How common are pickpocketing or scammers in your country.
August 1, 2025
Is it fairly common or hardly common?
20 comments
Very rare. Never happened to me, nor heard it happened to friends (maybe a possible scam, but not sure).
Almost non existent. I’ve never heard of anyone getting pick pocketed here ever.
I’d say you get the occasional scam like a dodgy tradesperson or man in a van type situation but it’s very rare. Digital scams, fake texts/emails/calls etc are on the rise however these don’t typically involve local people.
Pickpockets are a persistent problem. Especially if you’re a tourist.
Scammers are also a thing, but I don’t know if they’re any more prevalent compared to other countries.
Pickpocketing is very rare. Perhaps it happens more to tourists, but I never heard of it happening to anyone I know, and can’t remember it ever being on the news.
Scamming, idk. Sometimes there is news, that fake sms are being sent to some bank account owners, to get their info, etc. Not sure how common it is, I don’t think it is very widespread.
Sometimes people buy stuff without reading the fine print, or get convinced that they really need something.. it’s not always clear who is at fault. This usually happens with elderly people who live alone at home, the scammers somehow find them and do a visit in person, ring the bell, play all nice, and try to sell them something overpriced “for their health”, or their grandkids, or whatever. I don’t know the laws, it happened to my grandmother but she could revert the purchase and got her money back.
In Paris it’s very much present, I never heard of it anywhere else in the country.
Pickpocketing is a thing in tourist areas. I dont think its widespread but it does happen.
Scammers are a problem in our country. Especially older people are a target. Often scammers try to take advantage of elderly lacking digital skills. Or they go to someones houses in police uniform for example. And convince these people they are a target for burgulars so the police have to take all the jewelry to protect those. These scammers come up with all kind of scams and target those who are most vulnerable.
In Prague, tourist scams are everywhere. Comes with the territory of being turned into tourist Disneyland. Seriously, check Honest Guide. Pickpockets, next to none.
Can’t get pickpocketed if you’re a hermit who rarely goes out
Most infamous pickpocketing location in Germany seems to be the Alexanderplatz in Berlin. At least that is what I mostly hear about. I’m not aware of other locations, but not saying there are none.
I live in a popular tourist City. It happens, but it’s not a huge problem. It’s more common in London. The only time I got pickpocketed was at Cheltenham races.
Caught one recently on a bus in Dublin trying to open my girlfriend’s bag. When confronted, she pretended to have poor English and I think she was also pretending to be Dutch. I think they’re becoming very common in Dublin now, but before there were virtually none. There are videos of them targeting drunk people outside nightclubs and putting their hands in elderly tourists’ bags. I hope more people start calling them out, like in the videos I’ve seen from Rome and other places.
Pickpocketing is done by organized criminals. They operate in groups to obstruct visibility for cameras and other people, distract the victim by creating visual and audio chaos and pass the loot afterwards or dispose of it between the members, so even if police is there and get them – to make then hard to prosecute.
Common for areas filled with tourists and big crowds (i.e. big city tourist location or high traffic metro and train station). Usuallyin countries where this is not a seriously prosecuted or punished offense to further minimize the risk.
In the extremely rare cases someone get arrested in most EU countries the sentence is light as there are no violence and weapons involved.
Most criminals are free to operate in different countries and first sentence for such a light crime is usually suspended sentence.
On the topic of scams – it is very broad. Often times people using your stupidity against you for monetary gain is considered a scam, but IMO politics are scammers by that definition. Street scams usually are not violent and are done only if one continue interracting with the conman.
As for hiw common it is – never heard of it happening in cities with less than half a million population in my life.
Two real cases of petty criminals for those thinking Breaking Bad portrait (unorganized) criminals as too dumb.
One from 20 years ago. A black teen with a skimask robbed a store. In a city with population of 200,000 people, 3 of which were black and two of them were transfer football players.
Second case – 3 young adults (around 18-20 y.o.) rob a gas station. Location between few small (less than 2,000 population) villages. With their car (which regularly use the station) and one of the robbers was cousin of the worker.
Barcelona is the pickpocketing and scamming capital in Europe. Hardly anybody leaves Barcelona without anything having being stolen. Gothic Quarter, Ramblas, Market Hall, Parque Guell, Sagrada Familia, bus lines used by tourists, steps up to the National Museum are preferred haunts.
It’s common enough London and Paris (pickpocketing). Can’t speak for the rest of France or UK.
Scamming, depends on what you define as scamming. Digital scams can happen anywhere I assume and it’s on the rise, tourist traps also exist.
As a whole, very uncommon.
Phone-snatching is definitely an issue in London, and I’m sure in other cities.
I don’t think street scammers is very common here though? I could be wrong.
Varies, pick pocketing is rare outside gigs however snatching phones from people’s hands is fairly common. As for scammers they’re pretty common, being an English speaking country we get a lot of phone scammers from abroad.
I’m a Canadian-Korean who was pickpocketed in Spain.
While I was filing my police report, I told an officer, ‘in my countr(ies), if you told me someone was killed I’d say ‘oh no.’ But if you told me you were pickpocketed, I’d said ‘where the hell were you and what the fuck were you doing?”
I’m basically proof of why it’s so easy to pick tourists—I thought I was being careful and it just took a moment of lapsed judgement (for me) or secondhand nature (for my friend, who keeps his phone in his back pocket out of habit) for our items to be picked 🙁
Pickpockets aren’t such a big problem in Sweden. Small-time thefts mostly happen in bars and similarly crowded settings when someone leaves a bag or phone unattended, that’s not really pickpocketing. Actual pickpockets are more of a concern at festivals or Christmas markets, but it’s absolutely not the same scale of issue as Paris, Rome or Barcelona. Not enough tourists I’d guess, tourists make for perfect pickpocket targets and outside maybe two spots in Stockholm there just isn’t enough of a tourist flow for it to be so widespread.
Scammers though, we have every sort. Not so much the “scam tourists into paying for a worthless item” type but various scams are a popular type of crime, especially since cash no longer effectively exists. Some scammers target old people, others cast a wide net. There are dedicated scammers who target mostly foreigners looking for housing, they collect deposits on fake rental contracts.
An interesting thing about scams in Sweden is that they’re very different depending on whether they target locals or foreigners. Scams that target locals wouldn’t work on foreigners, as they’re all digital and target the person’s (Swedish) payment services and digital identity. Foreigners are meanwhile much easier to trick with rental scams because they’re generally unfamiliar with the renting process.
I don’t hear about a lot of pickpocketing but you do have a few scammers from time to time trying weird things downtown.
It reportedly happens in and near the main railway station in Helsinki – never witnessed it myself though.
20 comments
Very rare. Never happened to me, nor heard it happened to friends (maybe a possible scam, but not sure).
Almost non existent. I’ve never heard of anyone getting pick pocketed here ever.
I’d say you get the occasional scam like a dodgy tradesperson or man in a van type situation but it’s very rare. Digital scams, fake texts/emails/calls etc are on the rise however these don’t typically involve local people.
Pickpockets are a persistent problem. Especially if you’re a tourist.
Scammers are also a thing, but I don’t know if they’re any more prevalent compared to other countries.
Pickpocketing is very rare. Perhaps it happens more to tourists, but I never heard of it happening to anyone I know, and can’t remember it ever being on the news.
Scamming, idk. Sometimes there is news, that fake sms are being sent to some bank account owners, to get their info, etc. Not sure how common it is, I don’t think it is very widespread.
Sometimes people buy stuff without reading the fine print, or get convinced that they really need something.. it’s not always clear who is at fault. This usually happens with elderly people who live alone at home, the scammers somehow find them and do a visit in person, ring the bell, play all nice, and try to sell them something overpriced “for their health”, or their grandkids, or whatever. I don’t know the laws, it happened to my grandmother but she could revert the purchase and got her money back.
In Paris it’s very much present, I never heard of it anywhere else in the country.
Pickpocketing is a thing in tourist areas. I dont think its widespread but it does happen.
Scammers are a problem in our country. Especially older people are a target. Often scammers try to take advantage of elderly lacking digital skills. Or they go to someones houses in police uniform for example. And convince these people they are a target for burgulars so the police have to take all the jewelry to protect those. These scammers come up with all kind of scams and target those who are most vulnerable.
In Prague, tourist scams are everywhere. Comes with the territory of being turned into tourist Disneyland. Seriously, check Honest Guide. Pickpockets, next to none.
Can’t get pickpocketed if you’re a hermit who rarely goes out
Most infamous pickpocketing location in Germany seems to be the Alexanderplatz in Berlin. At least that is what I mostly hear about. I’m not aware of other locations, but not saying there are none.
I live in a popular tourist City. It happens, but it’s not a huge problem. It’s more common in London. The only time I got pickpocketed was at Cheltenham races.
Caught one recently on a bus in Dublin trying to open my girlfriend’s bag. When confronted, she pretended to have poor English and I think she was also pretending to be Dutch. I think they’re becoming very common in Dublin now, but before there were virtually none. There are videos of them targeting drunk people outside nightclubs and putting their hands in elderly tourists’ bags. I hope more people start calling them out, like in the videos I’ve seen from Rome and other places.
[https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9JfsFlsgiJ/?igsh=MWFuMXN1bWtqN210Ng==](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9JfsFlsgiJ/?igsh=MWFuMXN1bWtqN210Ng==)
[https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJnVweZivTW/?igsh=OWo2Y3dub3Z6MTZ0](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJnVweZivTW/?igsh=OWo2Y3dub3Z6MTZ0)
Hello.
Pickpocketing is done by organized criminals. They operate in groups to obstruct visibility for cameras and other people, distract the victim by creating visual and audio chaos and pass the loot afterwards or dispose of it between the members, so even if police is there and get them – to make then hard to prosecute.
Common for areas filled with tourists and big crowds (i.e. big city tourist location or high traffic metro and train station). Usuallyin countries where this is not a seriously prosecuted or punished offense to further minimize the risk.
In the extremely rare cases someone get arrested in most EU countries the sentence is light as there are no violence and weapons involved.
Most criminals are free to operate in different countries and first sentence for such a light crime is usually suspended sentence.
On the topic of scams – it is very broad. Often times people using your stupidity against you for monetary gain is considered a scam, but IMO politics are scammers by that definition. Street scams usually are not violent and are done only if one continue interracting with the conman.
As for hiw common it is – never heard of it happening in cities with less than half a million population in my life.
Two real cases of petty criminals for those thinking Breaking Bad portrait (unorganized) criminals as too dumb.
One from 20 years ago. A black teen with a skimask robbed a store. In a city with population of 200,000 people, 3 of which were black and two of them were transfer football players.
Second case – 3 young adults (around 18-20 y.o.) rob a gas station. Location between few small (less than 2,000 population) villages. With their car (which regularly use the station) and one of the robbers was cousin of the worker.
Barcelona is the pickpocketing and scamming capital in Europe. Hardly anybody leaves Barcelona without anything having being stolen. Gothic Quarter, Ramblas, Market Hall, Parque Guell, Sagrada Familia, bus lines used by tourists, steps up to the National Museum are preferred haunts.
It’s common enough London and Paris (pickpocketing). Can’t speak for the rest of France or UK.
Scamming, depends on what you define as scamming. Digital scams can happen anywhere I assume and it’s on the rise, tourist traps also exist.
As a whole, very uncommon.
Phone-snatching is definitely an issue in London, and I’m sure in other cities.
I don’t think street scammers is very common here though? I could be wrong.
Varies, pick pocketing is rare outside gigs however snatching phones from people’s hands is fairly common. As for scammers they’re pretty common, being an English speaking country we get a lot of phone scammers from abroad.
I’m a Canadian-Korean who was pickpocketed in Spain.
While I was filing my police report, I told an officer, ‘in my countr(ies), if you told me someone was killed I’d say ‘oh no.’ But if you told me you were pickpocketed, I’d said ‘where the hell were you and what the fuck were you doing?”
I’m basically proof of why it’s so easy to pick tourists—I thought I was being careful and it just took a moment of lapsed judgement (for me) or secondhand nature (for my friend, who keeps his phone in his back pocket out of habit) for our items to be picked 🙁
Pickpockets aren’t such a big problem in Sweden. Small-time thefts mostly happen in bars and similarly crowded settings when someone leaves a bag or phone unattended, that’s not really pickpocketing. Actual pickpockets are more of a concern at festivals or Christmas markets, but it’s absolutely not the same scale of issue as Paris, Rome or Barcelona. Not enough tourists I’d guess, tourists make for perfect pickpocket targets and outside maybe two spots in Stockholm there just isn’t enough of a tourist flow for it to be so widespread.
Scammers though, we have every sort. Not so much the “scam tourists into paying for a worthless item” type but various scams are a popular type of crime, especially since cash no longer effectively exists. Some scammers target old people, others cast a wide net. There are dedicated scammers who target mostly foreigners looking for housing, they collect deposits on fake rental contracts.
An interesting thing about scams in Sweden is that they’re very different depending on whether they target locals or foreigners. Scams that target locals wouldn’t work on foreigners, as they’re all digital and target the person’s (Swedish) payment services and digital identity. Foreigners are meanwhile much easier to trick with rental scams because they’re generally unfamiliar with the renting process.
I don’t hear about a lot of pickpocketing but you do have a few scammers from time to time trying weird things downtown.
It reportedly happens in and near the main railway station in Helsinki – never witnessed it myself though.