Beware at Spanish Service Stations. If there is one thing I hear countless times that is very easy to avoid it is the Spanish service station scam. Basically the scam is the following.
You pull into a service station and go for a drink or a rest. You come out get in your car and drive off. After a couple of kilometres you notice something is wrong with the car and more or less at the same time a car will start flashing you from behind. When you stop they will helpfully inform you that your back tyre is down and that you need to change it.
You get your triangles out of the car and start jacking it up while they help you to do it. They eventually drive off.
In the meantime they have stolen your bag, any valuables in the car and the reason you had a flat tyre is because they slashed it while in the car park at the service station. So today’s blog contains advice to totally not have this problem.
Firstly don’t stop at service stations. That’s simple enough isn’t it? They are expensive and rubbish anyway. Come off the motoray and go into a town nearby to get petrol or a drink. Inevitably the petrol will be cheaper, the coffee better and you are not marked for getting your tyres slashed. Do not be afraid of doing this if you are in a caravan either as there are generally huge parking areas in front of bars in towns that used to be on the road before the motorway by pass meant that traffic didn't go through the town.
Secondly, if it does happen to you lock the doors on your car from the inside, do not be tempted to get out, and make a big play of gettng your mobile phone out and pretending to call or actually calling the police or your insurance and do not get out of the car for any reason. Even if the person telling you to move has a police uniform on do not move. The Spanish police do not use unmarked cars so you will not be stopped by an unmarked car with a policeman in and some of the thieves are sing uniforms to confuse victims. You will be stopped if you are speeding by the Guardia Civil on their bikes or a real police car.
Within a short time the police will turn up or your insurance company will send a tow truck to pick you up and take you to the nearest garage to repair the tyre or will do it on the spot.
Another suggestion is to not stop the car but drive carefully to the next turn off the motorway into a town and go into the town searching for a garage or police station, you can usually find one easily enough on the way through the town as, again, previously they were on the main road before the mortorways were built. If you cannot find one, stop at a cafe and go in locking your doors and tell the owners what has happened (Translate this post using Google Translate and print out a copy an show them)
Yet another suggestion is to take down the number of the registration plate of any car that flashes you and stops you by doing this as you can then report that to the police and help them to stop this scam which is happening regularly. Write down this on a piece of paper and show it through the window to the people who have stopped you (“He llamado a la policia”) This is often enough for them to scarper.
You often read about this scam but personally I know of about five cases where it has happened including my parents in law after warning them. They stayed in the car and phoned the police.
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