Barcelona Scams

As promised in my previous post, I will continue to post up different scams that I am coming across or hearing about from friends in the city, in other words scams that ARE ACTUALLY HAPPENING right now and that people need to be aware of.

Everytime I come across a new scam (hopefully not too often) I am posting it up on this blog and also updating my book. 

PS I have put my book Barcelona Scams for FREE on Amazon for one day today (22nd May) so please download it and if you wanted to leave a  nice review this would be very helpful as it will obviously help it get noticed by more people.

The supermarket locker scam (for lack of a better way of naming it)

Basically people are starting to copy the keys that come with the lockers outside large supermarkets. I have heard it happen twice now already, once at Carrefour and once at Consum.

They watch you placing your belongings inside the lockers, wait until you have locked it and walked into the supermarket and then open your locker with their copied key, which they copied earlier that day.

This is probably not a new scam and may be present in some other cities, but it is definitely happening here in Barcelona right now.  

Please tell people to watch out for these people when they are using the lockers. I know that is what the security is there for, but perhaps it is just safer not to take belongings to a supermarket.

I really do not want to give Barcelona a bad name. In fact, my intention is the opposite as I want to do my bit in helping tourists to enjoy Barcelona without the stress and upset that comes with falling for the many street scams that unfortunately happens in this city.

I have lived in Barcelona for over three years and being from the UK, I often get mistaken for a tourist. This makes me easily a prime target for pickpockets and most of the con-artists which work in the city. I have been watching them for a number of years and even though I can manage to avoid any problems when I am in town, people who visit me, even after I have warned them and told them the things to look out for, often still come back to me after their iphone or wallet has been taken.

This is horrible. Barcelona is not the only place in which this happens, but it does seem to be quite regular here. I'm not going to be able to stop the problem, but at least I can warn tourists so they can be slightly more street aware before they arrive and have a really nice time here.

I wrote an ebook a few months back to try and solve the problem called 'Barcelona Scams'. I give it away for free three days out of the month (this is the only way Amazon will let me do it) The rest of the time it is listed for £1.95. I update the book everytime I find out a new scam or a new trend that I spot in the city and amazon tells everybody there is an update available for free which works out quite nice. I have also included information on scams that happen to expats including the illegal jobs, accommodation scams and other advice not aimed at tourists. I think these can be much more serious and people can lose a lot of money (I was never given my deposit back in one place and lost €1300)

I am going to start blogging on here as I know that this is something that could effect quite a few people on here. I can write about the new scams that I come across before updating the ebook. Hopefully I won't be posting too much, that means it's working! 

There is a long way to go, and I may sound naive to think there is a way of changing what happens here to a noticable extent. But really, what else can I do but try.