A few days into year 2006, two of my housemates got their wallets stolen on bus. sheesshh... The theft happened during the day of London Underground strike, which results in no tube service and buses crammed with people, thus giving thieves great opportunities to do their work.
I was with one of the 'victim' when the first theft happened. We were on bus 29 on the way back to Manor House, and boy, it was crowdy in the bus. At our stop, just before we alighted the bus, another passenger told her that her backpack was opened, and upon inspection, we realized the wallet inside the bag was gone. We didn't even have time to react and the bus has left, with the *#$%ing theif on the bus, of course.
We made a police report (this time, online), cancelled bank cards, and told other housemates about the incident.
and... After 1 hour, another housemate called back, frustrated, and told us that his wallet has been stolen too, on the same bus 29 on his way back. He has been very careful after hearing our experience, and has clutched tightly on his wallet in his pocket. But just before his stop, he took out his hand to press the bell, and then, he realized his wallet was gone! The thief sure did make his/her move very deftly...
More unfortunately is when we were trying to call the banks to cancel the cards, we realized there is no dialtone on our phones, even after we did all the troubleshooting checks for any faults on the line. What a accurate time to have this problem...
(and interestingly, when the engineer came today to check for faults in the telephone line, he realized that our external phone line outside our house was cut off by someone... suspicious...)
An independent incident not correlated with these series of thieves... apparently there are some weirdos around our area who love flashing to public. Met one at the bus stop while walking back home. yucccckkkk.....
Well, after all these, got a conclusion:
The area we are staying in might not be very safe, hence gotta be much more alert and careful!
(p.s. hope that thief will remorse, or at least feel a bit ashamed of him/herself, when he/she sees the mini Buddhist scriptures, pictures of Virgin Mary, etc... put inside our wallets. ^_^ )
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7 comments:
yd, it's disheartening to hear such news. Hope your friend is doing alright. You take care.
Sad news. I lost a camera on a London bus, but that was back when wooly mammoths still roamed the earth.
These days you really need to wear a money belt or otherwise hide your valualbes deep. Scary.
Talk about "secret money belt" or things like that, an Italian friend of mine had one perfect solution:
He had a cigarettes-sized box tied to a strap, to which he hang around his neck. The strap itself was rather long, so instead of hanging around the front chest, the secret box was actually hidden below his belly...
Now try steal that one!!!
Ack...that STINKS!
Call me paranoid if you like, YD (yet another nickname to add to the pot?), but I smell a really big rat (i.e. it seems pretty suspicious to me). I mean, two of your friends get their wallets stolen one after the other on the same bus, and then someone cuts your phone line at the same time? I doubt it's a coincidence.
Someone may be targeting your group. Maybe they are "hunting" foreign students in your area, or they might even be targeting Malaysians and Indonesians in particular. (Think about it: most people of those two nationalities are Muslim, and, unfortunately, there are a lot of idiots in the U.S., Australia, and Britain that are looking for scapegoats.)
Things like that do happen, unfortunately. In my own college days (in the U.S.), there was a group of high school students that was "hunting" Japanese students in ways similar to what you're experiencing. Similar things were happening in college towns across the nation. The stupid punks were doing it partly because the Japanese students tended to carry lots of cash and partly because relations between Japan and the U.S. had soured at the time. It's sad, but there are a lot of really dumb people in and among all the good ones.
I hope this doesn't sour your view of humanity even further, because your faith and insight clearly mean a lot to a lot of people, but I really hope you'll be careful. Tell your friends to keep their eyes open, particularly for people that seem to be watching you. If you tend to see the same stranger(s) around a lot, be on your guard.
Damn, but the world is becoming a nastier place...
thnx fellows... will be more careful, well, much more careful! I dont really take buses after those incidents, just in case.
Money belt, hehe, my mum sewed me one which has the size of passport, so i actually use it to keep my passport when going travelling.
moody, is there really such group of weirdos pursuing "hunt" targetting at foreign students? scary!!! now i m getting paranoid... i m not sure about how is the population demography in our area. it is a turkish area, muslim community, and lots of students renting residences here. if those perverts are targeting students, i bet they will have lots of income!
gosh now i m really getting worried......
YD:
總之在人多的地方就要小心提防。。不要用背包。。要用長帶的手袋並放在自己身前。。。
男士更不應將錢包放在後袋。。
我相信那群不懷好意的匪徒一定會受到上天的特別照顧。
尊璣
Somehow Paranoid Panda sounds catchier than Paranoid Moody Minstrel (and is probably more accurate - I have a degree in paranoia and a tin foil hat). But seriously, what Moody brought up makes sense to me too.
It might help to bring that up with the police - not that you have a lot of free time. They may not be able to help directly, but if they think something like that is going on, or even that foreign students think so, they will put more resources into it if they can.
Meanwhile, do take care, but don't let the jerks spoil your day.
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