Jen's Security Tips
Notice the vice grip this woman has on her purse.  This is likely from experience.
The streets (and malls, and dolmuses, and trains...) of Istanbul are infamously crowded. This makes it easier for pickpockets to thrive on the bounty of unsuspecting tourists and foreigners.  I always carried a decoy walled in my bag with some old ID cards and a few lira - nothing that I would mind losing.  If you are going to be pickpocketed, then it is better to let the thief  thinking he has gotten away with it.  I was targeted while changing trains at Yenikapi.  I had gotten off the dolmus, rushed up to the train, and stood there.  I had, stupidly, taken out my decoy wallet to get some change for a drink.  It was somewhere between the Kantin and the platform that the pickpocket got to me.  Stealthily, too.  I never noticed until I thought of buying a second drink when I realized it was gone.  I furiously scanned the faces around me, but it was no use.  All I had was, at the most, enough change to buy another drink, some old ID cards, a Koc bank card that didn't work, and some old photos. I thought later of the pickpocket, how he would wait until he could be alone thinking he had just scored bigtime, only to realize it was barely worth his effort.
Jenn's Tips

5.  Carry a decoy wallet.  Dig around your closet, ask your mom if she has an old wallet (she always does, and the more you get the better because the decoys get taken).  Keep your decoy in your bag or pocket and a little bit of change in it.  Keep your real money in a neck pouch and cover the neck straps.  Women, arrange to slide the neck pouch into your bra, either side, just don't carry too much money lest you appear lop-sided. 

4.    Do not use the strap-on pouches that many tourists keep around their waists unless you can conceal it beneath your clothes.  Some people actually wear the fanny pack just as it is intended - on the fanny.  You might as well strap on a gigantic neon flashing sign that reads "I'm a Chump - Take my money".

3.  Traveller's cheques and money orders are hard to use in Turkey, but better to have the traveller's cheque than large wads of cash (the wads are significantly smaller now thanks to the new Turkish Lira)

2.  Foreigners need to look as though they know what they are doing and where they are going at all times, because heisters are looking for vulnerability and a lost puppy-dog face will have heisters on you like white on pilaf.  This is obvious, but if you are really lost go into a store rather than ask a person on the street.  With this in mind, also remember that more Turks are genuinely gregarious and honest than not.

1.  .  Don't pet the stray dogs that roam in packs.  Steer clear - they ususally don't go near people anyway unless they are infected. Though I was particularly fond of a doberman/german shepard pair that liked to follow me home from school.  They once chased away a shadowy man who was also following me...
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