Author Archives: truespeed

Pickpocket Awareness Quiz

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Take this quiz before your next trip and gauge your “pickpocket-awareness”. Enjoy, and let us know your feedback via the comments!

1. You arrived in Rome last night and after a good night’s sleep, are eager to spend the day exploring. What do you do with your passport?

A. Stick in an inner pocket by itself and go!
B. Tuck it in your backpack along with camera, water and other essentials and go!
C. Conceal it among your suitcase contents and leave it at the hotel
D. Lock it in a safe at the hotel

2. You come to a beautiful part of old town and start snapping away with your camera. When done, you

A. Put the camera back in your backpack
B. Slip it into your pocket
C. Sling it around your neck or wrist and keep one hand on it at all times
D. Carry it in your hand

3. After a while you spot a charming outdoor cafe, and you sit down to enjoy a nice espressino. You “check-in” on your iPhone and

A. Keep it on the table and peruse the menu
B. Put it back in your pocket
C. Put it in your purse and sling the purse on the back of your chair
D. Put it in your purse and keep your purse in your lap

4. A small group of young social workers comes up to you requesting to take a look at their cause literature and asking for your support. You

A. See this as an opportunity to give
B. Like to do your due diligence and ask them a few questions to see if they’re legit
C. Don’t plan on giving them money but listen politely for a few minutes anyway
D. Say “no thank you” firmly and walk away before they can approach you

5. You enter a restaurant for a bite to eat. You

A. Keep your backpack by your feet
B. Hang it on the back of your chair
C. Keep it on a chair next to you
D. Keep it in your lap

6. You rent a car to enjoy the country for a few days. You make a quick pit stop before you leave town. You park the car and

A. Leave your iPhone, GPS and backpack with laptop in the car
B. Put valuables out of sight but leave them in the car
C. Take valuables with you

Answers:

1. D. You will not need your passport outside of the airport. Unless you get into trouble and get arrested; even then local police will escort you to your hotel and you can retrieve it.

2. C. Cameras are easy targets, keep them close to your body. Also, download photos off your camera often!

3. D. Anywhere else, it’s gonna go.

4. D. Several such scams are designed to relieve tourists of valuables via a team effort.

5. D. Anywhere else, it’s gonna go.

6. C. A locked car is no deterrent for determined no-gooders, even in broad daylight. This is such a common problem in some European cities locals actually put up a sign in their cars informing potential robbers the car has nothing of value in it.

2970701295 (or “Your Camera’s Serial Number”)

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Your digital camera was lost or stolen, you’ve informed the police, posted on pickpocketmap.com, and now you’re wondering if in this day and age, if there was a unique number associated with your camera. The answer is: YES. Most digital cameras do have a unique serial number.

Whats good is that you don’t need to have the camera in your possession to determine the serial number! Cameras embed meta-information about into photographs they take, in something called EXIF format. Simply drag and drop a photo you took with your camera to StolenCameraFinder.com, and it will pull out and add your camera’s serial # to its database of lost/stolen cameras.

There have been accounts of private companies and law enforcement agencies tracking down stolen camera owners via serial numbers found in photographs online, so it does seem like a good idea to update your serial # at these websites.

If anyone has any experiences with this they’d like to share, please do feel free to share via the comments.

My Drivers License and/or Passport and/or Green Card was stolen! What should I do?

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If you find you have been robbed of any of the above items, read on. Note, some steps depend on others.

  1. Passport:

    • If you are abroad, go to the nearest embassy or consulate of your home country so they can issue you an emergency passport (for single use) so you can get home. Keep all receipts as you may be able to file a claim with your insurance company.
    • Once back in the US, look up the process to apply for a replacement passport, and put in the application ASAP. It will take a few weeks for the new passport to arrive, and as you will need it for the license and green card, you should do this step as soon as possible.

  2. Green Card:

    • If you are still abroad, visit the closest US consulate and explain the situation. They will verify your information and issue you 2 sealed letters, one addressed to the “Transportation Company” (airline) and another to the “Immigration officer at the Port of Entry”. These letters are good to let you travel back (once) to the US. Again, keep all receipts as you may be able to file a claim with your insurance company.
    • Back in the US, apply online for a replacement green card. You’ll need your passport for the biometrics appointment (comes in 3 weeks or so) so you want to time the Passport Step 1 above accordingly, if applicable.
    • The green card may take several months to arrive, you should make an appointment with the closest USCIS field office to get a stamp in your pasport with your “A number”. This is required in lieu of a green card if you leave and want to re-enter the US. It is also required for applying for a drivers license.

  3. Drivers License:

    • If your previous license was of issued in another state than your current home state you need to visist the original state’s DMV to obtain a “Driving History Abstract”. This is basically a record of your driving history and your new state will need this if your old state’s license is not available.
    • Once you have the “A number” stamp in your valid passport (or the green card itself), take the applicable documents for ID (point system), proof of address etc, and visit your local DMV to apply for a replacement license.

Disclaimer: the above information is provided based on my first hand experience with having all three items stolen in Paris, and the subsequent processes I encountered in the state of New Jersey. Your mileage may vary, but I would say the general process would be the same. Keep your head about you, be patient, and good luck. Don’t forget to follow these safety tips for your next trip abroad.

Aggregate!

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As of a few days ago, the pickpocketmap.com home page shows an aggregate map of all the regions that have posts, with a color coding to show incident density. Similar to a heat map, the highest densities of incidents appear the brightest and the lower densities have a lighter fill. I think this is a more helpful view than showing a certain city by default, or all the posts as is on a world map.

As an aside, we’re at two important milestone… we completed 1 month of operations on the 18th, and we have 75 posts! As the dataset grows, and as time elapses, analytics such as % increase/decrease over periods of time etc will be useful, and am thinking will work on those around the 3 month mark. I estimate we will be at around 300 posts by then, although I’m fairly sure there is a seasonal imbalance (fewer tourists in the winter).

Thats it for now, have a good and safe week.

Travel Insurance: Good or Bad for Pickpockets?

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Yesterday, @RiBCN asked me this on Twitter:

@PickPocketMap Just playing devil’s advocate one second: doesn’t having insurance make the holder more apathetic about their belongings? :)

First of all, kudos to @RiBCN on being featured in a newspaper yesterday!

Thanks for a good question. Regarding whether having travel insurance makes one more complacent, thereby increasing one’s chance of being robbed, I don’t agree. Travel insurance provides some monetary assistance in the event of a robbery, usually only after producing a police report and receipts of expenses associated with the robbery. In most cases you still have to pay a deductible and you lose out on depreciation, and in some cases there are limits on categories of items you can put in the claim.

Travel insurance will not:

  1. Bring back lost photographs,
  2. Bring back time lost during and after the vacation (this is by far the most aggravating aspect, in my opinion),
  3. Help with the psychological feeling of being violated,
  4. Help erase painful memories such as this one.

Bottom line, having travel insurance shouldn’t give one a false sense of security. Instead, use it as another aspect of traveling wisely, follow safety tips (hmmm do I smell a blog post?), and have an enjoyable and hassle-free vacation!

Tweet Tweet

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Okay, pickpocketmap.com now features updates from Twitter directly. We use the twitter APIs to monitor search.twitter.com for keywords of interest and pull and display as posts. I expect at least 4-5 posts to be added daily this way.

This new feature has taken us to an important milestone: 10 posts! Yay!

Welcome 1.2

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A new version of the main site has been released, which boasts improved formatting for modern browsers including tablets and smartphones, improved navigation bar with top 10 cities for pickpocketing incidents, with summary numbers that update dynamically, and tighter integration with facebook and twitter. This version of the site is good to release to a larger audience.

As always, your feedback is valued; you can leave a comment on here, or send a message to feedback@pickpocketmap.com

Next: spreading the word about the site, more real time incident statistics.

Welcome

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Hi there! So the initial revision of the site is up, do feel free to look around. I hope to flesh out the functionality completely by the weekend and then tell everyone I know about it.
Stay tuned for more, including: more location awareness, improved support for mobile and tablets, more integration with Facebook and Twitter, more incident statistics.
Feedback, questions, comments: feedback@pickpocketmap.com