What to Do When All Your Valuables Have Been Stolen In Greece? (or Wherever You Are While Travelling )

For the past few days, it has been an extremely stressful time for me and my husband. We have just landed in Athens, Greece for a two weeks holiday and we have plans to visit other countries after Greece.

Unfortunately, aLL our valuables including our passports, bank cards and all our cash were stolen from us on the second day of our holiday in Athens, we would not be able to carry on with our initial itinernary as we must take time to deal with the most urgent matters.

  To limit our financial loss and to be able to continue with our European vacation, we did the following within the first 48 hours after our passports, credit cards and all our cash were stolen from us:

 

  1. Seek help from the local police and obtain a police report. There were a couple of police vehicles stationed around the Acropolis area and we approached them for help. However, they sent us the run around to a nearby police station to report the theft and to obtain a police report. Because we didn't have much cash with us, we dared not spent whatever we had on taxi and took the public transit which took us a little while to get to the police station which we were told to go. Howwever, upon our arrival at the station, we saw the notice on the door informing us that if we reported to this police station, we would need to wait for about 10 days for a police report. We couldn't wait for this long therefore we had to go to the police station set up speficially for dealing with tourists who have experienced thefts or related problems. It took us sometime to get to this special tourist police station and we were able to obtain a police report right away. But I wondered why didn't the police at the Acropolis tell us about thie toursit police station right at the beginning so that we could have avoid the running around and hassels.

2. Call your banks to cancel / block all bank cards - We had there bank and credit cards with us in my wallet but since my wallet was stolen, all there bank cards were gone too. Calling our banks and cancelling all the bankcards were urgent to prevent the thief from using our cards for unathorized purchases. This task took us quite sometime but it must be done asap!

 

 

  3. Sought help from the Canadian embassy in Athens - In order to check in hotels, obtain cash from banks in Greece or boarding a plane we must have some kinds of phot ID or passport. The next day we went to the Canadain Embassy in Athens and applied for a temporary passport for each of us.

 

 

 

  4. Assess financial situation and needs - Since my wallet was stolen, all our cash in the wallet was gone too. We searched all the pockets in jackets and clothes and we found a total of 40 Euros! That was all the money we had for the next few days before help could arrive! Therefore, we needed to be careful in using these 40 Euros for food only!

 

  5. Get help from family back home - With digital scammers being so common nowadays, we knew that if we sent a messagae to our family asking for finanical help, they would most likely think that it was a scam. Therefore, we asked our family to call us on our cells ( we were lucky we still had our cells!) and explained to our loved ones what happened and asked them to send us some emergency funds.

 

 

 

6. Adjust travel itineraries - We have planned to fly to other Greek cities and another country, but without any passports or money, we modified our plans in order not to have our holiday runied by this theft incident.

 

 

 

7. Enjoy the city and the free things it has to offer - Athens is a historic and cultural city. There are lots of things to see. As we needed to stay around for our replaced new passports, we would try to enjoy what this city has ti offer for free!

  RT, Athens, Greece 042026