[NamTaf]

I had my backpack - with (work) laptop, both passports, wallet, house keys, etc. - stolen from a pub in Euston a couple of years ago. All that remained in my pockets was my phone & power bank, and airpods. It was stolen by a guy who went into the pub we were at, sat at an adjacent table, pretended to study the menu, deposited a dummy backpack to the communal pile under our table when we were standing to greet people, then picked up the heaviest one (mine) and walked out. Unlike the author, I wasn't black-out drunk, we were just distracted and someone was able to do a sleight of hand when we weren't paying attention.

The author is very lucky to get theirs back. I had to replace it all. As they say, replacing the UK one wasn't too bad - though I hadn't been in the UK for 2 years by that point so I had to get extra guarantors to sign photos and write a declaration. The other one was a nightmare, and by pure luck the embassy could look up my last application and pull the birth certificate reference number for me. Again, 2 guarantors and I was very lucky to have a friend from that country visiting.

I reported it as stolen, hoping that they'd steal the laptop and wallet and then ditch the rest. Unfortunately, either nobody found it or nobody turned it in. Of course, the CCTV that was in the pub was 'too blurry' to be of any use. CCTV has a funny tendency of being useless in that regard.

In my case, I crashed at a friend's place that evening, and then went down to my local makerspace for lack of wanting to pay a locksmith £fuckloads to unlock my door on a Sunday. By pure luck, there was a lockpicking nerd there and they came and slipped my door for me. Thankfully, that was enough to help offset a lot of the negativity of the whole affair. I felt like I got off lucky a bit, and didn't dwell so much on it as a result.

[crinkly]

Lived in London for over 40 years. Never let your stuff out of sight for a minute. My foot always goes through a loop on my bag. Had at least two attempts to grab it which was stopped dead by this. I use a knackered looking Osprey daylite plus bag which has straps around the zips that stops people casually having a go at it as well. Mostly no issues in the last 10 years but I know people who are careless and have been done a few times.

My general travel experience, outside the UK, is that if you dress down, use a knackered looking bag and a shitty no brand knackered phone case and people will leave you alone. Passport goes on you in a zipped inner pocket anywhere on the planet. Same with wallet, keys, anything. Never wear anything that indicates you have an iPhone worth nicking. Apple Watch / Airpods make you a target.

Many people aren't travel savvy. It scares me.

[atlasunshrugged]

Wow, I have to say it's a bit crazy that you have to go through all this effort in what I think of as quite a safe city. I was recently in London for a week of meetings and someone said be careful about having your phone out in case someone snatches it but I thought they were being hyperbolic.

Why isn't there a bigger crackdown on such petty crime? I guess people think they can get away with it, but it feels like one of those creeping issues that might seem small at first but deters important activity (tourism, business relocation, etc.) longterm if not addressed.

[olalonde]

One thing that really struck me in Dubai: I watched a group of girls leave their designer purses and phones unattended on a table. They just left the coffee shop and came back over 10 minutes later.

[dataflow]

Out of curiosity, how would you compare London to NYC?

[codezero]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who always has the loop around their foot! Minimal inconvenience for the potential loss.

[robaato]

20 years ago I had a somewhat similar experience - a pub off The Strand in central London.

My bag/briefcase was under a (high) table, and in that case the pub was able to view CCTV and work out the guy who sat nearby and hooked his leg to grab my bag - while I was distracted.

Luckily for me, while it contained laptop and passport, I got a call 20 mins later from my wife, who had been contacted by someone 100m away in a different pub. The thief had taken my bag with laptop, not realised there was also a passport in there, gone to another pub, stolen another bag, switched my laptop into said bag, and gone off. The owner of other lost laptop had found my (empty) bag/passport, rang my wife, and we met and at least I got bag (and passport) back...

Net result, lost laptop, but not lost passport. Much less hassle, although still a wake up call...

[robaato]

As an aside, a friend in Tokyo only a couple of years ago suddenly realised he had lost his passport. A couple of hours of searching bags later, panic when he realised it was mid afternoon Friday, consulate was going to close soon, and not reopen until Monday - with his flight scheduled Monday early!

Rang the consulate to ask advice: "oh yes, police station XXX rang us to report they had had your passport handed in - please go and pick it up!". So we did!

Lovely country Japan in many ways! It had just dropped out of his bag onto pavement, been found and handed in...

[ryandrake]

Wasn't the whole point of blanketing the country with CCTV to catch criminals? If it's too low res to even work out someone's face to the point where you can identify him, then what are all those cameras achieving?

[nickjj]

> CCTV has a funny tendency of being useless in that regard

I don't think it's safe to depend on this by default.

I know a few business owners who have video (and audio) recording set ups in their business where 100+ customers come and go daily.

There might be 6 motion activated cameras saving everything to a local box in the store. That box might have let's say 1TB of disk space. Even with motion activated cameras it could fill up in ~3 weeks to where it's no longer recording.

Once it gets filled up, it gets permanently deleted with no backups. This could be a manual and adhoc process, it depends on the owner.

I never had any say in how they operate, just repeating what I've heard and seen.

This idea of trusting that companies record and save all interactions and calls indefinitely is no way something I'd trust for anything important.

[Someone]

> This idea of trusting that companies record and save all interactions and calls indefinitely is no way something I'd trust for anything important.

In many jurisdictions, it is against the law to record and save all interactions and calls indefinitely.

Often, law says you can only make video recordings for a given, legal, purpose. If the goal is to deter crime and help solve crimes, keeping recordings around for a few weeks is allowed, but keeping them forever typically isn’t.

[chrisandchris]

> Even with motion activated cameras it could fill up in ~3 weeks to where it's no longer recording.

What are the legal aspects to it? In Switzerland e.g. the recommended duration to store recordings are "up to 72h, or as long as required to fulfil their job" (afaik, the law isn't very exactly defined) . I could see it difficult to argue "as long as the disk is not fill" as a valid duration.

[chasd00]

heh someone broke into a house i was staying at in Costa Rica and stole my backpack while i was working in the next room! I go back to get something and there's footprints in/out of a sliding glass door and no backpack. Fortunately, the only thing they got was my ADHD medicine. Sorta sucked for my employer for those 3 weeks I was without but it could have been much worse.

Interestingly, i did my best to follow the footsteps which led to a trail that went up through the jungle. Maybe 100 yards up a hill there was a little spot that definitely looked well used by humans overlooking the house and straight through a large window. I suspect whoever it was had been watching us for a while and when my wife/kids left, leaving me alone, just walked in, grabbed the backpack and left. (wife was not pleased as you could imagine)

[brailsafe]

> Fortunately, the only thing they got was my ADHD medicine

Good time to start binging Costa Rican specialty coffee. A liter a day keeps the ADHD at bay ;)

(somewhat joking, milage may vary, real meds help, but coffee's good in high quantities in a pinch)

[catlikesshrimp]

Why did you miss your meds? It would have been trivial to consult any generalist / psychiatrist and walk out with your prescription. Doctors charge $50 - $100

People in Costa Rica tend to be nice and helpful, and smart.

[cjrp]

I witnessed almost the exact same thing on an adjacent table; someone crouching down pretending to do their shoelaces for a suspiciously long time. Unfortunately I didn’t click what was going on until after they’d left.

[baxtr]

> had my backpack - with (work) laptop, both passports, wallet, house keys, etc. - stolen

I’ve made a similar experience a while back. Since then I’ve completely reduced the number of important items I carry around simultaneously in the same bag/location.