Cutting of Purse Straps. Myth or Has it Happened to you?

Sometimes people talk about the danger of having your pack slit open and the contents stolen. A man who ran the warranty department for a major pack maker said that in ten years he'd never actually seen it. The purse strap thing might be an urban myth too but since I don't carry one, I can't say for sure.

I know someone that had a fanny pack type thing cut and stolen but that was over 20 years ago. I suspect it is very rare if at all anymore. Why cut purse straps when there are plenty of unsuspecting tourists that still drape their purses over their cafe chairs, having bulging wallets in their back pocket or sling their purse over their shoulder on packed metros? On a similar note, how about the gassing on overnight trains? I suspect that is ancient history since trains with compartments are rare if any still exist. Overnight couchettes that I've been on now all lock from the interior.

RE: Gassing on an overnight train. It happened to this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea7JxAvzUMg Although to be fair, he was more the perpetrator than the victim.

To the extent you trust information from the government, the US State Dept. Consular Sheet on Italy (as an example) lists this exact scenario on crowded public transportation. Nope, I've never known anyone who has experienced this, but I also have never personally known anyone who has experienced an earthquake while on vacation in Italy, but that warning is also on the Consular Sheet. What do you suppose the likelihood of a gangster randomly shooting at a train coming into Madrid might be? How about your car window being smashed in a public lot while thieves ransack the glove box, console, etc. looking for something valuable. Perhaps you've never known anyone this has happened to, but I can assure you that these things do happen. I suspect it's not a myth but doesn't occur very frequently. And my guess is that there are cities in Europe where this might be more likely to occur than in Frankfurt (not that you don't have your fair share of crime there).

Jo, I've never seen or known anyone who has experienced the cutting of the strap, but I will say that in 1992 I witnessed from the window of my tour bus a woman in my group who was just about stripped by a pack of beggar kids in Moscow.
She was partly at fault. Just as she was about to board the bus, she stopped to offer one child some money out of her change purse. They swarmed her and spun her around like a top. It was like she was attacked by a school of piranha! It only took ten or fifteen seconds. I saw a handbag pulled one way, a camera strap the other way, her coat pulled off her from the back. I don't know whether anything was cut away but I was astonished how quickly she was left without all the outer layers she had been wearing. Our burly Russian bus driver rushed out the door and started bashing the kids in the head which finally drove them off. I don't recall how much she ultimately lost, but it was terrible, as much a physical assault as it was a theft.

I tend to think it is extremely rare and more a scare tactic to get people to buy over priced handbags with cables from places like Pacsafe ect. There are too many easier targets. Plus in most countries purse snatching is a crime with a much shorter sentence than armed robbery. Once the thief starts carrying a cutting tool that can be considered a weapon. A smart thief isn't going to consider the risk/reward to be worth it, when he can just do a snatch and run from someone else.

It's been a few years but I did see this happen. My mother and I were on the Rick Steves city Rome tour in December of 2002. One afternoon when we returned to our room, she discovered that the bottom of her day bag had been slit the length of the bottom. We rode the subway that day and think it might have happened there but there we also saw a group of kids swarm around someone in our group so it may also have happened during the commotion. Fortunately, my mother had all of her valuables in her money belt and nothing of value in her bag. The most valuable thing she lost was the bag itself. Ever resilient, she used the experience as an opportunity to go shopping for another (less expensive) bag as a souvenir.

It hasn't happened to me. But, I was once approached by a young french girl (in Paris) who showed me that her backpack had been cut and her wallet with all her money had been stolen. I had the feeling, though, that she was just a panhandler with an inventive story who had slashed it herself in order to get tourists to feel sorry for her and give her money. Or maybe she was trying to distract me, if she and a friend were working in tandem. Anyway, I held on to my bag, said I wa sorry, and kept on walking... Definitely felt more like a scam than the truth...

Don't think this is as prevalent as it's made out to be on this board. And apologies to Kim if it's a real post you just made (as it's the one and only time you've ever posted on this board, I get a bit suspicious you may be one of the Rick Steves moneybelt police trying to make your point about these rampant bag slashings), but how exactly is it your mom didn't discover the entire length of the bottom of her daypack was slit open until after she got back to the hotel at the end of the day? I would think if the bottom of a daypack was slit open that much, junk would be spilling out the bottom as you walk around.

To Ceidleh-
I am really not one of the money belt police. My Mom's bag was an LL Bean bag made of a stiff fabric and she didn't have much in it, tissues, a couple of pens,a lipstick, a map and some brochures. The slit was in the middle of the bottom panel and her stuff sort of slid to the edges on either side of the slit. People were reporting that they haven't seen it happen, I did. That being said, I've been to Rome several times, spent a semester there in college and this is the first time I have seen it happen. My husband did lose a cheap camera from his coat pocket on the #64 bus one time but that's a different tale. Now I've posted twice.

We met a lovely nun in Rome who had it happen to her. She figured no one would bother her considering she was in full habit. We did believe her.

Not in Europe on any of my many trips both alone and with lots of friends...but, a friend and I were at the festival/celebration during the week before Easter in Antigua Guatemala,and my friend , who was with me the whole time, had her rather large tapestry bag slashed from the back. They got nothing. Another time at a crowded market in Oaxaca Mexico... same thing...another friend. She remembers being bumped and we think that is when it happened. I always carry a small bag, over my shoulder and hold it in front of me if I am feeling uneasy. Neither of these friends did that. Large bag over their shoulder and under their arm. The scariest part for me was thinking about what could have happened if that knife had slipped! When I do have a large bag it is usually water bottle, maps, camera or things I can do without. Not a money belt person, but I do have a very small cross shoulder bag than can go inside my shirt if I feel the need.

Not had it happen, not seen it, not heard from anybody first hand that it had happened - except here.

A friend of mine had it happen to her companion in a bazaar in Istanbul, some 20 or more years ago. 2 middle-aged couples walking together, one or two of them had the bum-bags ( I like that so much more than fanny-pack) cut off them. In California I was told never to put a purse on the passenger seat when driving. Even with doors locked and windows closed, sometimes thieves will smash the window to get to the bag - though I never met anyone that had happened to.

Chani - that advice about California and your pocketbook is an example of paranoia about rare events. OTOH leaving it on the seat in parked car is a bad idea.

Never to me or anyone I know, in over 30 years of going to Europe and knowing folks traveling to Europe. However, a few years back, a co-worker of mine in New York City had her bag slashed while she was in the elevator on her way out the door after work. The perp slashed her bag as they were just about to get out in the lobby, grabbed for her wallet as it tumbled to the floor, and ran out into the street. She reports that she was so preoccupied with everything dumping out of her bag onto the floor and skittering around everywhere, that until she looked up briefly, she didn't even realize what had happened. The contents of her bag emptying abruptly made a perfect cover for the actual theft. Now that sounds like a REALLY specilized thieving specialty! And it isn't an urban legend - it happened to Marge. Now for this: in all my years in NYC, I never heard of this happening to ANYONE else. So I weigh in with the "pretty much never happens" crowd. I would venture that, in the extremely rare instances that it does occur, it is so shocking that it makes an endlessly repeatable tale. And adding in the "he had a BLADE!" factor just amps up the delicious scariness of the tale.

In 1995 when I was on a European tour, I was walking with a member of the tour group down a street near the Palazzo Navano. We crossed a small side street walking side by side, when I guy on a scooter drove between us and tried to snatch my companion's shoulder purse off her. It was a tapestry purse and fortunately for her, the force caused the strap to break. It happened in a split second, guy on the scooter didn't even have to slow down to make the grab. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

It's much more of a 'scare myth' .. where those guys selling purses try to scare you into spending money! Sure it may happen, but... the odds are that it won't. In a lot of Euorpe travel I have never seen it happen.

No slashing: lost a camera in Chicago- Miracle Mile.
Son was pickpocketed, lost his fake wallet in his back pocket at Windsor. A best friend lost her smallish backpack on a train ( it was full of lace, looked like but was not a purse) to grab and run on a train, and two days later lost her wallet at the top of her purse immediately after paying the bill, in a casual restaurant.

Yes it does happen. My daughter was a victim of a strap cutting on the Paris Metro. The guy cut the strap and jumped off the train just as the door was closing. Fortunately she had separate copies of all the inportant informationto make a report. In terms of our family, that represents one minute in over 6 months of travel but it does happen.

Oh how its is easier traveling in the 2000's as compared with the late 80's early 90's. I took many a night train in those days when things were stolen when we were a sleep. Very dodgy time, what with the problems in ex-Yugoslavia. One night on a train from Budapest to Vienna a very drunken man from Kosovo said that he had just escaped and wanted to high five me (with blood on his hands) pretty frightening stuff.
These times are far safer!

In 2006 we met a couple from the U.S. while traveling on a train from Switzerland into Italy. Coincidentally, we ran into them again days later while touring the Vatican Museum. Earlier that morning they had been riding on the subway in Rome and the gentleman had his shirt slashed. He had been wearing a leather money pouch under his dress shirt. The thief cut through his shirt and cut the leather pouch, stealing all of their money and credit cards. He was still wearing the shirt with the large slit cut into the chest area when we happened to run into them. I know this was not a sham because we offered to loan them money until they got their credit cards replaced. They called us later to let us know that they were able to get them replaced quickly and had already arranged for a cash advance. So no loan was necessary. On a side note. We usually carry a small backpack with us to carry light jackets, umbrellas, camera, guide books, etc. We put small combination locks on the zippers of compartments in which we have valuables. We have never had the backpack cut, but we have found many times that the unlocked compartments have been unzipped.