the turnstyle.  (Or, more correctly, he placed it there.)  I grabbed my wallet and headed toward the trains.  He exited the subway, no doubt to pursue another victim.

I quickly rummaged through my wallet.  All the credit cards were there, as was the driver's license and other important paperwork.  The cash?  Gone.  About $180 dollars worth. 

Once we got settled on the train, I reflected on how much worse it could have been.  How many pickpockets do you know would only take the cash and go out of their way to give you back the rest of the wallet?  Countless hours and hassles reporting and then replacing stolen credit cards had been avoided.  The incident turned what could have been a major disaster into a minor footnote for the trip.  Fagin trained him well.  And I'm an idiot for forgetting my money belt on this trip. 

Here's another tip for you North Americans who think that your Visa and MasterCard credit cards are accepted worldwide: They are, but there's a really good chance that the card you're carrying won't be.  Have a look at the two pictures below:

  

The left image is a standard credit card, with an embedded hologram put there to try to reduce counterfeiting.  The right image is a newer credit card; in addition to having the magnetic stripe on the back (containing the card number and user name), there is also a metallic array of contacts on the left to support a tiny memory chip (sometimes called a "smart chip") embedded within the card itself.  Many, many cashiers in Europe cannot tell these two apart; they think that anything shiny on the front of the card makes it authentic.  (So they would run the card several times in a new reader, and wonder why it won't work.) 

Worse, some automated payment machines (parking meters, highway toll booths, subway ticket dispensing machines) will ONLY work with the smart chip.  Conventional credit cards with the mag stripe (even legitimate ones!) are paymenta non grata.  Visa may be "everywhere you want to be", but just try to buy a subway ticket at 1:30 in the morning in an automated terminal with no employees (and no cash on hand) and just see how far you get.   

So if you find yourself planning a trip to Europe, make absolutely sure you either get yourself one of these newer cards (hard to do in North America) or utilize the tried-and-true technique of obtaining lots of cash in the local currency.  

Until next time,

Yours Truly, Gary Friedman

September, 2008