Caravan Break in and Theft on French Service Station Areas

[cris_408518]

Well JamesFrance I find it offensive tha you assume my post to be offensive, you I guess decided what the little stars stand for!

Towing a caravan you may have your tow ball fail or a two week old tyre blow out and lose the whole rig as happened to my brother and family towing my van.

Regular posts about some "true tail" of horror helps no one really, cr1p can happen any where friend. Without going through the whole tail again I and thousands of others pick roadside stops at times for a variety of reasons.

I find these scaremongering posts more offensive than how you seem to interpret my post. Posting one off tales that may or may not be true when thousands take calculated road side breaks with no problems is somewhat rude, negative or something else.

Just leave it out! Sometimes nice things do not happen and that includes on expensive continental top rated campsites. I've beenon them when asty things have happened but I would not put people off from visiting them or many roadside stops that I've used over many years.

We are all here for whatever, the post above help nobody quite frankly, so expect a sharp reply at times.

Life has more than its fair share of knocks so you will get a few here as well. FACT

No offense intended.

 

[OldBean]

Just a word - some years ago there was an article in the press about this type of incident, and we were amazed to see the address quoted was two doors up from us. Supposedly the couple were on their way to Biarritz when they were gassed in an aire, and their jewellery (quite a valuable amount to have with you on a caravan holiday) was taken, along with cards, car keys, cash, passports, etc. Our neighbours at that address had a caravan - and we went around to see to them about it. They had not seen the article - and we were amazed to hear that they had not been involved in any sort of incident - but had just come back from Biarritz!! They contacted the paper to ask them to make it clear that this was not a true report - but nothing ever came of it.

Obviously we all need to take appropriate precautions but each year these stories circulate, and yet from the thousands of us who use these websites, and travel to France, none have had a personal experience of it actually happening to them.

I was just pointing out that some detailed reports, even publishing a name/address, turn up, unexplained in the media from time to time. The one I mentioned was untrue - but our neighbours, who were named, never got an explanation of where it had originated, nor an apology from the newspaper/magazine for publishing it.

Believe me, I'm as careful as anyone, but we still sleep soundly on french aires, despite reading these stories for about the last five years.

 

[Litespeed]

I will be travelling across France alone in July. My ferry docks late at night and I plan to drive for approx 3 hours after that, finally getting my head down at 1.30am for about 4 hours.

I had planned to use an Aire / Services. Would it be better to find a small village square / car park maybe?

I know there is no real answer, but it is difficult to check on to a site at 11.30 pm (roscoff)

What do others do?

 

[WatsonJohnG]

Really the advice in the original posting to stay on a camp site is very valid.

We have friends who we meet every year on a C & CC rally.

We were at a site in Calais one year and met them with other friends on the way to the same rally as us in Spain.

We set out before them and stopped overnight at Macon just as a storm broke.

They were caught in the storm on the motorway and stayed on an Aire overnight where they were both robbed.

One couple slept through and heard nothing but Derek who is a pensioner sleeps in the nude and woke up and gave chase across the car park!!The thieves even too the umbrella.

We were with the same couple last week in Brittany and the subject came up again.

On last Saturday night we stayed on the embarkation car park at Roscoff to be ready for the 9am ferry to Plymouth on Sunday.

We intended to stay on a site but thougt that it would be OK with about 20 other vans on the car park.

We locked ourselves in with the Fiamma door lock (that slide down door window on the Senator is great!) and felt secure (exit is possible via a window in the event of fire before someone points out the dangers !).

In the morning our step had gone as had several others.

Fortunately they had only been moved round to other caravans by Saturday night revellers !!

It makes you wonder what elese could have been done by more malicious pranksters/thieves and really for

 

[AnthonyVJ]

I don't know how much truth there is in this, but I was told that there is less trouble generally when stopping on the payage aires as thieves/trouble makers do not usually want to pay the tolls.

Helen

 

[AnthonyVJ]

Also the toll booths have cctv.

 

[WatsonJohnG]

No doubt its less likely to be robbed on pay motorways but our friends in my previous posting were not so fortunate .

They were on the A6

 

[Icemaker]

I too was a bit scepticle about this subject as it appears to come and go at regular intervalls but i now have a relative who was robbed of everything of value from his motorhome in france last month, both he and his wife new nothing of the robbery untill they both woke up late morning with very severe headaches, the local police immediately claimed they had been subjected to a knock out gas attack using readily available ether gas in aerosoles.

we are taking our first trip to france with the van in four weeks and to say we are a little concerned is an understatement, we have booked on a site near the port and i have purchased a knock out gas detector alarm for peace of mind,see www.gasalarms.biz , this alarm is the one featured in pc mag not long ago. also take a look at this thread, http://pocket.angloinfo.com/pl/forum/topic.asp?ID=48725&DB=1 its a site run by brits who now live in france and the thread is about some of them who have been gassed in theire own homes and robbed. seems at the moment to be a problem in france and parts of spain but as with everything it wont be long before our own home grown scumbags latch on and start to use this gas over here.

for those that cant find any info on the web try searching for "knockout gas" or "ether" and the results come flooding in.

 

[Anita_5109950]

Is this a problem throughout all of France or just particular regions? Although not really relevant to this site, we have a second home in Burgundy and now wonder if we should fit a gas alarm just to be on the safe side.

We also love France for touring, although would never dream of staying in an Aire, it's always better to be safe than sorry, but then we would never consider overnighting at English services either. For the small charge for overnighting on a site, either here or on the continent, we consider it is worth it and reduces the risk, however small of something like this happening.

Just for the record, I believe Dave was correct in bringing this matter up. I don't consider it to be scaremongering, just warning people what could happen, and suggesting they take precautions. Surely people who tow a caravan are at a slightly higher risk of accidents, either by their own stupidity or other peoples careless attitude, so we can't be a nervous bunch, surely!

Anita

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Although not caravan related but typical of the topic, we were moored in a Marina on the Canal Du Midi in the middle of nowhere about 10 miles from Beziers. It was our last day, like a lot of others, on our hire cruiser. A young couple who were moored a few boats away went to the Marina restaurant for a last night meal and came back at dusk. While they were away their cruiser had been broken into and everything stolen, all they had left were the clothes they were wearing. This was in daylight and nobody saw a thing :O(

 

[Tracy]

Hi everyone !!

We had experience of this problem last year, we travelled to south of Lyon and pulled into a very large service station....thinking this would be safe! We had two different sets of people try to break into our van, luckily I am a very light sleeper and heard the catch go on the door handle each time...needless to say they ran off following my shouts.

We are travelling via eurotunnel this year, does anyone have any tips of where to stop as close as possible to Calais ? we are travelling on a night crossing and so want to get our heads down asap once arriving in Calais.

Thanks

Tracy

 

[clivea]

I will be travelling across France alone in July. My ferry docks late at night and I plan to drive for approx 3 hours after that, finally getting my head down at 1.30am for about 4 hours.

I had planned to use an Aire / Services. Would it be better to find a small village square / car park maybe?

I know there is no real answer, but it is difficult to check on to a site at 11.30 pm (roscoff)

What do others do?

Hi, some sites near to ferry ports stay open late to allow the late arrivals to pitch up and then be away for 0700.

 

[ericcaravanning4u]

If you read the Foreign office advice site you will see this that is part of the warnings information

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mugging incidents have occurred at isolated rest areas on some French motorways, usually those without petrol stations and cafeterias. There is also a continuing problem of burglaries taking place during the night whilst travellers have been asleep in their caravans, mobile homes or other vehicles. In a number of these cases, victims had first been rendered unconscious by the thieves using gas. Try to avoid parking in isolated or dark areas of camping grounds or car parks, and consider installing an alarm in your caravan or mobile home.

In Calais British registered cars may be targeted by thieves, both while parked and on the move (eg by thieves flagging down drivers for a lift or indicating that the vehicle has a flat tyre). Valuables, including tobacco and alcohol, should not be left unattended in parked cars and they should be kept out of sight at all times.

 

[rob_jax]

Good advice from Eric about not leaving valuables on display.

Returning home just before Christmas last year I stopped at the Auchan Hypermarket (Grande Synthe, Dunkerque) and saw two UK registered estate cars in the car park with the back full of wine and beer - and no owners to be seen - they had probably gone for a meal

This and other hypermarkets have security vehicles that patrol the car parks, but when I came back from food shopping, one of the cars had a broken rear window and some sad looking people standing around.

Robert

 

[WatsonJohnG]

I am totally in agreement with the original posting and would always (except when I don't!!) stay on a campsite.

But to add a little perspective to the perceived risks and possible ensuing panic.

On Tuesday night in our sleepy village 25 cars were broken into by having the doors wrenched open fron the top downwards.

They would have been safer on an Aire maybe

 

[Pamela_5132499]

We too were robbed on a French Autoroute site, just outside Beaune on our way South. We parked on a well lit, busy site, surrounded by other caravanners and lorries. The site was being patrolled by a man with a Rottweiler, indeed, my husband had a chat with him before we went to bed.

We had a fantastic night's sleep, and did not wake until gone 9am, amazing, given the noise on services, feeling fine, only to discover that all our valuables were gone whilst we and our three children slept. We had lost all five passports, all driving documents, insurance papers, credit cards, cash including the children's spending money, my phone and car and house keys. We did not even have enough money to leave the motorway or give the children breakfast.

All this was not the worst thing that happened. We were robbed on a Sunday, and there is absolutely no help available on a Sunday. The British Consulate were useless, as were Natwest Premier Insurance. The police were only interested in logging the theft. Eventually we phoned a relative, who booked us into a site over the phone and paid for us by credit card, also getting us some money with his credit card.

We too are thinking of selling our caravan. We have been stopping at services in transit for many years, but the sense of violation, and the thought of what could have happened to our children while we slept have put us off the idea of caravanning ever again.

We have had to have all our locks at home changed, I have not been able to use my car for a week after returning as I had no keys, and we arrived home only to find that some of the credit card companies had only cancelled one of our cards on the joint accounts, because my husband did the phoning, not me. Also, for the same reason, some of my cards have not been replaced. Of the cards that have been replaced, the banks had sent both the cards, and the PINs to our home address, knowing that we were away at the time.

The most terrifying experience was not being robbed, but the sheer intransigence of anyone who should have been able to help us. Everyone we dealt with behaved as if this were an unusual occurrence, and yet, in August, peak holiday season, it must happen every day, and there must be systems in place to deal with it.

Like the other correspondent, our caravan was securely locked, with all the windows shut. The door lock was completely undamaged, and must have been opened with a key. We do not know that we were gassed, but I am a very light sleeper, and for them to strip us of our valuables so comprehensively without waking any of the five of us makes us feel that we had to have been gassed.

 

[JohnI.Stephen]

Pamela; this makes sober reading. I do hope that your family is recovering.

What is unclear to me is that you say it was a 'site' i.e. proper caravan site? But then you mention lorries around you, so I guess this was a motorway service station?

Perhaps the answer is to have all your valuables locked away over night. e.g a secure box bolted to the floor of the caravan under the front or rear seats / beds.

Hope that you don't sell the caravan Pamela; this issue isn't about caravans; it's about organised crime. Regretably you may have been targetted being around Beaune southbound; i.e. clearly one day's drive from the channel ports at the start of your holiday. Perhaps we all need to be smarter and camp well away from the autoroutes....

With best wishes; John

 

[Lutz]

It has always been my understanding, both from news reports and from talking to other holidaymakers, that only the autoroute between Beaune-Lyon-Orange-Montpelier-Perpignan-Barcelona seems to be a relatively high risk area. As I have never heard of a big problem elsewehere in France I was wondering whether anyone is aware of other routes where more than an average number of incidences occur?

 

[MikeP]

What I will never understand is how people claim to lose all cash, children's money, car keys, house keys, insurance documents, car documents etc. Where were they - left out on a shelf? We keep our valuables in the safe, which is in a locker. But even if you don't have a safe, surely most people would keep important stuff deep in a locker?

I have just come back from a month on the continent. We dossed for 2 nights - once in a McDonalds carpark south of Venlo, and second at a fuel station west of Luxembourg city. Not luxurious I know, but we had no problems at all.

 

[EvansofSprot]

I don't understand why this subject has been resurrected, when only on the last page of the forum many more points of wiew have been raised on the same theme!

http://www.practicalcaravan.com/newforums/fm_messages.asp?FO=7&FM=285449
It getting very boring!

 

[EvansofSprot]

I don't understand why this subject has been resurrected, when only on the last page of the forum many more points of wiew have been raised on the same theme!

http://www.practicalcaravan.com/newforums/fm_messages.asp?FO=7&FM=285449
It getting very boring!

Its.........

 

[Dave_5040193]

I don't understand why this subject has been resurrected, when only on the last page of the forum many more points of wiew have been raised on the same theme!

http://www.practicalcaravan.com/newforums/fm_messages.asp?FO=7&FM=285449
It getting very boring!

I can't believe you have just posted the comment this subject is getting boring EOS. I'm alright jack it's never happened to me attitude stinks, it could well be you next. I made the original posting on this thread which was simply to forewarn other caravanners that this crime exists. You sceptics have now heard the story from another poor victim.

 

[JamesFrance]

I think Lutz has worked this out perfectly.

Of all the people who have told us of their Motorway Problems, I can't just think of any that were not on this stretch.

Certainly the Catalan Village on the French side of the border has a fearsome reputation and I wouldn't stay anywhere near Barcelona or Valencia.

 

[ed1]

right...well im now not going to france or spain next year ...because it will be me that gets broken into...whats holland like then..

 

[MikeP]

Edwina - is your posting tongue in cheek? If not, don't let the scaremongering put you off. Stay on sites to avoid the perceived risk. Holland is nice.

You are more likely to be run over by a bus in the next 10 minutes than "gassed" on a French aire.

And as for the report that someone was gassed on a 4* site, I am struggling with the credibility of this.