
Find yourself covered in slime? You're being mugged. - lotusleaf1987
http://shazow.posterous.com/find-yourself-covered-in-slime-youre-being-mu
======
drinian
I have heard of this specific scam happening in Buenos Aires as well. It's a
particularly nasty one.

It's unfortunate, but I would say that on my world trip about 50-60% of
English-speaking locals in non-English-speaking countries were trying to get
my money somehow. I feel bad for the ones who weren't, because I had to treat
them with such suspicion.

But, the rule is, if somebody doesn't have anything better to do than talk to
you, they're probably after your money. I never stop walking if someone starts
talking to me on the street, until I have an idea of their intentions.

Actually, this gives me an idea for a blog post on the lines I've been fed in
this process.

~~~
eru
> But, the rule is, if somebody doesn't have anything better to do than talk
> to you, they're probably after your money.

I have some experiences in Turkey. Outside the tourist spots, people talking
to you are generally not after your money.

~~~
burgerbrain
I think it holds true for major US cities (though usually you're just being
panhandled instead of conned). The exception to this is generally people
asking for directions This seems much more common if you're on a bike, which
if you think about it is pretty clever. I wonder if there is a tourism book
out there somewhere that advises you to ask bikers for directions over other
people.

------
ryanwaggoner
Grrr...I hate to be this person, but why, oh why, is this on Hacker News? This
isn't a "hack" or anything new...they've been doing this to tourists for as
long as there have been tourists.

~~~
pwim
From the post, I'm assuming one of the victims is limedaring who just a week
ago launched her site <http://www.weddinginvitelove.com/>, which was covered
in this item with almost 500 points:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2227770>

~~~
gender-bias
you're right, that reminds me to sign up for that sex change operation. With
the +400 vagina modifier, I should be able to stay at the top of hackernews
all day. amirite? This is aimed squarely at the reparation voters btw. Tech is
a meritocracy with exception to half the population. And I'm not even sexist,
just kinda peeved at the hypocritical double standard. Women have it hard in
startups. BULLSHIT. Everyone has it hard in startups. Women get all the
attention in an attention economy, which is worth more than money.

~~~
vietor
>I'm not even sexist

... and yet in reply to a completely neutral comment proposing that the
article might be relevant because one of the two people in it was just
featured in a very highly rated article last week, you create a one-off
account and go on a full paragraph gender rant ...

Edit: I agree with the top poster, I was expecting more in-depth analysis when
I hit the link. But voting up a follow-up story to someone who was just highly
featured in the community is not exactly an inexplicable response.

------
ShabbyDoo
A couple of years ago, a couple of prescription drug addicts stole some lawn
tools and GPSes from our unfortunately unlocked garage. The local police (we
live in a relatively affluent suburb) ended up coordinating with other local
police departments and eventually caught the thieves. The police office I
worked with thought that these same two guys were likely responsible for over
a hundred similar property crimes. One is now in prison, and I'm not sure
about the other guy. Unfortunately, my specific loss was not one for which
they were prosecuted. Otherwise, I think I could make a claim against the 37
cents/hour (or whatever) those guys are paid in prison.

I'm told that the 80/20 rule applies to petty crime -- a handful of semi-pro
thieves are responsible for a majority of the thefts. Given this, it seems
that catching a few people who steal laptops, bikes, purses, etc. would
actually have a significant impact on local crime levels. A problem with my
particular case is that the thieves had already gotten rid of most of the
stuff they had stolen, so proving in court that they had committed the crime
would have been difficult. How viable of a start-up idea it would be to create
"bait" laptops? The company would offer a turnkey service to law enforcement
agencies. A special laptop would be provided to the police. It would appear
normal at first glance but would record audio (and video?) and transmit GPS
locations via a cellular connection. The police would place this laptop in an
unlocked vehicle and leave. When the laptop moved, they would be notified via
services provided by the start-up. From there, the police could either
apprehend the thieves quickly or wait to see where they took the laptop (to
get probable cause for a search warrant?). The back-end system would then
produce court-ready evidence for the prosecution -- printable maps of
activity, times, etc. Perhaps audio/video snippets ready to be played in
court?

I did some quick Googling and could not find such a service. I wonder how one
goes about selling to law enforcement agencies? Would they be able to make a
purchase without 17 visits from a sales rep? Is this even a viable product?
Thinking about my own community, I would love to hear about my police
department working to reduce random crimes like these. There have been a
couple of murders since we moved here a few years ago, but those have both
been committed by family members of the victim. My greatest local crime risk
is petty property theft.

~~~
Maxious
This service is well known in car theft investigations except the cameras are
supplemented with the ability to remotely cut the engine. Follow the car until
it's safe to storm it. Boom goes the dynamite.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_car>

~~~
ShabbyDoo
I've watched a few episodes of the "Bait Car" show on cable and should have
mentioned it above. The Wikipedia article suggests that my proposed scheme
would not constitute entrapment. I wonder how much time would pass, on
average, before a criminal would take a laptop from an unlocked vehicle in a
"nice" part of town?

------
jdminhbg
You don't necessarily need to get travel insurance -- lots of
homeowners/renters insurance covers thefts even abroad. I got robbed of my MBP
and Kindle in the train station at the Madrid airport in October and the loss
was covered. Probably worth checking into when buying insurance in the first
place if you're a traveler.

------
riley2
Ever wonder why you read stories in the foreign press about France, Germany,
Italy or some other European country deporting its Roma (Gypsy) population?
Well, now you understand why they do it. And before anyone says, "He never
said they were Gyspies," he's from the U.S., doesn't speak Italian and
obviously isn't savvy enough to pick them out, at least when they aren't
trying to be noticed. Gypsies do stuff like this to tourists through out
Europe. They are a menace, and resist any attempt to assimilate them into
modern society, preferring to live in their camps and beg, cheat, and steal to
sustain themselves. Yes, downvote away, but it is true, as any European can
and will attest.

~~~
RK
While I'm sure that Roma, Sinti, etc carry out a disproportionately large
number of these crimes, the way they are viewed and treated in Europe is just
ridiculous. It's just straight up racism and the deportations sound like pure
politics.

------
awarzzkktsyfj
That's not a mugging. I think you mean robbed:

<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mugged> to assault or menace,
especially with the intention of robbery.

<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rob> to take something from (someone)
by unlawful force or threat of violence; steal from.

<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/burglarize> to break into and steal
from: Thieves burglarized the warehouse.

~~~
MoreMoschops
I think he doesn't mean robbed. Robbery is theft with the use or threat of
violence. Yes, I know that the dictionary mumbles something half-hearted about
it being the same as theft.

~~~
awarzzkktsyfj
Find yourself covered in slime? You're being thefted.

------
limedaring
Just wanted to post that it was pretty stupid of me to travel without travel
insurance — I've been so wary of insurance scams, I don't know why it didn't
occur to me that this might happen. I was thinking that travel insurance
wouldn't be a benefit because I wasn't likely to get sick or hurt, which was
really, really silly reasoning now.

That said, thank goodness we were in Rome for three weeks — I have a new
passport book (the US Embassy is awesome), and a friend shipped me a spare
laptop and phone for the remainder of our trip. We started out with a really
bad event made worse by poor decisions, but at least (3 weeks later) things
are going well now.

------
bittermang
But I thought pickpocketing was a lost art, according to the Salon article we
were discussing earlier?

Perhaps a lost art in the old school sense of a mark, a pocket quietly picked,
and no one being the wiser, but the run down of events and parties involved
sounds identical to the pickpocketing scenario Salon laid out. Just with a
more elaborate distraction than bumping into your shoulder.

~~~
burgerbrain
The Salon article specifically mentions that mainly just a lost art in the US.

------
andrewingram
When I was in Rome, a couple of youths tried the old trap-the-target-in-the-
ticket-barriers trick on a friend of mine. Luckily another guy I was with
realised what was happening, shouted "watched out" and the two guys scarpered
after giving us a cheeky shrug.

~~~
colanderman
Care to elaborate on this trick? Google doesn't seem to find anything.

~~~
zach
I believe the trick involves preventing a revolving-door turnstile from
turning:

[http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=...](http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=6849264)

------
focusaurus
This sucks. The part I can't stand is that these seem to be ongoing, easily
trackable/predictable crimes. I wonder if travelers would contribute to a
kickstarter project to post a few people at a smaller but high-risk train
station and see if it's the same small group of bandits operating repeatedly
and assist the police in identifying them so they can be aprehended. Do one
case study first and hopefully learn some lessons that could be applied more
broadly.

~~~
limedaring
Sounds great, except the impression I got from the police was that they didn't
care — we were stupid tourists (well, yeah, but still). They were literally
around the corner, but no police at the station (1pm on a weekday) and they
gave us the paperwork to fill out for the police report but never actually
looked me in the eye. I really don't think they'd care enough to actually stop
the crime, unless it started targeting locals.

------
khafra
Interesting corollary: If you see someone covered in slime, do not point it
out, and especially do not offer to help; you might be mistaken for a thief.

------
foobarbazetc
Do Americans usually travel without travel insurance?

~~~
MikeMakesIt
The silly ones do

~~~
foobarbazetc
Okay. Same as every other country then. :)

------
georgieporgie
Cargo pants with buttoned or zipped pockets, bag locks, and never letting go
of your bags will go a long way in preventing theft while traveling. Also, the
ol' money belt may make your butt sweat, but it's _the_ place for passports,
cash cache, and backup credit cards.

