This Public Service Announcement brought to you by a lucky tourist.
Today I took the TER along the French Riviera. I took a seat in an empty 4-seat pods. A few minutes later three women (20s or 30s, all with darkish hair) sat down with me, despite the availability of other seats. Shortly afterward, one of them (wearing a distinctive red hat without a brim, sort of turban-like) indicated that she wanted to know what time it was and, I held up my watch so she could see it. If this was intended as a screening technique, they need more practice; the watch is a 2-year-old $20 Walmart special.
After a little more time had passed, Red Hat said the seats were reserved (in French, in broken English? I don't know). That puzzled me because I didn't think there were reserved seats on TERs, so I started digging for the ticket among the non-valuable papers and brochures in the outer pocket of my purse (worn cross-body during the entire incident), to see whether it showed a seat assignment. Not immediately finding the ticket, I decided to vacate the seat and stood.
At that point Red Hat hopped up to show me where I could sit. At some point she ended up facing me with a hand on each shoulder, backing up as she lead me through the carriage as if I were infirm. Which I am not. The other two women also got up and followed us up the steps to the top level on the train. (I was still not thinking "pickpockets", as hard as that is to believe, though the whole thing seemed strange.) When we came to an open seating pod I broke away and sat down. They joined me in the pod, and that's when I noticed that the center of my purse was unzipped. I could see that the wallet was still there, so I just re-zipped the purse. A minute or two later, my shadows left. They got off the train at the next stop. I thought about warning the people on the platform, but the train pulled out of the station before I could do so.
So:
Beware of people getting into your personal space. Break away from anyone who purposefully touches you without your permission unless it's a law-enforcement official.
Be careful of unusual groups of people (not singles, not couples) who are traveling together and choose to be closer to you than necessary. Especially when there's not really a language in common, so their purpose is clearly not to have a cross-cultural discussion.
It's worth wondering a bit more about an odd group if one or more members is wearing or carrying something so distinctive that you're unlikely to notice anything else about them. I'm sure that hat will not be worn tomorrow, but perhaps another unusual accessory will be.
Pickpockets who interact with their intended victims are probably much more likely to be female because we tend to be warier of males. I still have a hard time seeing females as potential thieves.
Solo travelers, senior citizens and folks who tend to be engrossed in reading material (i.e., perceived as distracted) should be aware that they may look like attractive targets.
Wallets are usually the goal when someone dips into a woman's purse. There's no need to tempt fate by keeping a credit card or a bank card in your wallet just because you need to use it that day. Zip the cards into one or more interior pockets of your purse. They are much harder to replace than cash.
I'm back to keeping only a little bit of money and my driver's license in my wallet. I'm not driving during the trip, so losing the license wouldn't be critical. I use a money belt on days when I'm changing hotels, and I keep an extra ATM card and 2 extra credit cards in my hotel room/money belt.