Safety Warning - Be Vigilant

Hmmm. Intruder silently entered the motorhome, in the dark administered injections apparently at the same point on each victim without disturbing them in anyway. 

Seems a bit of a fishy tale to me.

Found the money without disturbing anything else???

Apologises to the couple if it's real but if I were handling a resultant claim I'd be asking loads of questions 😉. I'm surprised the newspaper ran the story without decent checks.

Edit why must they have had a dog? Some of us travel without!

Indeed David €1000 (£900) might well be carried. When we are away for 5 or 6 weeks I probably go away with £200 in wallet, £200 in car and £200 in caravan. No idea what OH has. 

I wonder what it was that knocked them out for so long....did the "intruder" peel back the individual bed covers to find a suitable fleshy spot...I've just had my fly jab today, I felt it!!  

Indeed and if you have ever been bruised by an injection (as they supposedly were) I doubt that it was a painless one 

Oh is that a new vaccine? 😂😂😂

Sorry 😇

the more you consider the event the stranger it becomes!

I have £175 in my wallet at present - all in £5 notes. Not unduly bulky and especially with the new notes. Some 14 years ago I suppose I embarrassed OH I think. I was shopping for a new wallet in a leather goods shop. I had about £250 in my current wallet but was looking for a replacement. When I found some likely replacements I checked that they would hold the cash without trouble or bulking by transferring my cash. Probably tried half a dozen wallets until I found a suitable one. Bought 3 of the same. Been good wallets. Just started on the second one a couple of years ago. 

I am not concerned at the prospect of having cash taken, It would be inconvenient but would not affect my life style. (Also keep £40 under the rear passenger foot mat. Need to remove coolbox first). 

I have only once in my life taken cash from a 'hole in the wall' and that was when staying at Lidalia Site, Newcastleton, Scottish Borders. That was because the machine dispensed fivers and wallet was getting low. Usually I call in a bank either in UK or Europe (HSBC). I was glad to have plenty of cash on that trip, although sadly non in the car, as I had reversed into a guys motorbike and knocked it off the stand. I was able to get him to phone a dealership and get the cost of replacement parts, and paid out cash and some for his trouble. Saved a lot of faffing. After being originally very upset (I sent him for a walk round the block to calm down whilst his mate stayed with me so I didn't do a runner) he later treated me and OH to coffee and cake with is pillion rider. Hence I was short on cash! 

I don't believe it either, and in a post on another forum, the original posters asks: 

Would people make a story up like this?
Would they prick their arms and bruise them just to get 1K of insurance money?

Well yes, they probably would (especially if one was an ex-nurse and they thought they could get away with it).

Here's what I posted in reply - and will do to every such poster who asks a similar question:

Yes, people do make up this sort of stuff just to get the insurance money.......... our very nice caravanning neighbours did exactly that many years ago. They are lovely people, and we shared caravanning stories with them about our hoidays over several years. When they returned one time from holiday they told us that they had had a great time, lovely holiday, great campsites.......! So we were very surprised to read a letter in a Caravanning magazine alleging that they were gassed and robbed near Bordeaux, and that money, wallets, laptops, cameras, and some antique paintings (!!!) plus a substantial amount in cash which was a deposit on their planned French house, had been stolen. They hadn't mentioned any of this to us when talking about their holiday, so we thought it was a bit odd.

Obviously with such a large insurance claim the details were checked, and eventually they were prosecuted for insurance fraud, both by their travel insurers and their household insurance. They had tried to claim from each for the 'stolen' items, they had never bought the large amount of euros that they alleged, nor could they prove ownership of other items. They were sent to prison! To speak to them, and to live next door but one to them, you would never consider that they would do 'that sort of thing' but they did.

I reckon at any one time, OH and I would be very lucky to have more than fifty euros in cash between us.  Years ago we used to buy euros before setting off, and hide them in a variety of places.  These days we use our bank cards just as we would at home, our credit cards just as we would at home, and draw out a very minimal amount of cash at any convenient ATM - perhaps enough for the odd coffees, market day shopping, etc.  I'm surprised that these days insurers will insure the amounts of cash people are saying they carry.  I can understand it in areas when ATM's are thin on the ground, but in most of Europe.................??

PS - We rarely carry much cash in this country either.

To try and stay on topic David it is surprising that there was no mention of laptops, tablets/I pads, camera, cards, passports etc going missing.

With regard to the motorcycle I really felt for the lad. It was pretty much a classic Kawasaki and he had stripped it down completely and rebuilt and it was his first trip out with his mate as pillion since the rebuild. At first he was jumping up and down but in no way aggressive. I put my arm around his shoulder and suggested he walked around the block and that his mate would stay with me. The poor guy was just understandably gutted. I insisted that he checked every inch for damage and got prices for all from a main dealer. I think the fact that as an ex-biker I was getting on well with his mate helped. He was happy that I paid about £40 over the parts for his trouble, I would happily have paid a little more but had emptied my wallet having just done some local shopping as well. .

nor do we take vast sums of money, and like AD and many more, we dont need too much cash, withdrawing it from cashpoints as required and only for stuff where we cant use a card....

Whether you take a lot of cash or very little will not affect the likelihood of being broken into of course. The thief won't know.