The Best Steps You Can Take After Being Pickpocketed On Vacation

You reach into your coat pocket for your wallet, only to find it missing. This experience happens to people on vacation fairly often, because tourists make the perfect target for thieves, and some of the biggest tourist destinations around the world are favorite hunting grounds for pickpockets. Depending on what is lost, this can be a frustrating inconvenience or a major travel nightmare. You should definitely take steps to avoid being pickpocketed in advance, but if it's too late and you have already had things taken from you, don't panic. Even if your phone, passport, and money are gone, there are steps you can take to mitigate the damage and get your trip back on track, like freezing your credit cards and getting in touch with the nearest embassy.

Once you're in a safe location, you should take a moment to cancel your credit cards, or at least freeze your account through the app. If you don't have that feature or aren't sure how to use it, just call your credit card company's customer service line and ask them to do it for you. Next, you'll want to report what happened to your insurance company as soon as possible. You can report the theft to local police, and will very likely need to so that you have a police report, which you will use to get coverage from your travel insurance. But you should know that it's unlikely that they'll be able to actually recover your lost items.

As aggravating as it can be to lose money to pickpockets, few things are as disturbing to travelers as the thought of having their passports taken while they're overseas. If this happens to you, don't panic — you will still be able to get home. As soon as you discover that your passport has been taken, you will need to contact the closest embassy for your home country. They will be able to help you replace it. If you're from the United States, there's no need to make an appointment. All you need to do is walk in and ask for help in person. Often, they can help you get a temporary document so that you get on your flight home, too.

Even if it wasn't your passport that was taken, your embassy may also be able to help you with other issues related to being pickpocketed and provide guidance for getting assistance from local law enforcement. They may even be able to help you get a quick loan if your money has been stolen and you need funds to get home.

One of the best simple strategies for protecting yourself from pickpockets is to keep your phone out of sight as much as possible. Whether it's stealthily pulled from your back pocket or suddenly snatched out of your hand, phones are a common target for opportunistic thieves. This can be a major headache when it happens to you, not only because it's such an expensive object to lose, but because it has become such an important tool for travel, from holding our boarding passes to helping us navigate new places. Before you worry about replacing it though, take steps to prevent whoever stole your device from gaining access to your confidential information.

As soon as you realize your phone is gone, start by remotely locking it. Then wipe it. Exactly how you do this depends on what type of phone you have. For iPhones, you can do this through icloud.com/find, and for Androids, you can go to google.com/android/find.