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The lost art of pickpockets

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Re: The lost art of pickpockets

#11

Post by tastybites »

softbuilder wrote: post #7

>the New York Times reported that there were 23,068 reported pickpocketing incidents in the city in 1990, amounting to nearly $10 million in losses. That's over $400 per incident. Either people carry a hell of a lot of cash on them or there are some outliers with some interesting stories to tell.

$400 seems right. Jack someone's wallet and then walk into the nearest big box store to use their credit cards.

I've had my credit card # stolen 3 or 4 times and $400 is about the average amount of fraud that happened each time.

It's usually like a tank of gas and a trip to Best Buy to purchase something like a video game console. One time they bought a plane ticket online for $350.

Re: The lost art of pickpockets

#12

Post by ricree »

softbuilder wrote: post #7

>the New York Times reported that there were 23,068 reported pickpocketing incidents in the city in 1990, amounting to nearly $10 million in losses. That's over $400 per incident. Either people carry a hell of a lot of cash on them or there are some outliers with some interesting stories to tell.

The fact that it's the average for reported incidents probably cuts out a lot of the outliers on the low end of the scale.

Re: The lost art of pickpockets

#13

Post by harold »

Back in '08 or so I was at Disneyland. A woman bumped in to me after getting off the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Then she bumped into me again at the turnstyle going out where people back up a bit. I remember thinking she was rude.

When I got outside, a person mentioned my wallet was about to fall out of my back pocket. Never having my wallet fall out like that, before or since, I've always wondered if the rude lady was an inept pickpocket, practicing in a place where the pickings are probably easy and disappearing in the crowd is effortless on a busy day.

Re: The lost art of pickpockets

#15

Post by jhamburger »

ricree wrote: post #12
softbuilder wrote: post #7

>the New York Times reported that there were 23,068 reported pickpocketing incidents in the city in 1990, amounting to nearly $10 million in losses. That's over $400 per incident. Either people carry a hell of a lot of cash on them or there are some outliers with some interesting stories to tell.

The fact that it's the average for reported incidents probably cuts out a lot of the outliers on the low end of the scale.

That and the fact that people probably exaggerate the loss for insurance purposes.

Also, pickpockets and muggers are likely to profile their targets- Traditionally this would have been the wealthy, counterintuitively it's now the poor: People without credit cards and/or bank accounts, and immigrants paid in cash who are forced to walk or bike home from work through a bad neighborhood in the dark with an entire week's pay in their pocket.

Re: The lost art of pickpockets

#17

Post by rtyhjukiujhygtf »

jpv wrote: post #16

Has anyone read The Great Train Robbery by Crichton? It talks about all sorts of stuff like this, except in Victorian era England. Great book. http://www.amazon.com/Great-Train-Robbery-Michael-Crichton/d...

The idea of a train moving from London to Dover at a speed high enough to make a robbery difficult was ,until recently, almost unimaginable!

Re: The lost art of pickpockets

#18

Post by kenjackson »

tastybites wrote: post #11
softbuilder wrote: post #7

>the New York Times reported that there were 23,068 reported pickpocketing incidents in the city in 1990, amounting to nearly $10 million in losses. That's over $400 per incident. Either people carry a hell of a lot of cash on them or there are some outliers with some interesting stories to tell.

$400 seems right. Jack someone's wallet and then walk into the nearest big box store to use their credit cards. I've had my credit card # stolen 3 or 4 times and $400 is about the average amount of fraud that happened each time. It's usually like a tank of gas and a trip to Best Buy to purchase something like a video game console. One time they bought a plane ticket online for $350.

One time they bought a plane ticket online for $350.

I assume this one get caught?

Re: The lost art of pickpockets

#19

Post by mechanical_fish »

Those who have no stomach for violence can eke out a living snatching cell phones on the subway, which are much easier to convert to cash than stolen credit cards...

At first I thought this was a fake semantic distinction, but now I see: Snatching is not the same as pickpocketing, because the mark helpfully takes out the most valuable item they own and holds it in prime stealing position for you, instead of concealing it in a pocket.

So this seems like the obvious reason why pickpocketing is dying: We've made it too easy. The most easily-fenced, most valuable object I carry is also one which I am very likely to take out and juggle as I wander through crowded places.

Here's where a better article would have coupled the stats on pickpockets with actual stats on public theft and other petty crimes, including things like ATM skimming. (Of course, I believe that all of these things are declining in absolute terms.)

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