Travel Horrors: When Bad Thing Happen to Good People on Vacation : Travel Scams: the Latest Goop From Italy

In travel, like everything else, there’s always a new wrinkle or fad. Some discover this season’s “in” place to visit. We, unfortunately, found the latest unique way to be fleeced. My husband, Eph, and I have wandered a fair share all over the world with few items lost or stolen. There was a pocket camera in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; a necklace in Bari, Italy; a sweater in the De Gaulle Airport in Paris. That’s not much when you count the decades and the number of trips. We’ve nearly been robbed or pick-pocketed a few times, but we’ve fended the thieves off and felt powerful and savvy about the dangers out there.

Savvy, that is, until last year in an incident in the Turin, Italy, airport. It was May 1, 1992, a national holiday there.

Upon arrival, we claimed our luggage and completed passport checking procedures. Both of our documents went back into the passport case in Eph’s inside jacket pocket, next to our airline tickets and a wad of American dollars.

Being a holiday, the airport was rather quiet and the bank was closed. We were elated to find a money-changing machine and our auto rental counter open. Eph headed for the money machine. I pushed the luggage cart over to the Auto-Europe counter to start the rental negotiations: pleasant, relaxed, chit-chatty talk about weather and travel plans and maps. Italian lire received and safely stowed in his front pants pocket, Eph joined me. I looked up at him, saw something weird and looked again.

“Wow, look at you!” I exclaimed. “Who bumped into you? What have you got all over your back? Yuck, maybe it’s chocolate, but it looks like something worse!”

*

I went around to get a really close look, which made me even more upset. The stuff was all over the back of his tweed jacket, really goopy and thick and oozy.

“How could such a thing happen? Didn’t you feel anything? Oh, my, it’s starting to drip all down your pants. You’d better take the jacket off before it’s too late.”

I could hear myself sounding hysterical, while Eph was largely ignoring me, talking with the agent about different sized cars and makes and rates. Finally, my nagging registered. He let me pull the jacket off his shoulders without interrupting the discussion.

I felt a little helpless to clean up the mess, holding the jacket at arms’ length to keep myself ungooped, at the same time trying to locate the packet of Kleenex in the bottom of my bag. I kept muttering about needing tissues or paper towels before the floor got slippery and somebody fell and broke their leg or something. My free hand, groping in the bottom of the bag, found nothing usable.

Two nice men--short, stocky and dressed in nondescript clothing--came to my rescue. “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” they said. They spoke in Italian, but their body language made them easily understood. “What a mess. You need tissues; we’ll help you.”

One of them found a handful of blue tissues in his pocket and kindly offered them to me. I dabbed away, trying to hold the jacket and wipe at the same time. Seeing my awkwardness, they volunteered to hold the jacket while I cleaned. I was so grateful. They stretched the jacket taut so I could absorb the mess better. There weren’t enough tissues, and they appeared to be going to bring me more.

“Thank you, thank you. You are so helpful,” I said, as they left. . . .

I was waiting perhaps 10 seconds, holding the jacket. The auto rental agent needed to see our passports and Eph asked me to reach into the inside pocket and hand him the case.

*

You guessed it, didn’t you? You are much smarter than I was. No passport case, no passports, no tickets, no money. All gone.

We raised such a hue and cry. Those two men had engineered the whole caper: poured the chocolate syrup, offered to help, stolen our documents and money.

At first, the people around us didn’t understand. Finally, there was some scurrying and much talk, all in Italian, trying to piece together the chain of events. An airlines agent arrived to help make sense of the situation.

We all went to the police, who didn’t look like they knew what to do. There was more voluble talk in graphic Italian with gestures to describe how it happened. They looked disbelieving. Finally, Michelangelo Bologna, a plainclothes policeman whose job it is to patrol the airport, arrived to take charge.

Filing a police report in the Turin airport was like a scene out of every Italian movie I have ever seen. The police argued endlessly, enjoyed themselves hugely and became comrades with Eph, while ignoring me, the female, totally. They let Eph know that this scam was new and had never happened before. Had he spoken Italian, they could have acted immediately and apprehended the crooks, who were surely foreigners of some kind, they said.

Hours later, after Bologna had typed the report using several carbon papers and two fingers, we drove off in our rented car. We were armed with a precious copy of the police report that, we were assured, would pave our way at every hotel and allow us to stay in the country without passports.

*

Up to this point we had been clearly, without question, victims. People could be sorry for us and commiserate with us at our loss. Subtly, but surely, and quite quickly, we were converted into guilty perpetrators.

Over the following 10 days, I began to feel discounted and shamed. Concierges looked us over and curled their lips while reading the police report we handed over upon registering in hotels.

When I called Trans World Airlines to request that our stolen tickets be replaced, the representative retrieved us in her computer and barked loudly and contemptuously: “You are traveling free. You will be penalized and have to pay for new tickets. You should have been more careful.”

I tried to counterattack. “What do you mean, ‘free?’ And what difference does that make? First, we earned our frequent-flier miles, and second, we weren’t careless, we were robbed. We have a police report.”

This didn’t cut any ice. We waited in line for two hours at Milpensa Airport in Milan for new tickets, during which time we were reminded at least six times that we were traveling free. However, our arguing did get the penalty reduced from $150 to $50 per ticket.

There was one empathetic telephone interchange with the duty officer at the American Consulate in Milan.

“Lady,” he said, “don’t beat yourself up. It’s the scam for this year. My friend, who has lived in Rome for three years, just got stung the same way. Only difference, her (con artists) used ketchup instead of chocolate. She fell for it just like you did. She let them help her clean up, while they stole her purse.”

He was very helpful in other ways as well. We learned we had to go to Milan or Rome, spend at least half a day filling out forms, taking pictures and waiting for new documents. No checks or credit cards were accepted, and he advised arriving when the doors opened at 9 a.m.

*

Despite the friendly phone conversation, when we arrived at the American consulate in Milan the officials weren’t the least bit compassionate. They were efficient and willing to get us new passsports so that we could leave the country, but they didn’t trust us one inch.

“How come he (Eph) was carrying both passports?” they queried. The unspoken question seemed to be, “Whom are you trying to fool?” He may have only been trying to protect American interests, but a security officer seemed to be trying to catch us in lies. He asked us a lot of odd questions, as if two old codgers like us would make perfect terrorists. The security man explained that they had no reason to believe us. Anyone could get California driver’s licenses, he said.

After paying $35 for new pictures and $130 for new passports, we were finally given documents that were stamped “Replacing Lost or Stolen Property” and were good for one year. Upon providing our birth certificates to authorities in Los Angeles, our new passports would be extended.

Fortunately, the con men didn’t get all of our money, and we had credit cards, so our travels continued. Despite being robbed, we had a wonderful time in Italy. We heartily recommend the Cinqueterre region and Lake Maggiore’s Borromee Islands as great places to visit. Our best meal in Italy this trip was at Fini in Modena; their bollito misto (mixed boiled meats) is superb.

Finally, and maybe in embarrassment, I need to write that I have always admired excellence, regardless of the area in which it is encountered. Therefore, I must say that those con men surely know how to scam a person: They are very good at what they do.

We came back from Italy last year poorer, wiser and eager to help others to avoid our experience. So be prepared and forewarned. Watch out. And if they get you, let the goop drip. It’s far cheaper.