Since the first time I went there I found it to be a phantastic place. Fortunately the mod didn't mind the OT post of the picture. ;)

I used to live in southern Italy. There were definitely pickpockets (and other varieties of thieves) around, but I was never 'taken' ...

Keep your wits about you - pay attention to people walking up to you and/or following you. Keep your wallet in your front pocket and/or leave the purse at home.

I think I got away because I also walk very fast. Maybe I'm a hard target because - once someone notices me as an American, they'd have to run to catch back up to me and thus risk drawing attention. :)

Recent (and rather thrilling, may I say!) episode in Rome: I got on a train at the metro in Tiburtina and was standing not far from the door (Mrs sitting literally next to the door). The carriage got pretty crowded, to the point that there were people face-to-face with (kissing) the door, à la sardines basically. Next station, again, with the carriage packed to the brim, nobody was able to get on however, as soon as the doors started closing with the train ready for departure, somebody (from outside) was swift enough to put a hand in and nick a mobile phone (there were a couple of young girls facing the door and messing up with their phones). Train departs, girl screaming in tears without her iPhone...

G

Who's to blame (in addition to the thief, of course)? The girl! It is amazing how many people young or old, male or female, white-black-yellow-red just have a phone (especially an expensive one, so everybody can see) in their hand in the weirdest places (e.g. a packed metro train in Rome), actually looking at video clips or whatever. Well, they make it easy to the pick-pockets, I don't feel sorry for them.

I thought about adding to my post to say that the most common time to get pick pocketed on a train or bus is just before the doors are going to close, when there is a lot of shuffling about. Nobody wants to steal your stuff and be stuck in the train with you for the next ten minutes until the next stop. The other time is when someone is faking trying to get on to the crowded train and pushes in against people, then steps back off just before the doors close, indicating that it's too crowded. Meanwhile, they left with someone's wallet or phone, similar to what was mentioned, a thief who never got onto the train, as mentioned by AlicorporateUK.

As TBD said, you have to keep your wits about you when in a crowded train. Walking down a deserted street at 2 AM, you're safer in Rome than almost anywhere, but you can't be careless. Thieves are not looking for tourists, they are looking for an easy target.

I hope that saying several times, "watch out on a train or a bus," should be enough for Flyertalker's. In any big city you have to use basic precautions. I sometimes stand on a street with my phone, using GPS or checking mail. If it's a crowded street, I hold my phone a little differently. It's in the palm of my hand, not held in my fingertips. It's just basic awareness.

Not to blame the victim, but that poor young lady staring at her phone near the door of the train probably also found her wallet gone from her purse when she arrived back to her hotel. I take my phone out on the train all the time, and when I do, I'm aware of the vulnerability it causes. That's in San Francisco, where the crime rate is much higher than in Rome.

As KLouis said, staring at a phone on a crowded train when buses and trains are know for pickpocketing is ignoring your surroundings. Again, not to blame the victim, but thieves aren't looking specifically for a tourist, they are looking for an easy target. Also, sometimes, a train or a bus is too crowded to be worth getting on.

To add to good habits, if you are near the door take extra care. Also, in the USA, people generally wait until the people getting off of the train have all exited, then they get on. It's considered rude to do otherwise. In Rome, when the doors open, people often start getting on without waiting for people to get off. Why? They don't want to be the last one on, standing right next to the door, the most vulnerable spot.

I just arrived in Rome and walked from Termini past the Forum, to Piazza Venezia, then I took a cab to where I'm staying. This thread made me look around, to think how easy it would be to steal. I stopped to take a few photos with my iPhone. There was a woman next to me with a very large, high end camera. She was holding it with two hands, looking so intently at some particular spot in the Forum for what seemed about a minute, paying no attention to her purse.

I stopped at an ATM machine in crowded Piazza Venezia. There was a young tourist in front of me wearing a back pack. No locks or anything on it. She took out money, put it in her wallet, and put her wallet in her backpack. Anybody could bump into her and pull the zipper without her knowing. Then it's open. Then the next person bumps into her and puts there hand in there. It's a practiced script. A backpack is not a good idea, unless you have locks on it.

Even though it's low season, after I took out my phone to take a few quick pictures of the Forum and started walking again I was approached 4-5 different times by guys as I walked down the street. "Hey, where are you from, my friend? Italy? Germany? France? England? Australia? USA?" Just keep walking, and don't let them get close.

It's not cold in Rome this afternoon. I'm wearing a vest with a pocket on each side. Wallet in one, phone in the other. When my arms are at my side, they are over the pockets. My pants pockets don't have anything in them but cough drops and change. There is no chance of me getting pick pocketed today.

Also, don't think that carrying your wallet in your front pocket with your hand over it is enough. If someone wants that wallet, some member of the team will give you a hard enough, "accidental bump" to cause you to take your hand out of your pocket to grab onto a seat or pole. Then the wallet is gone. Or, an older man stumbles in front of you. You hand comes out of your pocket to steady him.

Again, I don't want to stoke paranoia. I think Rome is suffering from NYC syndrome. Many people in Europe think that going to NYC is really dangerous. Wiith almost 8 million people, a lot of crime happens there. I went to grad school there in the 80's, at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic. it was very unsafe. Since the 80's, the crime rate has plummeted and NYC is the 3rd or 4th safest large city in the USA. A tourist visiting from almost anywhere in the USA is safer while walking around NYC than walking around their home town. Of course, being in a train station at the wrong time and place in NYC cancels that.

At the same time as NYC was having its troubles, Rome was pretty lawless. Criminals killed dozens by bombing the train station in Bologna (Which today has the second highest theft rate in Italy, after Milan which leads by a huge margin, followed by Florence, Torino, Catania, then Rome.). In Rome they kidnapped and killed the Prime Minister for ransom. Guys on Vespas would snatch women's purses off of their shoulder. It was bad. As with NYC, times have changed.

Today, the murder rate in Rome is about 1/3rd less than NYC. It's about 1.9/100,000 in Rome, about 3.0 in NYC, about 14 in San Francisco, about 30 in Washington DC, and 50/100,000 in Detroit.

Rome has about 1/3rd the violent crime rate of Prague, for example. Like NYC, people just equate Rome with crime. Petty crime (and it isn't petty when it happens to you) is everywhere, but not particularly in Rome versus other large cities.

Interestingly, the medium size town of Matera, where someone returned my wallet, has the highest rate of stealing trucks in Italy. Venice has almost no person on person crime, but has the second highest counterfeiting crime rate. Don't buy that fake Prada purse at a price that seems to good to be true that someone is trying to sell you on the street. http://www.corriere.it/datablog/l'it...1.shtml#scheda

I want to add that women should exercise caution in church. My brother's Mother-in-Law was in a church in Rome. She placed her handbag under her seat. Someone stole her handbag which contained her passport and wallet. It was a nightmare getting new passport at Consulate, replacing credit cards, etc.

Chapeau ^

G

In French, I'm assuming that means "a tip of the hat, or hats off." I would like to give the Italian equivalent, but I don't think that any similar references to hats exist in the Italian language. Unless I hear otherwise, the assumption is you are giving a thumbs up to what KLouis said.

Moderator
Perché

Despite my anglo-belgo-italian origins, I indeed struggled to think of an Italian equivalent of Well said, I therefore had to come up with a French expression which would sound slightly more exotic than a mere bravo to KLouis ;)

G

Passports?
 

Question: how often are passports specifically targeted? I would think not very often, but I must admit I don't know.

This thread reminded me of losing my passport in Rome just about a year ago. I lost it on a Friday somewhere between work and my hotel. (I hate that I need my passport to access the facilities, but the situation is the same when foreigners come to my institution. So who am I to complain? :() The trip between work and central Rome involves a bus ride and a long trip on line A. I think that my passport probably just fell out of my backpack, but I never have ruled out someone sneaking a hand into an open pocket on my backpack and pulling out my passport. Again, I would think that a stolen passport would be of limited use to a thief, but crimes of opportunity do happen. :o

Needless to say, I am much, much more careful about my passport now. And I always tell people that the most important way to prepare for a lost passport isn't having a copy of the old one or anything like that, it's knowing where the local embassy is!

I guess traveling during chilly season have an additional perk: having to wear jackets that have inside pockets.

Passports and ID cards in general are a very big target. They are used for smuggling people.

Again, not to increase paranoia by bringing this up again, but I cannot overemphasize how unlikely it is to be victimized by pickpocketing, purse snatching, phone snatching etc. But I took a few pictures to show how someone pretty much made himself bait for being robbed on the train.

First, as in any city in the USA, in Rome many people are walking around looking at their phone, many with ear buds in. None are worried that someone will snatch their phone. That would be a very unusual crime. Even at a crowded train station many people are looking at their phone. That's not a problem because on a crowded platform no one is going to snatch your phone from your hand. A thief wouldn't get very far. It would only be a problem if a person was so mesmerized by their phone that someone pick pocketed them. The first photo at Termini shows two women on their phone. Both have their purses in front of them. It would be pretty hard to pickpocket either of them. No one is going to try to grab their purse on a subway platform like that either.

The second photo is on the train and shows the lady with the blue scarf from the previous photo, and another woman on the phone. Both have their purses in front of them. Another woman not on the phone was seated, and has her bag in front of her. All are away from the door. The third photo shows how crowded the train was.

The next two photos show how a tourist loses his phone and wallet. I have a series of photos of this unfolding, but for bandwidth reasons will just post two. A man is standing in front of the door, which is not the best place to stand. In his left hand is a brown wallet-like thing and his train ticket. I thought he was going to get off at the next stop, but he didn't. He just stood there, with the doors open. Between that stop and the next, he opened the wallet and it was actually a cell phone case with an iPhone phone in it. On the other side of the case were sleeves into which were tucked credit cards, and cash.

Pickpockets and purse snatchers know how many seconds there are from door opening to door closure, and that wallet was just asking to be snatched. Not only was he standing next to the door holding his wallet, he had opened it to show how many goodies were inside. Not to blame the near-victim, but this is pretty clueless. It was so clueless that I wondered if he was an undercover cop doing a sting, but no, he couldn't have been a cop. He was definitely a tourist from a foreign country.

Before the next stop a pick pocket started inching closer, and as you can see in the last photo, got right next to him as the train was breaking to a stop. It was obvious that when the doors opened he was going to wait for a few seconds until they were about to close, then snatch that wallet and jump out and run. The man with the wallet looked to be in his mid-50's, and didn't look like he'd do well in a chase, and was definitely not a cop. Also, the snatching of the wallet would be accompanied by a slight shove pushing him off balance a little so that he couldn't quickly respond by jumping off the train in pursuit.

Don't be that man, asking for trouble. Thieves are not looking for tourists, they are looking for people who make their job easy. None of the women on the platform or in the train using their cell phones were at any risk of something happening to them. They were using common sense. That stop was at Spagna, where I was getting off. Knowing what was about to happen I just stopped between the two until the doors were about to close, then I stepped off. Without taking the wallet of course!

I don't know what happened between the two of them after that. There are so many people who make it easy for pickpockets, like that man, that it doesn't take much to make it clear to thieves that you are not an easy target.

Here is another example how not to become a victim in Rome. You could hardly make this stuff up. I walked into a bar not too far from the Colosseum at about 5:30 PM. The photo below is one shot in time. There was the green coat hanging on a peg, and three seats to my right when I walked in. I like to stand so I stood in front of the coat. In the seat at the far right was a young lady tourist, trying to speak Italian to the bartender. Most of her words were in english, with a very strong British accent.

A guy came in and sat down in the chair next to where I was standing, and starts trying to speak to the bartenders in Italian, but they couldn't understand each other. Some of his words were French. I think he knew a little bit of it and was trying to use it as a common language. That left the seat in the middle open.

Then a lady walked in and took the middle seat, the one with the black and grey jacket over it. She's 100% from the USA. The "French" guy, the British women, and the American woman, little by little, start talking to each other. Pretty soon, the lady from the USA pulls out a cigarette, and says she needs to smoke. The French guy and the British lady say sure, and they all go outside, which is when I took the photo below.

Unattended is the "French" guy's coat on the peg, the red bag with whatever the lady from the USA just purchased, and the British woman's purse. The only person nearby besides me was a worker whose head you can barely see on the top left of the photo, because she was back in the kitchen.

You can't foresee something like getting your purse stolen while in church, but this is another example of how silly people behave when visiting a foreign country, and then complain when their wallet, phone, or purse was stolen.