this may be more of a travel report, but I think it might be more usefull as Travelbuzz...move if necessary.

I arrived to MAD yesterday from LTN, had a nice day wandering around Santa Ana etc.

I ended up at Plaza de Mayor and was befriended by a Belgian man of a certain age who started up a conversation with me in Spanish, found out I was Canadian and then we started speaking in French for about 2 hours after moving to a terraza and having a few beers.

At some point we left the bar and he tried to use the public phone with his credit card to no avail, so he asked if he could use mine...not having my wits about me, I obliged and for some reason I had to enter my PIN number (should have set off the first alarm in my head), which, although he turned around while I did so, European pay phones have that display thing, so it was clearly visible, which I did notice and thought nothing of it.

Apparently that didn't work either, so we went back to my hostal and I got my Visa (wasn't carrying my wallet since I do so in my back pocket and would prefer not to get pickpocketed). Things from there are quite blurry--I honestly think he spiked my dirnk when I went to the washroom at the bar, but I had no reason in the world not to trust this guy (ok ok he's a stranger, but that's what happens when you travel, right? besides, he was at least 20 years my senior). anyhow, i'm having trouble piecing things together from there, but he ended up with my mastercard and visa, knowing the PINs (since I use the same for both). I remember coming back downstairs from my hostal and him not being there (why I went up again, no clue) and then tried calling my bank collect straight away to have the cards cancelled, which also didn't work, and the 4 euros I pumped into the pay phone dwindled quickly.

I ended up finally calling my first bank this morning (after sleeping almost 12 hours which, although sometimes normal for me, I had napped earlier in the day, so this furthers my thinking that my drink was spiked) and he had racked up 1800$ CDN on the first card (according to the bank, but i can't see how that's possible) and attempted about 13 transactoins on my MC, only 2 went through.

just thought I'd share with the rest of FT...this isn't a "dont trust anyone when travelling" story or anything of the sort, but more of a "always keep your wits about you regardless of alcohol consupmtoin" story.

everything is fine with the banks, I still have my primary bank card, so not much is lost. I'm primarily just really angry with myself for being so stupid and hurt that there are people who do this sort of thing.

off to sevilla tomorrow...advice is welcome via email!