How Many Tourist Scams Have You Fallen For?

When I visited Istanbul back in March, I was a hair away from falling into the shoe-shine scam

I had a weird thing happen when we went to visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem a few years ago. We are Jewish and my teenage son thought it would be appropriate to put a note in the wall--so he went to the men's side and I stayed on the women's side. He was approached by a religious man in Hasidic garb and asked if he wanted to put on tefillin, the Jewish prayer box and black straps that men wear when they pray. He said he did not know how to do it exactly and the guy said he would help, which he did. People are supposed to give a donation to the organization that does this for a "mitzvah" or good deed, by putting some coins the the very obvious charity box located there. But the man told my son that he would take the donation. When my son looked through his pockets, he saw he only had 100 sheckel note, and the man told him he would change it for smaller notes, because my son told him he would give him 10 sheckels. The man took the whole thing and then started in with a story about how he needs to feed his children, etc, and he has no change. By this time, I showed up and started yelling at him in Hebrew and told him I would call the police if he didn't give back the entire amount and that he was shaming the efforts of the righteous people who are trying to pray here, etc. He wouldn't do it, but he looked frightened. He said he had no money, and then he said he never even got the money from my son, and we were going around in circles until I walked over to a guard booth and he gave my son 20 shekels and walked away fast. It was not a huge amount of money, but we were completely floored that he was taken at such a holy place and told everyone about it but not one person had ever heard of a scam there before. Sometimes we still talk about it!

Lucky must be unlucky, or something, to have fallen for most of these. I have been traveling for 25 years and have fallen for exactly zero of the scams on this list. I did get plundered by gypsy children in Rome, but I was not "falling for" anything. Ten of them swarmed me, three holding onto each arm, two standing in front of me with a newspaper, and two going into my pockets and zippers. The only way to avoid it would have been to kick the shit out of these small children, which is not something the average person is prepared to do. I travel alone and often get half lost, having to ask for directions. Other tourists who treat me like the plague piss me off with their stupidity and policy of "ignoring everyone." I have been approached by many of the types on this list, and it is SO EASY to tell the difference between a legit tourist and/or innocent person and these scamming pieces of human garbage. If you have no sixth sense, no perception, you should stay home. I even make sure I give people lots of space, and have my hands out in the open

best way to respond to Nigerian e mailers; Respond to them and just tell them to please send funds to your address( I use my business address) They end up having to open dozens of emails and their whole ploy is to try to get the one person who will fall for thema nd not have to open up dozens of emails. If every one responded they would be inundated by millions of emails. In fact they phrase their email in such a fashion that the average person says " this is stupid, who would respond" and this is exactly what they want. If they had a real professional email then more would be opened and then eventually discarded once the viewer sees its stupidity. I think its brilliant marketing by the Nigerians. They are culling out any intelligent responses and are only getting those that may be ready for a scam

I have a pickpocket story that no one has mentioned. I was actually standing outside of an ATM "room" at noon on a main street in San Jose, Costa Rica waiting for the person in front of me to finish. A woman got out of a taxi right in front of me, walked up to me and said "f...ky, f....ky??" She then grabbed my right hand with her right hand and pushed it into her crotch. While I was trying to extricate myself from the situation, with one motion she put her left hand into my right side jeans pocket and grabbed the cash in there and ran down the street. I was so completely stunned that I could only stand there. Because I hadn't yet gotten to the ATM, she only got a few dollars. But, it was worth every penny to see the chutzpah and skill with which she pulled this off!!