Theft In Prague

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namkcuR

ONE love, blood, life
Joined
Sep 7, 2004
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10,770
Location
Kettering, Ohio
:mad:

So, my father went on this European vacation by himself(primarily because my parents couldn't easily afford for both him and my mother to go and he's seeing stuff that he is primarily interested in). Two weeks, divided into three parts: Hamburg, Prague, and Vienna. So Hamburg went ok and Prague went ok - almost. According to him, he was in the train station, about to catch the train from Prague to Vienna. He had with him three pieces of baggage. One was a suitcase, with just clothes and tioletries and stuff in it. One was a computer bag with a high-quality laptop, webcam, and cables for those objects in it. The third was a bag that he carried around with him when walking around in the cities, with a digital camera, digital video camera, cellphone, maps, some gifts, etc in it. It's kind of a man-purse, if you will. Ok, so according to him, in the train station, there was a very short staircase he had to go down - no more than ten feet. He was holding the two bags in one hand and pulling the suitcase with the other. He had to carry the suitcase down the stairs with both hands, so he had to put the other two bags down. He walked down the short staircase with the suitcase, looking over his shoulder at the other bags as he went. He took his eyes off of them for ONE SECOND as he turned around to go back up the stairs. And they were gone. Laptop, Digital Camera, Digital Video Camera, Cell Phone, Maps, Gifts he had spent money on, his passport, his international driver's license, etc. All he had left was the suitcase with his clothes and toiletries in it.

And this wasn't just petty theft. People do it professionally in these cities. They especially hang around places like that, watching people, waiting for them to take their eyes off their stuff. They probably sell it/pawn it off right after stealing it. I have taken to calling them 'the spineless, conscienceless, cowardly motherfuckers' in the past two days(this happened in the early morning hours USA time of June 23rd).

It just makes me mad that there are slimey people that make their living by waiting to take advantage of good people. It's probably anywhere between a $3000-$5000 loss because of all of those electronics(not to mention all the pictures he had taken in Hamburg and Prague).

Anyway, he stayed in Prague yesterday to deal with this. He managed to get something filed with the Czech police there so that when he gets back to America(in a week) he'll be able to ask the insurance company to cover at least some of the loss. Not exactly holding our breathes though, for fear of the insurance company saying 'you shouldn't have taken your eyes off of it, your fault, no dice'. He got another train ticket for today and is now in Vienna.

May the spineless, conscienceless, cowardly motherfuckers rot in hell.

:mad:
 
:mad:

Those dirtbags... sorry to hear about that of your dad. :hug: And it wasn't just material goods too... grr, I'd be angry at losing all those pictures too! Emotional goods... I wonder if insurance covers those though. :hug:
 
That's just so very frustrating. I imagine the thieves know that stairway is a vunerable point and keep an eye on it.

I certainly hope your dad is able to enjoy the rest of his vacation and that he gets at least some reimbursment from insurance.
 
sorry to hear about that, i hope he has a good time in vienna (my home city). tell him greez and well.. try take it easy even if i won´t .. you know, similar thing happened to me in nice once,took my eyes off a handy bag when stuffing my backpack somewhere, and everything got stolen: a DAT recorder, tapes with original demos, passport, train ticket, .. just incredible.

the only thing i had left was 500 francs, so i bought a new train ticket for 485 and lived at the beach for some days with 15 francs.

sure they are organised gangster groups working in the stations. its good he went to the police. look if they have written the events (how it got stolen) or only the items that were stolen. he doesn´t really have to tell to insurance he was walking away. the bags were just stolen, whether they stood right beside him or a little away, shouldn´t make a difference.
 
oh and also tell your dad it happens to everyone. really. i don´t know a single traveller who doesn´t have any of those stories to tell. if you are careful, the staistics say it will not happen again in the next ten years.. i was robbed twice on my last trip (and being robbed with knives et al is really shitty) so that should be enough for the next decade or so :D
 
My grandfather went to Greece twice.

And they stole his passport both times.

Then his daughter (my aunt) went to Greece as well, two years ago, they stole her passport AND her laptop.

She was not amused.
 
I've been to Prague, I stayed near one train station (not sure what it was called) but it was very dodgy...it was right across from a 'poofter park' as called by the locals...some seedy characters there :huh:
 
:madspit: That's rough. Luckily, in our one month stay in Tanzania with a group of 20, the only theft we had was a very nice camera lens that was taken off of our picnic table at Mt. Kilimanjaro. Not that this is something that only happens in foreign countries....at our old house someone cut through our back door and stole my dad's shotgun and hunting rifle and a few other things...and once at the local grocery store my dad grabbed a guy who reached into our cart and tried to yoink my purse while we were picking out meat...and I won't go into how many times our bikes were stolen from our garage....but, yeah, that sucks that all his expensive stuff was in there.:(
 
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