A new contributor to our Facebook group, Doina Bird, shared a new scam with us. Like all scams, it’s so simple we’re surprised we didn’t think of it ourselves first.
We’re calling it “The Taquilla Trick”. For those of you not resident in Catalunya, the word “Taquilla” is Spanish for those little boxes you sometimes see at the entrance to supermarkets where you put your bags. From the shop’s perspective, if your bag is in the little box then you have two free hands for shopping, or there’s the other more likely reason that if your bag is in the box, it’s that much harder for you to steal from the shop. Some shops like Caprabo absolutely insist you put your bag here and won’t let you enter if you refuse. Other shops like Eroski, Carrefour, Mercadona, and Consum do likewise.
Some detail first: Putting the bag in the box requires that you put a euro coin in the slot, which allows you lock your bag inside and take the key. When you come back after shopping, you put the key back in the keyhole, turn the key, the euro is dislodged and you take your euro and your bag. Everyone’s happy. Except… [see below]…
Foto: Jordi Motlló
… our local Barcelona scam artists got an idea, a fool-proof plan to allow them take your bag which you thought was safe.
It goes like this:
Our scam artist comes to the shop, enters, puts a euro in the slot, locks the door of the taquilla – let’s say it’s number 20 – and takes the key. This sounds normal so far, right? EXCEPT, they don’t go shopping in the shop itself, instead they exit and stroll down the street to the nearest key-cutter and they get a copy of the key made, this costs them but a few cent. They come back to the shop, open the taquilla, take their euro and leave the original key in the keyhole. They then wait… wait… wait until a person arrives with an attractive bag, or a tourist arrives with a camera bag, or something else catches their attention… the bag-owner puts their belongings into taquilla number 20, and goes into the shop to do their shopping. Two minutes later, our scam artist approaches taquilla 20, opens the box with the copy of the key and takes the belongings inside.
That’s it, the scam completed. But, the scam artist now has two options….
Option A: Take the bag and the euro inside and disappear, or
Option B: Take the bag, leave the euro inside and lock the door again.
Option A means they’re a bag and a euro richer, but they have to go to the keycutter again; Option B means they’re a bag richer, and they still have the copy of the key to play the game again.
We imagine they’d go for Option B.
Imagine the shopper coming back to the row of 30 or 40 taquillas, putting their key into taquilla 20, getting their euro back and finding nothing inside… no bag… they’d surely end up trying to open the other 30 taquillas, expecting that they’d made an error in remembering which taquilla they had put their own bag into. Or perhaps they’d think they’d put their bag into one and taken the key of another. Frustrating. They now have to cancel their credit cards, buy a new mobile phone, tell all their friends they’ve been robbed, perhaps travel to Madrid for a replacement passport if they’re foreign, get a new bag, perhaps buy new sunglasses, and replace all the aspects of their lives now disrupted.
We find it ironic that the boxes are in place to protect the shop from being robbed by the shopper, but now the boxes themselves allow the shopper to be robbed by the thief. There’s some symmetry here.
And so, write it down folks, another scam to add to the growing list of scams in the Barcelona area.
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I have always been suspicious about these “safety” lockers and the thought had crossed my mind as to how easy it would be to copy the key.
If I had anything of value I would never leave it in a locker. Due to this (I had 4000 Euros of camera equipment with me on these occasions), I have been asked to leave Condis supermarkets twice and a Carrefour once. When I say to the security guy / shop worker that there’s no way I’m leaving my livelihood in a locker, that my bag is already full of expensive gear and can fit little in, and that I’m not about to put a wet lettuce in there (I was in a Condis Fresc on one occasion!!!) they just shrug: Es lo que hay! My reply of “If it goes missing, will you pay for it?” is usually met with laughter or a categorical “You gotta be joking!”.
Needless to say, the supermarkets that realise I’m not going to steal a lettuce and put it in with my gear will get my business. For the record, a fairly local Mercadona supermarket understands and let’s me shop with my gear. Saves me 20+ minutes by not having to go home and drop my gear off first.
Always bothers me you have to have a euro handy for the slot too… and don’t try asking the cashier for change… she won’t like it!
Its not a coincidence that Barcelona has become the favourite “place of work” for most of “human capital” contribution to the EU. An extremely lax approach to theft/robberies from the police and past overtolerance/indifference from local PSC politicians has made Barcelona, and other Spanish cities, a safe haven for these people. Authotities have done absolutely nothing so far and I doubt that the recent shift to the “tough on crime” right in Barcelona and Spain will help at all. CiU coming to power in BCN had changed nothing… Soon BCN will be like Joburg or Caracas… Holidays in BCN now means 50% chance of getting pick-pocketed… Sad, but true…
Ive been living here for 8years almost and i find the whole bag box thing a joke and i take great offence when im asked to put my belongings in one when entering their shops when you see LOCALS strolling around with bags; as for tough on crime crap, i work in a bar in the centre of town and see people getting robbed all the time, the police couldn’t give a crap, and if a tourist dares to have a can of beer in his hands – or anything else the city can rip them off for – the police will be there; the city is a joke and tourists should stop coming and bring the place to its knees…..
In many Italian cities (where I must say theft/robberies etc are not much better than in Barcelona) a guard standing at the entrance of most large grocery stores simply wraps your bag in a flimsy plastic wrapper. Still sad for being necessary, but at least you don’t risk being robbed… Perhaps someone should tell these Spanish supermarkets. By the way I will move soon to Barcelona and this website has been really useful to me. Thanks to all of you who are putting time/energy into it.
Alessandro, I doubt any Italian city is as bad as Barcelona for pickpocketing. I have been in Rome plus several other italian cities and found them MUCH safer than Barcelona.