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!

No advice here--- but the important thing is that you're still ok.

I've been guilty of being too trusting in the past- your experience will definitely encourage me to act with more caution.

Thanks for posting. Enjoy the rest of your trip.

Phew - thank god you're OK!

One basic rule that I follow religiously is to never ever EVER leave a beverage I intend to keep drinking unattended in a bar. Similarly, if I'm by myself I only drink things that are opened in front of my eyes - ie beer bottles.

You experience is such a violation! I don't like having to be always vigilant.

My wallet was stolen last year and I tried desparately to get bank numbers, ... for the cards. I later realized that it is Mastercard or Visa, not the bank, that processes the lost cards, in a central way, so I now have those numbers in my travel papers.

Sylvia

Well, the bright side is that you probably will pay little or nothing for the unauthorized charges, and you're now wiser. This might help you avoid a much graver violation to your person.

There is something about Spain. I consider myself a very savvy traveler. Yet I've had 3 robbery attempts there - one I foiled, in Madrid, two that were successful - in Barcelona and in Malaga. I ended up in the hospital for a few hours from the Malaga mugging.

Thank God you are physically all right, schreibsman - and yes, it is a violation to have this happen. It was a year after the Malaga mugging before I stopped jumping when someone entered my personal space.

I think this is the moral of the story.

Not at all trying to be offensive toward you, but it seems a little naive to go and fetch another card for this person whom you just met. Maybe I'm used to being brought up "in the big city" where my parents taught me to trust NOBODY, but you have to be so so so so so careful around these types. They prey on overly trusting personalities like yours. Think about it: thiefs don't walk around with big signs on them that say, "I'm gonna take your money when you're not expecting it."

Fortunately you were not hurt. And the bank is aware of the situation. But this type of thing was probably a blessful lesson for you--sometimes us humans need to face the worst possible thing in order to prevent it from happening again.

Please, don't let this incident spoil your thoughts of Spain--it's a wonderful country with great people. Que te disfrutes de Sevilla!!

Thanks for sharing

hola de sevilla,

after thinking about the incident over and over and over (and over and over) the past couple days, I�ve come to realize 2 things:

1. this guy had me pegged from the beginning. he approached me by asking for a light, something he would not have probably done if he hadnt seen me smoking 5 minutse earlier (ie I had finished, but he knew i had a lighter)

2. I�m certain that he drugged me--from what I can piece together, I was 100% complacent to his requests etc...who in their right mind would go all the way to his hotel room to allow a stranger to use his Visa card?

the owner of my hostal in Madrid had heard of this type of scam before, but never talked with somoene to whom it had happened (and trying to explain it in spanish 6 years after learning it is quite an adventure as well).

anyhow, thanks for all the well-wishes...I�m loving Sevilla (no offence to Madrile�os!)

hasta luego...

schreibsman:

Thanks for posting this. Best of all: you are O.K. ... and you learned a lesson!
Have a nice time in Spain .... and don't expect that each and everybody who approaches you is a crook. There are lots of nice people in Spain. And yes, some crooks!

How is Sevilla? People say it's hot, hot, hot - >=40C, >=100F!?
Did you take the bullet train?

For me, the basic message is stay the heck away from Plaza Mayor. It is a pretty horrible area. It's all about preying on tourists. Even the restaurants will scam you. If you don't speak Spanish well, they will try to add some bread and ham to your dinner for about �26, but you don't find out til the bill arrives.

Andalucia on the other hand has pretty nice people, except perhaps along the coast.

Like SanDiego1K, Spain has had some bad experiences for me to - allthought all of mine have been in Barcelona. Pockets picked twice, once successfully, once foiled. I have also had a knife pulled on me in an attempted mugging.

Needless to say, I have no desire to go back to BCN again. Given that it is flooded with British stag parties, perhaps that is no bad thing.

I recently returned from a month in europe and a number of people tried to be "friendly" in a number of ways. My SOP is to carry the local equivalent of about US$20 in my left front pants pocket and the same for my right front pants pocket. I occasionally carry a cc in a front cloth money belt under my pants belt but only if I expect to buy goods. If I remember I lower the belt cc max limit on it to US$200-US$500 prior to travel and up it upon return.

IMHO there are expert con artists working the streets/bars/restaurants/lobbies of every small/medium/large city in the world. An internal flag goes up anytime anyone speaks to me. I make it a practice NEVER to accept drinks, food, rides etc from "friendly" strangers. The con artists want MONEY. If they percieve you dont have MONEY they go off in search for other prey.

Lastly it is just as easy to slip sodium cyanide into your drink/food as Rohypnol (GHB), Valium, Xanax etc, and actually it is cheaper, faster disolving, faster action and far longer lasting than almost anything out there. I did some dumb things on my trip and so did you. We were both fortunate. Hopefully the other FTers who read this will learn successful travel is more than miles or points.

MisterNice

What is it about Spain? We had a half dozen pick pocketing attempts on our group in Barcelona last summer at swimming's World Championships (none successful), though we met a person that lost $400 when his shoulder bag was grabbed on a train.

I'll most certainly go back, but it just looks like one of those countries that you need to be ever-vigilant. It's the only place I've been that I was always on guard for something to happen.

schreibsman- Glad you're OK, and hope the rest of your trip goes much better.

Ya know, I just don't get it. I've seen a couple people get taken advantage of after placing themselves in very foolish situations, but in almost two years of living here and many visits before that, I have never been mugged/pickpocketed/robbed/scammed or anything of the sort. Barcelona is the kind of city where little old ladies walk their dogs alone at midnight.

I wonder if the people who are continually victimized aren't putting themselves at risk by dressing or acting in such a manner as to call attention to themselves. T-shirts with foot-high "USA"-type logos, obvious travel items, etc. are certainly going to attract any would-be thieves whether it's in Barcelona or San Francisco.