Pickpockets can quickly turn a dream trip away into a holiday nightmare. And many areas have gained bad reputations for the opportunistic thieves.
A study by money.co.uk analysed Trip Advisor reviews for popular attractions and transport stations around the world. Mentions of pick-pocketing in the reviews were counted to produce the top ten list.
The place with the highest number of 'pickpocket' mentions was the famous Las Ramblas pedestrian walkway with 3,271 mentions. The street in Barcelona is often crowded and already has a bad reputation for pickpockets.
The Eiffel Tower in Paris came in second, with the main street from the metro station to the landmark being a particularly bad stretch. And 2,569 reviewers mentioned pickpockets.
One of Rome's most targeted historical landmarks is the Trevi Fountain. Around 3,000 Euros are thrown in each day but there are also frequent attempts to steal money from the busy crowds and with 2,200 pickpocket reviews.
The study by the money site also looked at the places with the highest percentage of reviews mentioning pickpockets. Coming out top was the Mercado Municipal de Benidorm - the local market on the popular Spanish resort.
While 48 reviews mentioning pickpockets may not seem too bad, they account for 17% of the entire reviews for the market on the site. A number of reviews also describe scammers using a rigged game of chance using cups and peas as a distraction tactic.
Athens Metro had the second highest percentage with 88 out of 579 reviews mentioning pickpockets - 15.2%. And Colon Street in Cebu City in the Philippines had the third highest percentage.
Of the 618 reviews, 72 mention pickpockets - 11.6%. Cebu is one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations and the crowded street used to be home to fashionable shops and movie theatres.
