A friend of mine from back home invited my husband and me to visit her in Nimes, France. Since we live in Wiesbaden, that's a pretty long haul. We left Germany last Saturday, spent a couple of nights in Beaune, France, then made our way to Nimes, where we had a nice holiday.

Friday morning, we left Nimes with plans to spend another two nights in Beaune. Just before we reached our destination, we stopped at a rest stop so I could pee and my husband could call the owners of our "gite" (rental home). As we were about to drive out of the rest area, a swarthy looking man acted as if he was going to step out in front of our car. We rounded the bend, then encountered the same man, who indicated that our tire was leaking air.

We pulled into a parking spot and there was a gash in the sidewall. It turns out we were victims of a scam often pulled in Europe. The guy and his accomplice who did the slashing probably hoped to rob us. Their plans were foiled when we called the German auto club and got someone official to help us change to the donut tire.

We were hoping to buy a new tire on Saturday, but none of the local shops have any in our size. So we're kind of stuck here, because even though the tire got patched, it's not safe to drive a tire patched on the sidewall. Our hosts have been awesome, but we really need to get out of here. They have new guests coming tomorrow, and I am dying to get to my washing machine and sleep in my own bed.

It occurs to me that we're very lucky, though. Beaune is the capital of winemaking in Burgundy. Our hosts have even started their own winery. There are certainly worse places to be... and my husband actually drinks wine now, since he gave up the Mormon garments.

We have ADAC coverage, which is a blessing... even if we are still waiting for a tire. We also have the money to stay stranded... this is also a time of year when there isn't so much going on at my husband's work.

We're moving to a new apartment this afternoon. Hopefully a new tire can be located before New Year's... we can't stay stuck here all week, even if it is a nice place to be. I love France, but I'm ready to go home.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2019 03:41AM by knotheadusc.

Knotty, I'm sorry that happened to you both! Are the police of any assistance? I hope that your tire arrives quickly. I will tell my brother and sister-in-law about what happened to you. They have been to France several times and always stay in the gites. I will let them know to be aware of this scam.

Wine is a very important thing in our family. I always give them a mixed half case of good wine every Christmas. This year, most of the bottles were from Europe as a homage to their travels. (3 French, 1 Italian, 1 Spanish, and 1 American.) We drank a bottle of French wine over the holiday and looked up the vineyard and its owner on the web. It was a Sancere from central France.

The gite had absolutely nothing to do with it. We were at a rest stop calling our hosts at the gite to let them know we were coming. The creeps who messed up our tire were most likely Roma folks from Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, they are responsible for a lot of petty crime in Europe.

We have been to France a bunch of times and have never had any problems with crime. And yes, my husband did report it to two very sympathetic ladies at the gendarmerie (national police). This is a scam that happens all over Europe and sometimes in the US, too.

We got the tire fixed and will be headed back to Germany tomorrow. We had to buy two, though, because in France you can’t mix and match tires on the same axle. All in all, this little adventure has added about 1400 euros to the cost of our trip.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2019 01:27PM by knotheadusc.

I understood that it happened at the rest stop. I was just relating my family staying at the gites to your experience. They have had a number of pleasant experiences with the gites.

Ouch on the cost! It's recommended here as well not to mix tires on the same axle. When I got a nail in my tire a couple of months back, I had to search around to find my tire so that I could get it replaced in a timely manner.

Well... I now have a cold, so that’ll make the drive home extra fun!

Last week, it was my period and a cold sore.

Seriously, it was a mostly great trip. My old friend has known me since 1987 and we went to high school and college together. We weren’t super close back then, but we are now. We have a lot in common. It was a real treat to have a French style Christmas with my old friend and her very French husband and family.

I love visiting France. It sucks that we ran into those dicks at the rest stop, but the French have mostly shown us love this week. And tomorrow, with luck, we’ll be home in Germany and I can recover... after we open presents.

The Roma are regularly blamed for a lot of things in France that they aren’t responsible for. Without certainty that your scammers were Roma, in your place, I would reserve judgment and take French opinions in the matter with a grain of salt.

Thank you for this. I love knotheadusc but did have some reservations about this particular point.

Sigh...

I don’t know where they were from, but base my suspicions on local news, where it was reported that Roma were doing this stuff.

Short of DNA testing, who the hell knows? They were swarthy men who slashed our tire and did not appear to be locals.

But thank you for implying that I am a racist. You’re the second one this week.

Sorry I mentioned this at all.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2019 04:24PM by knotheadusc.

That was not my intention at all. Everybody slips up from time to time. The reason I didn't speak up earlier was I knew you are not a racist.

I would note, though, that there are lots of "swarthy" people in France who are not Roma. And the people who saw the vandalism might themselves have been predisposed to see people through a certain lens.

I state again: I do NOT think you are racist and I respect you a lot.

I said “most likely”, not “most definitely”. And the overall point is that I don’t hold it against France that this happened. It could have happened anywhere, which I also mentioned.

Our hosts read that there had been a recent problem with Roma committing crimes in the area, so that is why I suspect them. I don’t know for certain, of course, but having lived in Europe for several years now, I can tell you that the suspicions aren’t without merit. It doesn’t mean I hate Romas, by the way... but I now know not to accept a rosemary sprig when one is offered in “friendship”.

In any case, I doubt whoever did it will ever be prosecuted anyway, so what difference does it make? It’s just two days and over 1400 euros simply because I wanted to pee at a rest stop.

We have "travelers" in Maryland that come up in large groups from their home in the Carolinas. It's reported by the local paper when they are around. They beg, solicit for "charity," and try to sell ersatz services -- basically grifters.

Ah, the travelers, the gypsy kings, the half-day asphalt driveway resurfacers...

Whenever they could get someone to rear-end them, the next day they'd go to the insurance company's closest office and offer to settle way cheap...

Yes, their usual M.O. is driveway sealing or other home improvement scams. By the time customers figure out that they've been had, the travelers are long gone.

That's how I learned to never do business with someone who cold calls me. If I decide that I need a product or service, I do the research and select an established company (local if possible) which can be held accountable if something goes wrong.

The travelers here are not Roma, but another ethnicity. A number of years ago, a local reporter traced them back down to the Carolinas and interviewed some of them there. They live together in the same community. Of course, they all claimed to be fine, upstanding citizens who offer valuable services, lol.

Honestly, I don’t know what Roma people deal with, other than what I’ve read. I have encountered quite a lot of them in Europe, and generally because they initiated the contact. One in Greece even told me I look like Angelina Jolie as she tried to force me to accept a rose... again, a very common scam over here. You take the rose and they demand money. Same with the rosemary sprig, which we almost fell for in Spain. And we have had many visits to our homes in Germany, too.

The tire slashing scam is pretty common and you will find many stories about it happening in Spain or Italy. I don’t know who is doing it in all places... for all I know, it’s some kind of mafia organization. But it was in the news that Roma were doing it in France. Maybe it’s fake news, though.

I just did a couple of Google searches. There is one story, with video, of a tire slashing. The subject appears to be "white or Hispanic." There are also accounts of slashings as labor protests against management or the government as well as angry ex-lovers, none of which involve Roma.

Looking farther abroad, the Hungarian government, which has been whipping up nationalist sentiment, has accused the Roma of slashing tires but there is reportedly little evidence to support that assertion. In Italy and Spain I can't find examples of Roma being associated with the crime.

It might be true in France, or it might be just another trope from people who, as throughout much of the world, are growing more xenophobic.

Well, since our hosts were French, the news likely came from a French source. If you really feel that compelled to fact check my story, you may wish to search the French news sources in Burgundy. But anyway, I am suitably chastised now and moving on. Whoever it was that slashed the tire is an asshole; that much is for certain.

We’re going home today and hopefully, no one will bother us at the next rest stop.

I'm not sure why you are being so defensive. I already said I don't think you are a racist, also that people inadvertently say things the wrong way all the time. My point was simply that there is a stereotype in your comment that may deserve note.

My "fact checking" was not aimed at you but rather at the question in general. Is this a Roma phenomenon or not? The absence of mention in the English-language press for any of Latin Europe, including papers from those countries, raises the question whether it is reasonable to blame a particular ethnicity for what happened to you--especially since there are so many reports of non-Roma slashing tires for political as well as criminal purposes.

To put the point more bluntly, the French are not immune to racism. Traditional targets have included Muslims; Jews; and yes, Gypsies. As EOD pointed out above with his usual sardonic wit, racial stereotypes sometimes run so deep that people don't even realize they are expressing them or inadvertently imbibing them from others.

I don't believe you are racist. Have a good trip home.

Sorry, Lot’s Wife. It’s just that this is the second time in about a week that someone who doesn’t know me personally has given me a ration of shit online for posting something that, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t really matter that much. It’s irritating and offensive. Most people don’t enjoy being “schooled”. Sometimes people write or say things that are unintentionally stupid or stereotypical. That doesn’t mean they always need to be called out.

Also, I mostly meant for this to be a happy thread and it went south.

I do usually appreciate your intelligent and measured responses to people. I’m just not feeling well and am eager to be done with this ordeal. I love France and this situation could have been much worse than it is, but it’s been stressful and very expensive and it’s time to go home.

Hopefully, no Roma were harmed as I related this story. ;-)

No worries, knotheadusc. I did not mean to insinuate that you are racist. Saucie caught me recently in saying something that should have been put differently, so it's not like I'm immune.

More generally, I'm jealous of your trip to France and of your time in Germany, which I visit far less frequently than I wish. May you feel better soon and your tires always be full!

I'm seeing numerous reports of tire slashings in Spain and Italy. Apparently it's a fairly common "distract the tourists so that you can steal from them" scam. Articles describe thieves working in pairs -- someone follows your car on a motorbike and then slashes your tire while your car is stopped. While one thief is "helpful" the other steals from your car. I guess the lesson is to lock your car doors at all times.

Yes, usually the M.O. is to slash the tire in a place where help isn’t as readily available as it was for us. We were at a very well appointed rest stop. Makes me think those guys were amateurs. Anyway, all they managed to do is ruin a perfectly good tire, render the other one useless, and cause us to burn two more days of my husband’s leave. We’re very grateful we didn’t lose anything beyond that.

Ah, c'mon, you can say it! They were Lamanites!!

As a nevermo, I don’t know anything about Lamanites. ;)

One of my extended relations has a son who is a grifter in his own right. He preys upon the extended family and upon friends of his parents to support his "mission" of identifying The Lost Tribes. He supposedly prays with his eyes closed as he places his hands on a spinning globe, and wherever his hands end up are the hot spots with likely Lost Tribe members. He then solicits money and travels to the places where he suspects the locals are lost tribe descendants. I'm still not sure what he does once he gets to these places.

All of that notwithstanding, this extended relative claims to know that gypsies are one of The Lost Tribes.

He will probably be disappointed to learn that the Romani came from northern India over a millennium ago.

He doesn't believe it, just as he doesn't believe the actual origins of the Basques, the Sami, the indigenous Azores population, the Maoris, the Kurds, or even the Cajuns.

Perhaps God changed the Israelite DNA to Indian DNA in order to test our faith.

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ah, c'mon, you can say it! They were Lamanites!!

Not very likely. More probably, rogue Amish. They do this kind of thing a lot but people don't identify them as such for fear of appearing bigoted.

That sounds scary.

The world is full of people out there doing anything they can to scam others for their own gain. It's discouraging we have to be skeptical about everything. It's dangerous to believe or trust anyone in real life or online.

I hope you can get home soon. Sorry to hear that happened to you. On the positive side, like you said, it sounds like a nice place to be stranded!

If I went to Europe I would get culture shock.

I can't even use the word horticulture in a sentence.

That's because you are an atheist.

On the bright side, they didn't demand 10% of your income or make you sit in a three hour meeting.

[Edit to Add]. In view of the "swarthy" comments above, I think it useful to point out that the scammers I obliquely referred to, you know, the ones that extort 10% of your income or you don't get to go to your kid's wedding, the ones who have scammed $100B, the vast majority of the international leadership of that scamming organization is not in the least bit swarthy. And they scammed well north of $100B.

What's the total take for all the swarthy tire guys?

My point: skin color is a poor indicator of the amount of damage done. Being eastern European, my ancestors' whiteness was considered very questionable well into the 20th century.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2019 05:38PM by Brother Of Jerry.

Well, thanks for making this post on topic. As to the total take related to this incident, approximately $1500 so far. But in fairness to me, I was simply trying to describe the perpetrators, since the term “Roma” was apparently too politically incorrect. As far as I’m concerned, their skin color doesn’t make them any more or less likely to rip off hapless travelers. They could have just as easily been white, black, or purple and the end result would have still been a loss of about $1500. Of course, they didn’t get the money— they simply caused us to contribute more to France’s economy by way of repairs and extra food and lodging.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2019 03:22AM by knotheadusc.

Perhaps the villain was the French Finance Minister.

I’m sure we paid some serious VAT (value added tax), too. And when we get back to Germany, we’ll need to get a realignment, which will aid Germany’s tax collection.

Hey, maybe those guys did their civic duty for two countries by stabbing our tire.

What's ADAC?

maybe, just Maybe you'd be better off touring in Norway, it's a very low-crime country.

ADAC is the German Auto Club. We like Norway, too.

Beaune, New Jersey...

At least Knotheadusc was the innocen victim of a crime. When it's your own damned fault, it REALLY hurts!

I was backroading and light off-roading in western Box Elder County, and blew a tire somewhere between Lucin (google it) and the Sun Tunnels. Only then did I find out my pathetic "SUV" rental (Jeep Patriot, now discontinued) had only a donut.

You know the drill: "No unpaved roads. No speeds over 50. Do not drive more than 25 miles..." So I had some 30+ miles to get to pavement, then UT 30 west to NV 233, which got me to I-80, and, eventually, West Wendover. Nobody there had a tire which matched, but I did find a little place which had "a close match" or something.

Damnfool that I am, next day I was off the Salt Flats and poking around the Pilot (mountain) Range on the Nevada-Utah border. Good times!

Glad you had a comfortable gite, Knotheadusc. My ($25) motel that night had knife marks on the inside door and (seriously!) bullet holes in the walls. Only time I ever--literally--slept with my Glock under the pillow!

Whoa! I hope your Glock wasn’t loaded!

Seriously.

I wish I had taken pictures of that room. The holes were filled in with spackle, but not painted. The door was covered with deep gouges. No shampoo or anything, just a little soap bar as thick as a graham cracker.

I have a strange attraction to the very off-beat, out-of-the-way, and extremely remote locales. I spring for good lodging when I take the wife, but when I'm alone, I'm el-cheapo, and then some!

I gather you're home, safe & sound? Happy New Year!

(PS: As a cop, I've had a few encounters with the Roma, too.)

You know what they say about the Pilot Range?

No Country for Old Men

Have you seen the movie, then?

Actually, we are just now hitting the road. It’s cold and foggy, but the car has heated seats and full tires. I expect we’ll be home in about six hours, barring any disasters. I will continue writing up this trip on my travel blog... it was a lot more eventful than I was expecting.

By the way, caffiend, you really have a way with words. I hope you’re a writer, too.

I like Glocks but a Smith and Wesson beats four aces.

I'd rather be stuck in Lodi again.

Do WHAT to an Infidel?

Just want to say... we are now home, safe and sound.

And yes, I am a writer. With a travel blog, it appears you have literary inclinations yourself. So again: "Good for you!"

"Writers don't have setbacks. They get material."

Yes, I am an "overeducated housewife" with three blogs, actually. One is where I vent my spleen, one is a travel blog, and the third is a music blog where I write about crappy forgotten music from the 70s and 80s.

And you can bet this situation is providing lots of material. There is value in almost every experience, good or bad, because there's always a story in it.

Thanks for letting us know you got home OK. Also, thanks for sharing that whole experience. I learned a lot and will be more observant at rest stops.

I'm glad you got something from our story. I would caution you to be observant everywhere, because from what I've read, the people who pull this tire scam often do it at stoplights on the way to freeways. That way, you wind up in a place where help is not so available and they can more easily relieve you of your valuables. The fact that the guys that hit us did it at a very well-equipped rest stop makes me think they were amateurs. We had a gas station, several restaurants, and restrooms at our disposal, and there were plenty of people around.

We think the tire got popped when the first guy stepped out in front of my husband and forced him to brake. The second guy then quickly gouged the tire, which was on the opposite side from where his accomplice was. That's how we knew he did it, since he would not have been able to see it unless he knew about it.

I wish my husband had laid on the horn when the guy stepped out in front of him. Maybe that would have startled him enough to stop him from doing his deed. Also, we think they saw our German plates and singled us out, since we were obviously traveling and less likely to know the area or have time to alert the police. For all we know, our dog Arran might have scared them off, too. He would have barked if they had tried to open the car door to take stuff.

If she has your contact info, I'm asking her to forward it to you.

Sadly, I do not have knotheadusc's contact information.

You can reach me by taking my screen name and adding @yahoo to it.