Wandering Boots, Travel Ordeals: Wallet stolen in Paris

There are times during many trips where something beyond your control happens. It might go smoothly during one journey and on another everything happens to go wrong and you have to figure your way out of the problem and might even solve it at the same time. When solo travelling you could be way outside your comfort zone and on the road without a support network outside of people on the other side of the world. The recent 8 week journey I went on over to Europe and England did develop some unexpected problems. Problems included having my wallet taken and my luggage not arriving with me when I landed in Singapore.

In all my time that I have been overseas, I had not encountered many problems and thought I had been lucky until I reached Paris. Before this I had encounters that gave me cause of concern over where I was staying especially in Copenhagen. I think it was something like dumb luck there. Right outside of the hostel was an ATM and I was on my way for a day out in Malmo in Sweden. Early morning and I was thinking I was safe enough as it was daylight. I needed some money, so withdrew some and several men were across the road hanging around the steps to the train station. One crossed the road diagonally behind me, talking loudly behind me, causing me to look behind me. I had heard of this type of distraction, but never witnessed it before. I got my money out and one of the men apologised to me that he had scared me. Then went on to ask if I would like a surprise. I started walking away realising I was going in the wrong direction and turned around following a lady with a bag. The men spoke to me as I went up the stairs into the train station, but I did not speak to them. I did speak to the hostel about the incident and they had never heard of something like that happening before. Then a guest starts talking about people stealing push bikes in the city and also one night a group had tried to pose as police, but they took off when he replied back that he was FBI.

In Paris, I had a walk about before I left for the train station to head to the airport and I was walking down some stairs at the Sacre Coeur and I spotted two men at the bottom like they were looking for tourists. They spotted me as there were few people around and one of them did call me, ‘Hey, Bro come here’, I just wandered away from them heading towards some locals. The real incident happened when I was trying to board the train for the airport. I had thought an hour or so before that buying the ticket to the airport would be the safest option as my wallet would not be out in the open and I was at that time not carrying my bags. All trainlines at that time were working perfectly. I wandered to the hostel and grabbed my bags, which meant I looked like a battering ram as I made my way to the station again. Turns out the line I needed to catch was now out of order and blocked off, which meant I had to find the new platform and get the train from there. I wandered down to the platform as there were two platforms on the bottom level and only one of them being used for the airport line. It was crowded, people wanting to hop onto the train. I walked down and watched before going back up and asking to make 100% certain I was on the correct track. I was and went back down. The next train overshot the platform a touch and I nearly decided to wait for the next one, but pushed myself on and dropped my bags as it was extremely crowded outside and inside. Bags were everywhere in the aisles. There was yelling as people passed over my main bag as it was heavy and my backpack was beside me. I managed to get a seat while watching the chaos. Alarms went off and people got off and others got on as people were getting frustrated. As soon as the train started moving, I felt for my wallet in my cargo pants pocket. It was gone and the pocket open.

My first thought with my vanished wallet was they have everything as I had three types of bank cards together plus my drivers license. Two travel cards and my direct debit card were in the wallet. Only reason, I had the cards together and not separated was several days before, one of my travel cards had been blocked and I had to call the bank to unblock it. There had been issues in France through using my cards from outright not working to working or in the case of Mcdonalds saying there was no transaction, when there actually was one made. Then I realised they didn’t have everything as I kept my credit card separate and hidden with my passport in my backpack. I asked on the train if anyone had seen my wallet and people said no and asked what colour it was. One of them even said without moving that they will look for it. A French lady said that she will take me to the police station at the airport as they will speak English. I realised that I could access my cards via online banking as I did happen to have data roaming on my travel card. That came in handy when I could connect to the bank as the signal kept dropping out. I could literally see money going out as I started transferring it out before cancelling the card instead and my direct debit card as soon as I cancelled it, I got a new one sent home. I was slow off the mark, but I managed to save the rest of my money and I transferred all out of the account just to be safe. They were that quick in using the stolen cards at what looked to be a flower shop of sorts. They did get around $700 with conversion fees on top that ended up around $800, which was a weeks pay and I had only just been paid too. I did the same with my travel cards, but those I had to phone up to replace later on.

 When we got to the airport we found trying to find the police station to be tougher than expected. No one seemed to know if there was actually one and that included the military police that were wandering around with their guns. I was told by the lady that it was arrogance on their behalf. We ended up at the checkin counter for my plane and the guy there sent me to the assistance area, which I would end up after sorting my bag as I could set that to head off onto the plane. I did thank the French lady for her help even though she was likely late for her flight and I hoped she would have been on time for hers. I went to the assistance area and found they were the people who helped those in chairs and elderly onto the plane, but they did help me by grabbing one of the other airport workers who directed me to the police around the corner. I did give them all the details thinking I wont be there for long and that the lady who could speak some English was helpful. I was asked several times if I wanted to make a report and I said yes as I thought my travel insurance would need it. They took my passport and boarding pass where an officer would be with me soon. Around 2 hours later after watching my passport walk up and down stairs at least 3 or four times, I was getting anxious at the time running out for my flight. I was getting very close as the officer gave me paperwork to sign and I was off and running. I was even stuck at the gate after one of the immigration guys decided to go home and there was one passport stamper. I pleaded my case politely with the guy who was watching the line and he walked me to the passport stamper and off I went thinking I was very late. I was 5 min on time before my flight started boarding. By this time I had no lunch and nothing to drink either. I was not even sure if the pay wave on my credit card would work or if it would actually work. I only had foreign currency on me.

I didn’t tell family or even friends until after I landed about what had happened as I knew mum was in bed and needed her sleep and everyone else didn’t need to worry about me. It was around 9pm in Australia when I was sorting out the police stuff. Everyone was long away on the other side of the world, so couldn’t really help other than moral support. It was something I needed to deal with and actually turned out to be relatively easy and simple.

The saga did continue when I landed in Edinburgh, but I was happy to be there and I was drained. I changed what little money I had left over to the pound and that wasn’t very much, but it was something. From memory, I think it was something like 16 pound as I had Danish notes and Singapore dollars. I went to catch the tram into the city where I was staying and I inserted my credit card as I had been informed tap and Go wouldn’t work. I was getting upset when the card was rejected twice. I tried tap and go on the ticket lady’s advice and that worked. I did end up calling the bank about my travel cards as soon as I got into the hostel and I was feeling down. The cards couldn’t be sent to me as they had to arrive via home and then be sent on. I found my credit card works and also that I could withdraw money out, which eased some fears. I couldn’t increase my credit card limit as that was rejected. I wondered how I was making these long phone calls without being charged and found they were reverse charged. It was the next day that I rang to soprt out my credit card and to ease my fears of the bank swallowing my only means at accessing money. I explained to the guy on the phone as I had to ring in Australian bank call centre opening hours. I somehow had my card linked to my savings account and he told me I had to find the right ATM that would give me the options. I never actually found that type of ATM, but I made sure to separate my cash when ever I withdrew it. I felt happier once I spoke to the bank at home about the issues and they did help. It took me several days to talk to the bank again about the fraud and they looked into it and it was only several days later that I got my money back as I gave them the exact amounts and where the money had been taken from.

It took just over a week for my new cards to arrive in the UK as they had been posted home and then express posted to a post office. I activated one travel card immediately as I had money on it to pay for my next accommodation. I was lucky in that respect as all the placed with the exception of one had already been paid for before leaving Australia. I do consider myself to be very lucky as I only lost my wallet and drivers license that I reordered a week later. I didn’t use my travel insurance as the bank in my opinion took care of me, but there were small continuing issues with the long lost cards as some train tickets you could not retrieve without the card you purchased with. I bought new tickets, but nearly all the places I had already had a ticket in hand, so travel wasn’t too put out. I did have a new wallet too by that stage and I kept my cards separated and my only ID now was my passport, which made me fear losing that or the problem of it quite possibly getting wet.

There were other small problems like trains being cancelled and the biggest one was my luggage didn’t arrive in Singapore with me and I was actually happy, I didn’t have to carry that around through Singapore just on dark as I ended up getting lost going to the hotel. I was more than happy to stink my way through Singapore even though I did have help with clothes. I did however have chargers and powerpacks on my person luckily. That’s another story of fun and I learnt so much about my ability to handle pressure. Just shrug and move on.