For the best (ie worst) service anyone who's been in Russia or east of Germany will feel such pain. I had a lovely moment in a shop (an elite enough place) in Moscow my wallet was stolen (pickpocket). I went immediately to the "administrator" as they're called, and told what happened. She shrugged and asked what did I expect her to do about it. So, I said, call the cops, she told me she didn't have the authority and that she'd have to find someone higher up the food chain. We waited for 5, 10, 15minutes, when I was positively furious. The next higher one came back and said, "the local station is on x street, it's about 15mins walk away, but you might take a taxi as I don't know the directions." I decided to go into full raging Brit abroad mode, I demanded a phone number for the station, she didn't know it and didn't know how to get it. So I had my other half call the emergency number for the police, at which point the upper administrator ran away (to be replaced minutes later with a higher up person again). A few minutes later the militia arrived complete with weapons, the staff were in shock and when I asked to see the security tapes (I'd actually seen and remember still the thieving scumbag) they told us the cameras were only for show, before (with a finger wag from the cop) they showed us what they had and we left for the station.
It turned out that in that same shop, a major bookstore, it is a common enough scam to pickpocket foreigners where they're most liable to be, in the foreign language book section.
