[Removed user]

26 April 2012 at 9:27:59 #805164

Last Monday while waiting to board the train to France at Geneva train station, we got all our Swiss Passes and France Passes which covered for our family’s entire 1-month travel in Switzerland and France (a lot of money for us) stolen from our backpack by a seemingly pickpocket professional at the Geneva train station. We (father, mother, 4 and 7 year old childred) are now stranded in Geneva and can’t go anywhere anymore!

After the incident, we went to train company (SBB) asking if they could do anything for us, e.g. issuing some replacement tickets or refunds even partially as all the passes have not been used at all. The answer was an absolute “NO”!

We then went to the police station located at that very train station but they refused to talk to us because we couldn’t speak French to them. Fortunately, later we ran into a very kind local Swiss woman who kindly took me back to the same police station to report our incident. But the only thing they did was to make a record of our incident and gave us a copy (in France of course) which they said meant for an insurance company who we don’t have.

That’s the end of their job! We thought that the Police’s job was to catch the thief. We asked if it was possible to check the video tape from the video camera which was there at the train station where we met the suspect. In case he was still in the train station at the time, we could catch him and recover our property. But the police said the video camera belong to the train company and nothing they could do!

Is there anything else we can do?

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[Arno]

28 April 2012 at 10:51:58 #835765

Dear siamglory,

I’m so sorry to hear about you being robbed! The Federal Railways indeed cannot replace your pass. Reseller Rail Europe does offer the Rail Protection Plan, as explained in the reseller details on all the pass pages. It will cover lost or stolen passes. In other cases, your travel insurance probably covers stolen passes. They will indeed need a police report. I do agree that the police did not act very proactive in your case; that’s quite disappointing.

Anyway, you do need some kind of insurance to cover for stolen passes. If you don’t have that, I don’t think there’s anything else you can do.

I sincerely hope you’re able to enjoy the rest of your holidays, in spite of the financial problems.