Yesterday I posted an interesting infographic that Just The Flight put together about 40 tourist scams to avoid this summer. The list is totally spot on, and I’ve certainly fallen for quite a few of them over the years.
Reader Drew left an interesting comment on the post:
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I've been scammed a few times. Most were annoying, but pretty harmless! The waiter who served me in Bali and then proceeded to ask if I was looking for a boyfriend! The rikshaw guy in Jodphur who took me to jewllery shops instead of the bookshop that I requested. The taxi driver who took me 30 mins out of my way when the place I wanted was actually next door. We'd been walking for so long and we still hadn't found where we were going. We were so close! But the scam that I thought could have caused me a potential problem was in Madrid (sorry Spain)! I had planned to meet up with a Canadian girl and when she went to the bathroom, a man came up behind me and said that I had dropped €5.00! I said that I hadn't. He said that there was €5.00 under my chair. I said that it wasn't mine. He said that it was free money and I should take it! Hmm! The more he insisted, the more I held tightly to the 4 camera, 2 handbags, and other stuff on our table. I did not turn around once. I had a feeling that if I did, the strange woman who suddenly appeared near our table, would swipe our stuff. I admit that I was a little scared, so when my friend came back. We left. The €5.00 was still on the floor!
As someone living in a big city (Philly with frequent visits to NYC), I have learned not to make eye contact in the first place. If you look someone in the eye, they will take it as a cue to step in closer and start the hard sell. Much easier not to make eye contact and keep on walking. Also, keep your hands in your pockets (if you have them). Pretty much impossible to force something into your hand or onto your arm that way. On the other hand, I try to be relaxed about stuff away from transit and major tourist areas. I don't want to miss connecting with people because I'm afraid. And I've had some very friendly people offer to help me out when I seemed lost - these have never been scams. I do, however, keep a really close eye on the camera if someone asks me to take their picture. So far, haven't been a victim of any camera scams.
@philatravelgirl - why would your friend be embarrassed you your saying "don't touch me"? You have a right to not be touched, and to object if someone is touching you. I would have absolutely zero problem with saying that very loudly and emphatically. It seems to me that many of these scams rely on people's politeness and unwillingness to raise a fuss. I tend to be very polite, but when I'm in an area where i know that scam artists operate, I train myself that my automatic reaction should not be the polite one, but the assertive one - even if it makes me seem like a jackass to whomever happens to be around. But why would I care about that? Hardly anyone is paying attention to me, and even if they are I'm not hurting anyone, and finally I feel perfectly justified in protecting myself.
As a women traveling solo for so long, I have developed a very hard shell when it comes to this stuff and tend to walk and ignore when I can. I now pay in small bills to avoid the cash scams with larger bills. In Paris at Sacre Coeur with the bracelet guys who swarm you, I said "don't touch me a bit loudly" and they all moved quickly (my friend was embarrassed by me but oh well). For taxis, I often have the bellman negotiate the fare (in Paris the pre-ordered base fare was higher than it would be for locals I was told). And when approached asking "Do you speak English", I respond in the local language that I don't and continue walking. Common sense and gut feeling also comes into play
Assume all taxi drivers are trying to rip you off, because a good percentage are. Had a real slick one in Vegas last trip - didn't get me but see how he would get others and make them feel good about it - shall I take local or the expressway? Expressway sounds fast like the good choice, right? It isn't. I told him to take X local street to Y local street (which I'd Google'd upon landing, which is why I can't recite the street names off the top of my head now), and cut his tip down.
I’m probably the wrong person to ask, because I’ve fallen for lots of these scams over the years. Or more accurately, I should say that I didn’t mind playing along with any of the “low risk” scams, because it’s amusing to see how they operate. If I’m going to be out a few minutes of my time or a few dollars I don’t mind — it’s a small price to pay for some entertainment and education on how the scams work. Of course I’ll avoid the ones that are actually dangerous.
But if you want to avoid falling for scams altogether, what should you do? I’m not really sure there’s a good answer. Yes, you could just brush everyone off that approaches you and have your guard up — that would probably do the trick. But at the same time I think one of the great things about traveling is being able to be an ambassador of sorts for your country/culture.
For example, a few weeks ago I was in the Forbidden City in Beijing, and I was kind of surprised that we were almost the only non-Chinese tourists. I’ve never in my life been photographed so much and had so many people come up to us and ask if they can take a picture with us. Similarly, at least a handful of people came up to us and said “excuse me, may I have a conversation with you?” And that’s just because they wanted to practice their English.
The point is that over our two hours in the Forbidden City, we must have been approached by well over a dozen people, without a single one attempting a scam. Now in theory it’s possible one of them was trying to scam us, but is it worth ignoring over a dozen people that genuinely just want to talk over the risk of someone trying to scam you?
I think that’s kind of the other side of the “ignore everyone and you’ll never get scammed” coin.
That’s why I’m usually happy to play along. The thing about global tourism scams is that there are the same dozen or so scams you’ll see everywhere (and most of them are on the chart I posted yesterday), so once you recognize them you can move right on. For example, if someone offers to shine my shoes or drops a ring in front of me or tells me a tourist attraction is closed but offers to give me a tour instead, I’ll keep going.
But if they just want to talk, I’ll gladly play along. Sometimes I realize within a sentence they’re trying to scam me, in which case I may still keep playing along just to see where they’re going with it. Or sometimes you very quickly realize they’re just so excited to speak to someone from a different part of the world.
How about you? What approach do you take to avoiding scams?