A fraud of up to 400 euros becomes time-barred after one year, because the Spanish Criminal Code treats it as a minor offence, and one above 400 euros after five, counted from the day it was committed (Articles 131 and 132 of the Criminal Code). The period looks generous, but no court opens a case that nobody has reported, and the evidence that identifies the offender, the camera footage from the shop or the metro, the card transaction or the profile that contacted you, disappears within days or weeks. If you have been scammed or robbed in Spain as a tourist or foreign resident, you are entitled to report it in your own language, with a free interpreter and a translated copy of the report, and to claim the money back through the criminal courts, your bank and your insurer even if you leave tomorrow.
Before you board the plane, what depends only on you
What you do in the first hours fixes the evidence and stops the loss, and none of it requires a lawyer or any Spanish.
- Block the card or the account if it has been used, seen or if you typed the PIN in front of someone, through the app or the number on the back, and ask the bank to record the time of your call.
- Delete nothing. The text message, the email, the rental listing, the WhatsApp conversation, the profile that contacted you, the card terminal slip and the restaurant receipt are the evidence. Take screenshots with the date and the web address visible.
- If you paid in a shop, restaurant or taxi, ask for an invoice with the tax number or the licence number and for the official complaint form (“hoja de reclamaciones”). If they refuse, note the time and the name of the business, because the refusal itself can be reported.
- Write down what memory loses within a day, the exact time, the spot in the street, the description of the person, the number plate and the phone number of anyone who saw it.
- Do not call any number contained in the suspicious message itself and do not accept a partial cash refund in exchange for not reporting unless it is put in writing.
- Notify your travel insurer within the period set in your policy, which is usually short, and keep proof of the notification.
- File the police report before leaving Spain, at a station or online, and keep the certified copy.
With that done, your position is secured. The rest depends on the route chosen and is work for someone who knows it.
Theft, robbery or fraud, and why the label changes what you can claim
Travel guides call everything a “scam”, but the Criminal Code distinguishes three offences, and the classification determines both the penalty and how easy it is to recover the money. Theft (Article 234) is taking someone else’s property without the owner’s consent and without violence, and that is what the metro pickpocket does, or the team that stains your shirt and goes through your pockets while cleaning you up, or the person who uses the map spread over your café table to lift your phone. Robbery requires force against property (Articles 237 to 240) or violence or intimidation against people (Article 242), which covers bag-snatching and muggings. Fraud (Article 248) requires sufficient deception that induces you to hand over the money yourself, and that is the cup game, the rigged currency exchange, the holiday rental that does not exist or the text message imitating a traffic fine.
The distinction matters for your wallet. If your wallet is stolen and the card is used, you did not authorise those transactions, and payment services legislation obliges the bank to refund unauthorised transactions, subject to exceptions and requirements that are for the lawyer to handle. If you were tricked into paying, you authorised the transaction even though you were deceived, the bank has no automatic duty to refund, and the main route becomes the offender’s civil liability within the criminal proceedings and, in some cases, a chargeback. That is why the report must describe the facts properly and not say “fraud” where there was theft.
| Conduct | Criminal Code article | Penalty | Limitation period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Theft up to 400 euros (pickpocket, stained shirt) | 234.2 | Fine of one to three months | 1 year |
| Theft above 400 euros | 234.1 | Six to eighteen months’ imprisonment | 5 years |
| Robbery with violence or intimidation (bag-snatch, mugging) | 242.1 | Two to five years’ imprisonment | 5 years |
| Fraud up to 400 euros (cup game, rigged exchange) | 249.1 | Fine of one to three months | 1 year |
| Fraud above 400 euros (fake rental, fake fine by text) | 248 and 249.1 | Six months to three years’ imprisonment | 5 years |
| Aggravated fraud (above 50,000 euros, among other cases) | 250.1 | One to six years’ imprisonment and a fine of six to twelve months | 10 years |
The limitation periods come from Article 131 of the Criminal Code and run from the day the act was committed. Minor offences, those up to 400 euros, have one year, and that is the period that genuinely squeezes the person who leaves and puts it off. Fraud committed with someone else’s card or through computer manipulation carries the same penalty as ordinary fraud under Article 249.2.
What repeats in Barcelona, Madrid, Seville and the Costa del Sol
Spain is not a dangerous destination for tourists. What the busiest areas of Barcelona, La Rambla, the metro, La Barceloneta and the surroundings of the Sagrada Familia, and of Madrid, Sol, Gran Vía, El Rastro and the metro lines to the airport, concentrate is low-value property crime, theft above all, committed by groups that work in shifts and know the 400-euro threshold. Seville, Granada and the Costa del Sol come next, with the “friendship” bracelet and the rosemary sellers in Seville and beside Granada Cathedral, and with fake holiday rentals and deceptive timeshare sales in Málaga, Marbella and the Canary Islands.
The repertoire is short and repeats every season. The pickpocket with a distraction team on the metro or the tourist bus. The fake plainclothes police officer who asks for your wallet to look for counterfeit notes. The taxi with the “broken” meter outside the airport. The bracelet or sprig of rosemary that turns into a demand for payment. The cup game and its stooge winners. The sauce stain that justifies a clean-up with a pocket search included. The restaurant bill with items you never ordered, the menu without prices and the flyer promising discounts at a place that then charges triple. The petition on a clipboard held over your table while a hand works underneath. Each fits one of the three offences above or a consumer infringement.
The fake police officer and what a real officer will never ask you for
Impersonating an officer is the offence of usurpation of public functions, punishable with one to three years’ imprisonment under Article 402 of the Criminal Code, and improper use of a uniform or badge is punished separately under Article 402 bis. Theft or fraud of whatever money they take is added to the usurpation. The pattern is always the same. Two people in plain clothes approach, say they are police, sometimes after a third person has asked you about drugs or currency exchange, and ask for your wallet or passport to “check” for counterfeit notes. The wallet comes back with fewer notes or a swapped card.
A genuine officer of the Policía Nacional, the Guardia Civil, the Mossos d’Esquadra or the Ertzaintza identifies himself as such with the badge and the professional warrant card, which bears his identification number, and Organic Law 2/1986 on Security Forces expressly requires this when making an arrest. Organic Law 4/2015 on the protection of public safety allows an officer to require your identification in a public place when there are signs of an offence or it is necessary to prevent one, but no officer asks for your card PIN, counts your money to see whether it is counterfeit, collects a cash fine for drug possession on the spot or walks you to an ATM. You may ask to see the warrant card and note the number, you may call 091 or 112 to confirm that an operation is taking place at that spot, and you may propose continuing at the police station or in a nearby shop. What you must not do is hand over your wallet.
Meter switched off and padded bill, when it is a consumer matter and when it is a crime
Taxis are required to run the meter and issue a receipt, under the service regulations and each municipality’s by-laws, and the licence number is displayed on the bodywork and inside the vehicle. A restaurant must display its prices with taxes included, and consumer protection legislation (Royal Legislative Decree 1/2007) requires the total price to be disclosed before you order. Every business open to the public must hold official complaint forms and hand them over on request, under the consumer rules of each autonomous region, and refusing is an additional infringement.
Overcharging is, in principle, an administrative infringement, claimed before the consumer authority or the city council that issues the taxi licence. The line into fraud is deception. If the waiter adds three dishes he never served and you pay because the bill is in a language you cannot read, if the card terminal shows 450 euros where it should show 45 and the figure was hidden from you, or if the taxi driver gives you change in banknotes from another country, there is sufficient deception and a disposal of money, and that is fraud, minor or otherwise depending on the amount. Charging a card for an amount other than the one agreed is also punished as fraud by fraudulent use of card data (Article 249.2.c). In these cases you report it to the police and claim through the consumer route at the same time, because the two are compatible.
Where to report depending on the territory and in what language
The Criminal Procedure Act allows you to report to the investigating judge, the public prosecutor or the nearest police (Articles 259 and following), in writing or orally, in person or through a representative with a special power of attorney (Article 265). An oral report is recorded in a statement that you sign (Article 267) and the authority checks your identity against your passport (Article 268). In practice you report at a police station, and the competent force depends on the territory. Policía Nacional in provincial capitals and large cities and Guardia Civil elsewhere, except in Catalonia, where the Mossos d’Esquadra are competent, in the Basque Country, where it is the Ertzaintza, and in Navarre, where the Policía Foral shares the role. If you have already left Spain and live in another EU Member State, Directive 2012/29/EU allows you to file the report with the police of your own country, which forwards it to the Spanish authorities, and the Spanish Victim’s Statute contains the mirror rule for residents of Spain (Article 17 of Law 4/2015).
Madrid and Barcelona have a Foreign Tourist Assistance Service, in Madrid at the Centro police station and in Barcelona on La Rambla, staffed with interpreters and designed for people leaving within days, and other coastal cities run one in high season. The Policía Nacional also accepts online reports for incidents with no known offender, mainly theft and loss, which must then be ratified in person at the station you choose within the period set by the system itself, and the Mossos run an equivalent service. The Interior Ministry’s ALERTCOPS app lets you alert the police in several languages and geolocate the alert.
On language, the law is clear. The Victim of Crime Statute (Law 4/2015) recognises the right to understand and be understood from the first contact with the authorities (Article 4), the right to a certified copy of the report and to free language assistance and a written translation of that copy when you speak none of the official languages of the place (Article 6), and the right to an interpreter in every statement and to translation of the decisions that close the proceedings (Article 9). Articles 123 to 127 of the Criminal Procedure Act regulate translation and interpretation for the person under investigation, not for the victim, so the rights that protect you are those of the Statute. You can report in English, German or whatever language you speak, and the copy you take away must be translated if you ask for it.
What happens to the report once you are back home
The report becomes a police file and is sent to the Investigating Court of the place where the offence was committed, which has jurisdiction under Article 14 of the Criminal Procedure Act. The court must formally offer you the right to act, informing you that you can join the proceedings as a party and claim restitution, repair and compensation (Articles 109 and 110 of the Criminal Procedure Act). That notice goes to the address you gave, and if you are abroad it is slow and sometimes gets lost, which does not take away your right but does oblige you to stay alert. You may join the proceedings up to the indictment stage (Article 110) and may testify by videoconference if the court so orders (Article 731 bis).
If the offender is not identified, the usual outcome is a provisional stay (Article 641 of the Criminal Procedure Act), which closes nothing definitively and allows the case to be reopened if new information appears while the offence is not time-barred. If the offender is identified, the case proceeds as a minor-offence trial or as an abbreviated procedure depending on the amount, and the judgment fixes the convicted person’s civil liability, which the court itself enforces. Many defendants deposit the money before trial to obtain the mitigating circumstance of repairing the harm (Article 21.5 of the Criminal Code), and that money is handed over to you. A minor-offence trial can be held without you if you have already given a statement and claimed compensation. To receive notices, answer them and pursue the civil claim without travelling, anyone abroad needs representation in Spain.
Recovering the money, the three doors and which one suits each case
There are three routes and they do not exclude one another. The first is civil liability within the criminal proceedings, which depends on the offender being identified and having the means to pay, which is why in street theft it is the slowest. The second is the bank. If the card was used without your consent, payment services legislation requires the bank to refund unauthorised transactions, under rules I do not set out here because how that claim is framed is what decides whether it succeeds, and that is the lawyer’s work. I cover it at greater length in the article on getting a bank refund after phishing and in the one on Bizum scams. If you authorised the payment under deception, a restaurant charge or a transfer for a rental, what remains is the chargeback through the card scheme, subject to each issuer’s rules, and a direct claim against the business. The third is travel insurance. Almost all policies cover robbery with violence and many cover theft, few cover fraud, and all require the copy of the police report, proof of what was stolen or paid, the invoice for documents or tickets you had to replace, and notification within a short period.
For an abusive taxi or restaurant charge you have already paid, the path is the official complaint form, a complaint to the regional consumer office or the city council, and consumer arbitration if the business is signed up, with the receipt and the copy of the police report as evidence. At the firm we handle the claim against the bank and the civil claim within the criminal case through our cybercrime and bank fraud practice, and we assess beforehand whether the amount justifies the cost, because for a loss of a hundred euros the honest advice is to report it and claim on your insurance, nothing more.
The scam that began before the trip, fake rentals, tickets and fines by text
The largest losses do not happen in the street but on the computer, weeks before flying, and take three forms. The holiday rental booked off the platform, with a transfer to a Spanish account in the name of an owner who does not exist, for a flat that turns out to be occupied by its real owners when you arrive, a pattern I describe in the article on fake Booking and Airbnb listings. Tickets for a match, a concert or the Alhambra bought on a website imitating the official one. And the text message that reaches your phone, sometimes when you are already in Spain, with a traffic fine that “expires today” and a link to a page copying the Dirección General de Tráfico that harvests your card. All three are fraud under Article 248 or computer fraud under Article 249.2, and by amount they usually exceed 400 euros, so the reference penalty is six months to three years’ imprisonment and the limitation period five years.
Spanish courts have jurisdiction even if you paid from your own country, because case law applies the ubiquity doctrine, fixed by the non-jurisdictional Plenary of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court of 3 February 2005, under which the offence is deemed committed in any of the places where the act was carried out or the result occurred, and here the receiving account, the property or the offender are in Spain. You can file the report without travelling, through a representative with a special power of attorney under Article 265 of the Criminal Procedure Act, which is the route by which a lawyer in Spain files and follows it on your behalf, or with the police of your own country if you live in the European Union. The difference from a street scam is that here there is a trail, the receiving account, the listing, the link and the holder of the phone number, and that trail is what allows the offender to be identified and whatever remains in the account to be frozen before it is moved. When the supposed owner stops answering and does not return the money, it matters whether there was deception from the outset or a later breach, because that determines whether the route is criminal or civil.
There is a second danger. Within weeks, people who have been defrauded receive emails or calls from supposed “fund recovery” companies that, against an upfront fee, promise to rescue the money. It is a second scam built on the first. Nobody who approaches you unprompted is going to recover anything.
Stolen passport, the police report comes before the consulate
If what was taken is your passport, the order is police report first and consulate second, because most consulates require the copy of the report to issue an emergency travel document. Reports of stolen documents can be filed online with the Policía Nacional and are among those handled the same day at tourist assistance offices. Keep a photo of the passport on your phone or in your email, because it speeds up both the report and the consular appointment, and ask for the translated copy, to which Article 6 of the Victim’s Statute entitles you. If cards were with the passport, blocking them comes before everything else.
Frequently asked questions
Is it worth reporting if I fly home tomorrow? What is the report for?
Yes, because without a report there is no insurance payout, no bank refund and no criminal case that can be reopened if the offender turns up. The certified copy is the document your insurer, your bank and your consulate will demand. The court will send the formal offer to join the proceedings to the address you give, and you can follow the case and collect compensation without returning to Spain.
Can I report in English / without speaking Spanish? And online before going to the police station?
Yes, the Victim’s Statute (Law 4/2015) guarantees you a free interpreter and a translated copy of the report. Madrid and Barcelona have foreign tourist assistance offices with multilingual staff. The Policía Nacional and the Mossos accept online reports for theft and incidents with no known offender, which you then ratify in person at the station you choose.
The step to take now is to file the police report before leaving Spain or, if you have already left, to entrust it to someone who can file and follow it on your behalf, because the one-year limitation period for minor offences runs from the day of the events and bank evidence and camera footage are lost long before. At Perseus & RC Abogados we act as private prosecutor for victims of fraud and bank fraud and bring the claim against the bank, including for clients who do not live in Spain and will not return for the trial. You can write to us through the contact page or call +34 677 841 007.