Gary’s Q&A

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

Isaac asks, With all the traveling you have done, have you succumbed to any of the pickpocket/scam artists? Have you seen any of these teams in action? Walking around with so much camera gear, it seems like one would be targeted.

In all of the traveling I’ve done, I have never been the victim of a pickpocket.

This is due to a couple of things. For starters, I always carried my wallet in my front pocket, not my back pocket. It is far easier to slip a wallet out of a back pocket as you aren’t looking and the pocket usually isn’t as deep.

There are other small things I did to make myself a less attractive target. If you have a backpack that has zippers on both sides, don’t close the bag by having the zippers meet at the top. It is very easy to unzip. Rather, have both zippers meet at the bottom of one side. To open the bag, you have to zip up, not down.

Another thing I did was to always have my camera bag attached to myself. If I sat down somewhere, I’d put my leg through the shoulder loop of the bag. That makes it more difficult for someone to snatch and grab.

Finally, I always used clothing with zippered pockets, like pants and shirts from Scottevest. I used Scottevest clothing all the time when I was on the road.

What all of these things have in common is that it makes things more difficult for a pickpocket or a thief. They will always pick the easiest target, and you want to make sure that is not you. Real pickpocketing is an art form that is slowly being lost. There are some places, like Rome and Barcelona, where you can still find them, but a lot of street crime now is much less subtle. I’ve heard of several cases in Bangkok, for example, where purse-snatchers would ride past a woman with a purse and just grab it off her shoulder while they were moving.

As for scams, I have been the victim of a few small-scale ones early in my travels, but none of them cost me more than $20. I was in Manila when I first fell victim to the “my meter isn’t working” cab driver routine. Again, I probably paid about $20 rather than $5 or $10.

One of the things I learned from potential scammers is that they will almost always initiate a conversation with you. If you are just standing on the street and someone initiates a conversation with you that requires you to do something…..its probably a scam.

Talking to strangers isn’t a problem, but it usually is when they talk to you.