I chose this title to make everyone feel welcome to share any challenging experiences they've gone through, so please feel free to share your own stories if you’d like. I'd love to hear about your experiences. I'm not too sure if anyone will respond to this, whether positively or negatively, but this IS a serious topic to me and I'm using this place to vent.

If you can relate to what I went through in any way, please let me know. If not, I'm genuinely happy for you! It's tough to go through something like this, no matter how your situation compares to mine.

Yesterday, I was robbed of a large amount of money.

I was walking home from the supermarket when a man pulled up to me while I was alone. He had his wife in the car and kids in the backseat. He asked me for help, and, unsure what to do, I went up to him, thinking he probably just wanted to ask for directions or something. He shared a story about how much he needed money, and they all seemed so sad and desperate for help.

I took $20 out of my bag to help, hoping he would leave me alone afterward, but he noticed where I pulled out the money and quickly forced his hand into my bag, taking the entire wad of cash I had on me. It was two months' worth of rent money that I had just withdrawn before heading to the store. The most confusing part of the whole situation is that he gave me some jewelry during our interaction, a "Rolex" and a gold chain.

I'm not sure if any of it was real or valuable, but the police have it now. The officer who took it believes it was fake jewelry which makes the most sense. Here's a picture of what the thief gave me:

https://imgur.com/wWgP3aL

There have been similar incidents in areas not too far from where I live. The descriptions of the family and the jewelry closely resemble my experience, although there were slight differences.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Brooklyn/comments/slkt0r/guy_in_a_car_with_wife_and_kid_in_the_back/
https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/sq5rbk/i_fell_for_a_scam_like_an_idiot/

I am not street smart and I had NEVER been in a situation like that before, but I'm just glad I'm SAFE. Now I know what NOT to do if I'm ever in that position again...

Are you okay? That sounds like a huge amount of money to lose to a street mugger.

money is replaceable, glad you are safe now. maybe try not to handle cash, especially large amounts. there are ways to wire rent payments. men suck but women can rob you too be careful

this year someone broke into my car and stole my backpack. no real valuables in there and insurance paid everything, still annoying if you want to drive 4 friends home and nobody can join you in the back seat due to glass pieces everywhere. and the work of replacing everything. One month later someone tried to steal my kashmere pullover, another month later they succeeded in stealing another, cheap pullover at a festival.

someone signed up my email adress for several newsletters. I was spammed, got ~500 mails at once. I made the effort to overlook all emails for something that i knew. Paypal send me an email as well, that a new device logged into my paypal account. luckyly nothing happened. i changed my email and my password.

Edited 12/3/2024 16:03:02

About two years ago I posted this to our clan forums:

"Since we all enjoy a good game of strategy, here is a small story about a phone.

I turned 28 last week. My roommate is turning 24 this week. This meant we had to organize a party. Now, the party was fun, but I couldn't find my phone when it finally ended at 8 in the morning.

At some point I got Google Maps to tell me where my phone went. It took a very interesting tour through the city I live in. Here's the route:

1) From my house to the salvation army
2) From the salvation army to a very well known drug dealing spot
3) From that spot to a homeless center
4) From the homeless center to the prostitution street
5) From the prostitution street to an overnight homeless facility

So, we can safely conclude my phone is in the hands of a homeless person.

I called the police, but they couldn't do anything. Turns out a room in a homeless center is considered an actual home, so you need to press charges before the police can even ask them if they have a stolen phone on them.

I called both homeless facilities and gave them the times or arrival and departure. They were an exact match with a homeless person who was indeed living there. Of course they can't give me their name since privacy laws exist. However, my phone was still pinging to the homeless facility. Even towards a specific room.

I figured that if they knew the person who was in the possession of my stolen phone, knew what room they were in, I could just show up and ask them to knock his door and ask for my phone. I even have an application that remotely makes my phone go bananas with sounds. They verified they could hear that sound through the door. Unfortunately, they did not try to get my phone back. When the guard asked me "why don't you just call the police right now?" it took him a full twenty seconds to realize the irony in that statement.

The thief is too stupid to turn off my phone, so tracking is still enabled. He has to leave the homeless shelter at some point, which means he's not in a "home" anymore. The question remains who finds him first. Farah or the Police.

Stay tuned for more detective Farah!"


In the end the guy took out the SIM card the day after my post. Never found him.

I hope you've learned from that experience to plant explosives in your phone. Even if you can't/won't detonate them, the police will suddenly become more interested in your phone when they learn about the TATP.

edit: wait sorry i forget you don't have a second amendment in europe

Edited 12/19/2024 20:50:04