Girlfriend in Switzerland had handbag stolen
 

My girlfriend travelled to Switzerland recently with her kids and emailed me that her handbag was stolen at the train station in Geneva yesterday. Apparently someone asked her for directions to a hotel. After the person left she turned around and noticed her handbag was gone. It was sitting on her large luggage. She was a victim of a setup. She had all of her travel documents and identification, as well as several other items, including her camera and my camera which I lent her for the trip. Any suggestions on how she could come back home by June 28, her expected return date since the airline will not let her fly without identification.

She needs to go to an embassy and can get documents there. Hope she has access to funds to cover travel/hotel in the interim.

Here is a thread that has a lot of extra useless information bc the poster was not cagey about certain things and it led to questions and doubts, etc. That said, other people offered excellent information in the first day or so (I stopped reading pretty quickly when it was happening) but the embassy location and contact is buried in there for Switzerland. Good luck to your gf and kids.

These unfortunate incidents happens pretty often. Your girlfriend will need to make a report to the Police and contact her country's embassy. I don't know your girlfriend's nationality but I do know that in the case of the U.S. Embassy, they will issue a replacement passport for her to travel home. I suspect that is true for most countries. The link for U.S. citizens is here: http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/...port_1197.html

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

If there is a consulate that is closer than the embassy, I believe that replacement passports can be issued there as well.

Here's a page that gives the location and hours of the U.S. Embassy in Bern:
http://bern.usembassy.gov/contact.html

Farther down on the same page there is a listing for the U.S. consulate in Geneva.

Here are the embassy's instructions about lost and stolen passports:
http://bern.usembassy.gov/lost/stolen_passport.html. Of particular note:

All my ID's were stolen along with my passport. Now what do I do?

Call the U.S. Embassy in Bern before your visit. This will enable us to prepare certain documentation to save time when you appear in person. You will need to bring along two color photographs and the cash anmount in U.S. Dollars or Swiss Francs. Passport photograph requirements are strictly enforced.

The consulate in Geneva can issue replacement passports, but not as quickly as the embassy. This is not a problem for a departure that is more than a day or two away. I'm not sure whether the consulate can issue a replacement for a citizen who has no identification at all.

Which nationality is your girlfriend from, and which country does she wants to return? Some more information would really be helpful..

I'm sorry to hear this happened to your girlfriend. I had my backpack stolen there a few years ago. My husband was supposed to be "watching" it for me and they stole it right in front of his very eyes. I had everything but my passport in it. It's a real PITA.

Welcome to FT, wdld27.


Bobette

Man, what a bummer... I hope that your GF can get this taken care of and get some enjoyment on the trip. I know that this won't help your GF now, but I always make a copy of my passport, and two credit cards and keep the copies in both my suitcase and my backpack. I had some hesitation doing this at first, but I've had other friends who have had their passports stolen and having these copies expedited the process.

It seems that these accidents are commonplace in the EU?

My mom had lost 2 of her handbags stolen in a hotel in Italy some years ago, is it really that scary?

Boy OP must be really hard lucked- first getting dissed by a seat change request, name called by FA and then have girlfriend's purse stolen with his camera in it.

Two post and never a return to reply or acknowledge??????????

Good observation :D

Anyway, if you are a U.S. citizen, you can register your passport information & personal info with the State Department: http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/...tion_4789.html which will make getting a replacement passport much easier and faster.

A friend of mine's wife had this happen in China.. and they had to go to the Embassy and straighten everything out..

Pretty much lights out for the rest of the trip.. hopefully your gf and kids can salvage their trip after this..

Step 1- confirm that this really happened. Lots of people have received emails purportedly from people they know describing this exact scenario, but it was just an email scam.

If it did really happen, follow the good advice people have posted in this thread.

For starters Switzerland isn't in the EU.

And this sort of thing can happen anywhere. Plus isn't it laptops that disappear in the US when people's hand luggage goes though x-ray screening, some sort of scam of stalling the line and then *bam*, no more laptop on the other side once you step through the metal detector?