A British woman fears she will be stranded in Spain after claiming her passport has been stolen whilst on holiday in the country.
Opening up about her ordeal on TikTok, tearful Jess (@je55x) explained that she was in a McDonald’s restuarant when she looked in her open bag hanging on her child’s pushchair – and noticed that some of her belongings had vanished. “My passport, my two cards, everything is gone,” she cursed.
“How the h**l am I going to get home?” she asked, attempting to hold back the tears. “I’ve just had to ring the police and now I’ve got to walk 1.4 miles to the station. Someone’s tried using my card but I’ve phoned both of them.”
Jess was able to ascertain that the person(s) now in possession of her cards had to tried to use them at a steakhouse, just a stone’s throw from the McDonald’s she had visited. After arriving at the police station, meanwhile, Jess spoke to another Brit who told she had suffered a similar incident in the town – Salou on the east coast.
“I’ve just been talking to another woman here and she’s had the full phone, purse… everything gone, and she was only stood nearby.” Appearing more relaxed, Jess closed her video by issuing a warning to others.
“I’m just putting it out there,” she said. “Just keep your stuff on you and not around you. Anything can happen anywhere. You just never know when it’s going to happen to yourself so always be alert and on it so it doesn’t happen to you.”
It prompted other TikTok users to offer Jess advice for the remainder of her stay. “You need to go to the UK embassy they’ll get you a new passport for you to get home,” one person replied.
“Always get a hotel safe, why would you carry your passport about whilst on holiday especially if you’re there for a few days?” asked another. A third advised: “On holiday I never take my card out with me and only take enough cash to do me for what I’m going out for.”
Whilst a fourth person claimed: “Unfortunately it’s well known in Spain for this happening, you need a cross body bag and it closed always.”
Elsewhere, other women recalled times they’d been on the receiving end of similar crimes in Spain in the recent past. “Mine [passport] got stolen in Benidorm,” one TikTok user said. “Had to go to embassy in Alicante to get an emergency travel document.”
A second revealed: “I got my purse stolen in Benidorm last week too.” Athird recounted: “My phone was robbed there [Salou] Sunday night, I feel ya! Back in Ireland now, luckily I had a spare phone.”
And a fourth person added: “The same thing happened to me in Magaluf. And the next day the police brought my passport to reception in the hotel.”
In a follow up video, Jess reported she’d followed advice and visited the British embassy in Barcelona, where she had to fork out £100 for a temporary passport to get her home.