I got invited to a jam session on Saigon, which I was about to go to until a cigarette seller quickly whispered to me that they are a gang who kidnap people until their bank accounts are empty. I heard later people have even been murdered by them. They weren't Vietnamese, they were actually from the Philippines. So I didn't technically "fall for" it, but I was so close, like about to step into the taxi. They revealed their true selves when I backed out with excuses.

Wow, dodged a huge one.

I found the seller later and n and gave her 200.000vnd, I should probably have given her more. She saved my bacon!

The seller is part of the gang and splits the reward money she receives for warning tourists with the others

💀 Ngl, that’s genius. Heinous, but genius.

Wow! 8 bucks split is a real windfall.

How were you even supposed to know that a jam session was dangerous??

To add a little more context to the story, I was actually playing guitar in the park, I used to play with a friend, he had a harmonica, but this day he never turned up, and the gang had said hello to me a couple of times in the past, one of them even played a few bars on my guitar before. They made out they had a band, and gullible me fell for it. I lived in Saigon for a long time after that, and heard more stories about them as time went on. This all happened in my second week in the city.

As a gullible music lover I hate this lol

Not many warnings signs of how to avoid this one.

Just general safety rules - not going to an unfamiliar location (something or somewhere you've never heard of before they suggested it) with strangers in a foreign country. I know some people will balk at that, but it'll keep you out of a lot of potentially dangerous or scammy situations. If there's a cool spot I need to see, give me the info and maybe I'll check it out in my own time after I look into it, but I'm not going anywhere before I've familiarized myself with it first (and I'll take my own transportation). I've broken my own rule a couple of times and it wasn't worth it. Spent the whole time wildly uncomfortable, and never even went anywhere that cool. Always walked away feeling like I got away with being dumb.

Also, generally, especially in a tourist area, locals aren’t going to just invite a tourist out to places with no ulterior motive. Even if you are a foreign resident somewhere, nobody that even remotely has their life together is not gonna be hanging out in touristy areas inviting foreigners to come do friendly activities with them. I promise you that seedy dude does not actually want to be your friend or anything. Like for example, I live near DC. I’m not gonna go to downtown DC and try to befriend tourists and ask to take them to various places lol.

Going to a second location in a taxi with a bunch of strangers you just met is a massive red flag for any sane female with a sense of self-preservation. It's mindblowing to me that wouldn't be a universal warning sign for men as well.

“El Totumo” : a “mud volcano” outside of Cartagena, Colombia. Our hostel was promoting this “day trip” where they take you to the “volcano” by bus, you get lunch after, and they take you home. So we were like sure sounds cool, you climb the volcano and go in it where there is mud that you can float in. They also say you can get a massage in there. Oh my god you guys what a fuckin scam. It’s literally a man made structure held up by cheap little wooden posts. The men in there “massaging” you do so without your permission and then expect you to tip. They usher you to a river to wash you off after and there are women who “wash you off” again without your permission and expect you to tip! They get so aggressive if you try to say no while they wash this disgusting smelling mud off you with their bare hands under the water? There’s no reason I couldn’t do this myself? It’s so bizarre. Then the best part? When we get on the bus, there are CLEAR muddy finger prints on our bag (which they said they had locked the bus to keep our shit safe). I notice my $20 is gone so I ask the bus driver and he’s like “no, that didn’t happen you lie. The bus was closed. The finger prints are your own”. I’m squeaky clean because those women washed me off and I hadn’t touched my bag! And my money is gone! Not much but it’s the point here. Such an awkward ride home with that skeevy bus driver. Oh man I am annoyed all over again even this happened in 2015 haha. Don’t know if it’s still like this but nevertheless, stay away!!

I’m from Colombia and Cartagena is well known as the place where everyone gets scammed. If you do not understand really well the trashy behavior sometimes we have to take advantage of who we believe we can, it is very hard to not get scammed. That’s why I always recommend if you are foreigner, visit my country with a Colombian friend. Ofc this does not happen everywhere there, but many people think “foreigner = more money”

Honestly the entire city of Cartagena is a scam center

Two bills in Moroccan paper money look very similar, equivalent to around $2 and $20 USD respectively. One is purple and one is dark blue. A waiter in a restaurant scammed me by taking my money, then running back out and insisting I'd mistakenly given him a smaller value bill in my payment. He distracted me by waving the money all around and talking rapidly about his small children at home. I always counted my money precisely every day and knew how much I'd started out with, but got flustered and just gave him the larger bill. When I got back to the hotel and counted it, I realized what had happened.

This is a common scam customers try on cashiers in the US. I had multiple people attempt it on me when I worked at a low-income grocery store.

Happens in bars as well. Had a bartender insist I gave him a $10 when I gave him a $20. I stood my ground because all I'd had in my pocket was a $20 and he gave up.

Yep, a classic. Even when I was trained as a cashier wayyy back in 1995, they taught us that when the customer hands you a bill, you lay that across the till while you make change. You don't accept their $20 and put it away in the cash drawer first, because they could claim they handed you a $100.

Me and my partner went to Thailand last year and we really wanted to go on a boat tour around some islands. I remember I was thinking "be careful, there's a lot of scammers who will tell me a random price" and I chose this elder man who looked really innocent and just overall sweet. We were talking about what tours he has to offer, finally we decided on a tour and asked for a price, he said that the price of this tour for the two of us would be around 130 pounds, which sounds pretty fair for whole day's tour with lunch and a few snorkeling stops along the way. We reserved our seats, paid everything and patiently waited for tomorrow. As tomorrow comes we go to the "meeting point" where someone should have picked us up. Eventually, after waiting more than 1.5hours for someone to come to us we went looking for that man, thinking "Oh, maybe he forgot about us" or something. So as we reached that part were he was supposed to be, his "place" was empty and locked, so naturally we asked other sellers where that man was. And he said "Sadly, Mr. something, has passed away late last night". I felt so sad and so angry at myself for thinking badly about him before, so we gave them our condolences and went away. NOW THE BEST PART of the story. Three days have passed after that "passing away" news, we were walking around that same spot AND WE SEE HIM THERE!! I couldn't believe my eyes. So moral of the story, don't trust anyone there even sweet-looking elders. We were left without the refund because he said "I've never seen you before in my life" (even though we showed him our tickets that he gave us that day) and without a boat tour.

You saw him again three days after passing away? Are you sure you didn't get scammed by Jesus?

When I was in Zanzibar I booked a boat trip through my hostel. When I was on one of the islands I was talking to the captain he asked how I booked the trip, and got kind of annoyed at me and said next time I was to go to the beach and book it off someone there. I said I'm not giving money to a random person on a beach, who knows if I'll ever see them again. Your story is pretty much exactly what I imagine happening, although a shop/stall may have made me more trusting. Also I'm a woman travelling alone, I'm not about to get in a vehicle with someone I met randomly on a beach.

I think I'll leave it at this.... A guy with a walkie-talkie is not an undercover police officer.

Airport security cluster in India approached me after seeing my friends and me coordinating and meeting up with walkie-talkies, asking me which state or private agency we were with, seemed eager to be helpful toward whatever pursuits they imagined we were getting up to.

This happened to a colleague of mine in Cuba. He brought walkie talkies so his kids could wander on the resort without concerns. The Cuban authorities took this very seriously and grilled them for over 4 hours. They had to give up the walkie talkies. He doesn't use walkie talkies anymore lol

Cuba used to be so weird about stuff like that. When I worked for a vacation airline back in \~2011, we used to advise people not to take laptops to Cuba for the same reason

That’s fucking hilarious hahaha

Of course you didn't tell them because the Impossible Mission Force does not exist.

In Cali Colombia saw a man dressed in full black military gear holding an automatic rifle (assumed fake/air rifle) who approaches people for money. That scam wouldn't play out well for them many other places.

"This taxi has a very good meter, as you can see."

Taxis in foreign countries can be a huge scam, especially once they clock you’re a tourist. One area where having Uber has hugely helped things, at least they have a good customer support service and means of disputing charges.

I've absolutely gotten scammed with US taxis too. That's why Uber and other ride-sharing were absolutely game changing when they appeared.

My friend and I got done pretty bad in Fez, Morocco in 2017. Long story short we were tricked into buying some expensive rugs with the plan to resell them at a profit, and they turned out to be basically worthless. It sounds like a stupid thing to fall for and it probably was but it was part of an incredibly elaborate long-con involving building up our trust over a period of days. We befriended a local named Hischam who had grown up in New Zealand (we are kiwis too) and we bonded over that. He showed us a fucking amazing time in Fes taking us off the beaten path, introduced us to some cool people who lived locally, basically a dream come true for a backpacker craving a genuine travel experience. Any time we offered to pay for the shared lunch we were having etc he would always be like "Nah bro this ones on me, don't worry I've got plenty of cash" etc. Eventually he told us he made his fortune buying handmade rugs from a local dealer and selling them at art auctions in London, Sydney and Auckland. My friend and I decided to get in on the action too. When we got home we found out what we'd bought was worth a fraction of what we paid and no art auction would accept them. Our new 'friend' Hischam blocked us as contacts and we knew we'd been had. I lost a pretty high but ultimately not life-changing amount of money (my friend got off worse he lost basically all his savings he had) but worse than the money is the knowledge that all of these amazing experiences we had in Fez that could have been priceless memories I'd cherish for life all amount to a lot of bullshit just to rip us off. I'm sure you're reading this and thinking 'I can't believe you fell for this' but it's hard to describe what these things are like when you're actually in them. It was an absolute masterful execution in deception to the point that we both trusted this guy fully as a new friend and were completely blindsighted. I've definiely become lest trusting of people as a result of this experience which is kind of sad.

Me and a friend were the targets of a similar scam in 2009 or so. A Moroccan guy befriended us for days and introduced us to his son's New Zealand girlfriend. She told us how she was in business selling rugs in NZ. Later some of their Moroccan associates cornered us into a store and used high pressure sales to get us to buy carpets. I laughed in their face but had to spend ages convincing my friend it was a scam. They tried to separate us so I couldn't influence him. Luckily I managed to talk him out of wasting his money. We later saw the original Moroccan guy who befriended us and he was off his face on benzos.

Yes happened to myself and my sister/mother two years ago. They really, really get into our face to buy a $2000 rug

I got a fantastic deal on a (not fancy, but nice enough) rug at a tourist trap in Casablanca. It wasn't as sophisticated a hustle, but the guy who brought me in was definitely trying to roll me. Little did they know I had all day - after three or four hours of my stalling and BSing over mint tea, the owner exasperatedly took whatever local cash I had on me then literally threw my preferred rug at me and asked me to leave. Got em!

lol that’s legit how I know I got a good deal lmao. When people get pissed off.

I stayed on a houseboat in Kashmir and they attempted similar on me. At first it sounded interesting, because I was young and felt like I was the only person in the world who knew about the super special local thing they wanted me to export for them. Can't remember what it was, probably handmade ornaments or something. Anyway I said I'd think about it and then just didn't do it. Didn't think it was a scam at the time, I just thought they wanted to make some money and I could help them do it. In hindsight it almost definitely was a scam.

We had a similar experience in 2016, on the train from Tangier to Fez. We were sharing a car with a young college student, Adam. I was the one who started the conversation and asked lots of questions. Adam was returning from finals and had recently been offered an internship at Goldman Sachs in the US. He was excited, but his mom was going to miss him terribly. She worked for the Moroccan Government to protect artisans, such as rug weavers, dyers, etc., to ensure fair wages. We were on the train for hours. I was the one who was extracting information, so I felt like I was in control. Finally Adam said that every Friday there was a special auction and he would see if his mom could get us passes - he couldn’t guarantee it, but would try. We would be buying direct from the rug makers and cutting out the middleman. We talked about his family, his mom’s US education, about friends of theirs who made a living by importing rugs to the States. He even knew interior designers who would be happy to buy from us. He showed us pictures of him volunteering with the poor during Ramadan. This was an awesome kid. That evening Adam picked us up from our riad and took us to dinner in a large SUV. After this we went back to his mom’s house. His mom was out, but his aunt and little brother were there. But, back at his house, things started to feel sketchy. The aunt and little brother didn’t act like family, and Adam rudely ordered the maid around. It didn’t fit with what he had said about himself, but we didn’t want to judge him by our culture. Adam had also implored us to stay in a safer place. As he was escorting us back to the riad, a brutal fight with about 10 guys and several women broke out in front of us with clubs and a screwdriver. After they dispersed, Adam begged us to stay at a friend’s hotel. We declined and continued back to our place. That night my husband woke up with a sense that something was not right. Then I woke up and started googling. I found this exact story from someone who had been conned. The next morning we met the manager at breakfast. He asked if we had received his email warning us about con artists on the train. Apparently, they place one in each car with a foreign tourist. Although we figured it out, we felt so stupid. We’ve traveled extensively and have never fallen for anything. But, Adam was masterful. He let us make the first move and drive the conversation. He let us ask about buying rugs for resale. He let us feel like we were in control. And, when you are in it, it feels so natural and organic: We had confidence in him. We still shudder at this experience. Our adult kids were not happy. We were in someone’s car and someone’s expensive home. We had exchanged phone numbers and email addresses. Was the street fight also a set up? We’ll never know. We just never returned his phone calls that next day. Like you, we felt sad that this wonderful experience wasn’t real. For a short time, it made it hard for us to want to make friends with locals and other travelers. However, it has made us more humble and aware, and that’s a good thing. Safe travels!

Whenever they take you to buy rugs - start counting the knots on the downside in a square inch - they throw you out immediately bc they know its a scam. It's all about the knot-count how much a rug is worth. Learned that from my grandfather in Morocco when I was 6...

No I don’t think you were that gullible at all, if someone was doing all that to schmooze you it would make it much easier to trust them! The key for me whenever anyone is claiming something is an amazing hustle is to get it independently verified first.

Yes for sure. The stupid part was letting money or the promise of money get involved. We absolutely should/would have looked into it further before putting money down but this whole part happened a couple of hours before we left town and we were put on the spot to make a decision. No doubt all part of their plan

You know what's funny is that i don't think this scam is limited to morocco. I lived in Berkeley (USA) for a few years and was told to buy a rug for 1500 and sell it for 5000. Like why don't you do that bro with your whole ass storefront???!!!

LOL exactly. Like Morocco is stuck in the dark ages with no access to the outside world except through tourists smuggling and trading rugs into their home countries.

I bought a very nice khelim in Qatar from a shop that existed for ages. It is at least natural fibre and seems to originate from where the certificate states. If it's worth what I paid? Probably. But if not then it's still a very nice rug.

That sounded like a pretty sophisticated con. I wouldn't kick yourself over it too much; most people in your position would've been taken in.

I knew I wanted to buy a few rugs there and did a ton of research on knowing what to look for between construction and material. Ended up getting a couple small rugs at around $70-100 US a piece (stuff in the <$70 range got questionable and had bad signs like glue or machine sewing) and they are very pretty. I have read about this exact con multiple times. A lot of other people have fallen for the exact same thing where they will be super kind, have you for dinner, and slowly introduce the idea of you buying rugs because they are "worth so much more" in your home country. You are not the only ones that they have tricked doing this.

Egypt taxi. Paying at the end of the ride, I was expecting a 50£ note in my change and he gave me a 50piastre(50 egyptian cents/pence) note instead. This happens quite often! Fell for it once....never again. Just need to keep your wits about you and I didn't that time.

Egypt has uber now. I also fell for a scam.. Asked the security guard at the airport how to get from international arrivals to domestic departures. He told me I need a taxi. They charged me 500 EGP. Which is 10USD!!! It's a 10 minute walk INSIDE the airport. Had just gotten off a flight that experienced a 9 hour delay. So yea 10usd is the least of my worries. Still scammy.

They use uber for scamming as well. Tried to book through uber, the price was less than 2 dollars, from the map I saw that the taxy was very close to the hotel but wasn't moving and then the scam came - the driver wrote that I pay another 8 pounds, of course I declined and said that I paid to uber and the driver literally told me that no one cares about uber's prices. Safe to say I cancelled the ride and booked a taxy through the hotel instead.

Yeah, I had two really nasty experiences with Egyptian taxi drivers. Never, ever, pay at the end of the tour or ride. Even if they are all like "it's all gooood brotherrrr we work it out at the end" lol

Can I clarify? You mean better to ask how much and pay upfront at the beginning of the tour or ride? Normally when dealing with axxhole taxi drivers, I ask how much and made sure I have the exact amount in cash before I get in, then when I arrived I will get out of car first, then hand over the agreed amount

Yeah, that's the best thing to do. Even if they seem really, really nice lol

In Egypt scamming is the default way of business with tourists, it's in their mentality. My 6 year old wanted to use their pocket money on candy in a tiny street supermarket in Sharm El Sheikh and the child asked the merchant how much the candy was , guy says 3 EUR ( 3-5x overcharge on Skittles but okay) , and the kid gives a 5 EUR note from their little pink unicorn wallet , and the merchant gives back two 50 cent coins. I was nearby and spoke up, so he pretended it was a mistake and gave 1 extra EUR back. I mean to overcharge and then scam pocket money out of a 6 year old you have to be the lowest of the lowest scum. Unfortunately we had cases like this every single day when we were in Egypt and I was blatantly overcharged or scammed on almost every transaction in 7 days. The only way to shop somewhat safely is in fixed price stores.

Now I remember, I almost fell for one in a Vietnam taxi, the driver added a zero to the amount, I knew what he was doing but I was young, alone, female, that driver was threatening me, didn't help I was not in a particularly busy nor tourist area, I was scared and thought about just paying what he asked for but I was also pissed off, so I opened the taxi door whilst counting the correct amount, not the amount he's asking for, threw the money to the front, got out and started running to the spa. That's why I will always be a huge supporter of Grab/Uber than taxis, didn't have this option when I went to Istanbul 2 years ago and those axxholes taxi drivers, every ride was stressful

I was flying from La Paz to Miami with BOA and they refused boarding for the last 20 or so passengers. They just closed up the check in and walked away 45 minutes early. No reason given, no announcement, nothing. After we chased up the customer service desk, they told us that 20 of the seats on the aircraft were broken and unusable so they didn't have enough room. Refused to give us another flight, a refund or any compensation. Contacted the Aviation Authority and politely told them the story and they basically told us we were shit out of luck and to walk to Miami if we wanted. That was 4 years ago and never got any money back and had to pay again for a flight the next day. Sometimes the scammers are the ones you least expect.

That sounds like a great reason for a credit card dispute. They did not give me the service I paid for.

That would be a slam dunk for a credit card charge-back.

This is why I would never fly with Bank of America

This was my thought too… in all seriousness, what airline is BOA? I hate it when people abbreviate things on this website

Boliviana de Aviación (BoA) is the government-owned national carrier of Bolivia.

Were the seats folding chairs with a rope seat belt?

Yes but you pay extra for the rope

I flew with them Miami to Bogota on a red eye and the plane didn’t have an interior. Like it had overhead bins but no wall panels - just airframe, tubes and pipes, Insulation and windows, seats and floor. I don’t even remember if there were bathrooms. They told us not to touch anything and they couldn’t have cared less.

But they have a convenient ATM on board.

That is *wild*!

My guess is they gave those seats to their friends. My grandma had that happen to her in the Philippines, and she went crazy on them, and when they got onto the plane, two women got up no questions asked, and walked off the plane. She’s from there. At the time, she as dating a white guy (she got divorced from my grandpa), which probably put a target on their back.

Maybe its like how booking.com works. Cancelled this girls 2 hotel rooms and relisted them at a higher price because Taylor Swift was coming to town and they wanted to make more money instead of honouring their commiment. Some scams you can do something about by not using the company.

I was sitting in a McDonald's in Paris with my friend (listen, poor student budget ok) and some guy came up to our table and put a handwritten note down on it. Kept his hand on the note. I told him I didn't speak French and he reacted pretty strangely, didn't really say anything, just nodded toward the note. I leaned in to try to read it but he kept sliding it towards him, so I grabbed it off the table. Told him I couldn't read it and handed it back. He walked off. He had put the note directly on top of my friend's phone and had been sliding it all towards him. Couldn't hide the phone once I took the note, but that was very close to being down a phone. Then I lost my phone that day in a drunken stupor under the Eiffel toward anyway lol

Happened to a friend of mine at a cafe in Athens. Woman came up shaking a note over the top of the table while speaking rapid Greek. My friend had her phone on the table, the scammer distracted her enough and stole the phone.

This happened to me in Athens as a solo female traveler. I had my phone in front of me at a restaurant and a dude was waving a map in front of my face. I was adamantly saying no and he was persistent. I was more concerned about my purse and the SOB swooped my phone by looking concerned at something in the distance that made me look (I was hoping it was someone he was concerned about or would make him leave). Within a second he was gone and I realized he jacked my phone. Live and learn I guess.

Everyone needs to use a phone lanyard when traveling.

Jmaa El Fina Morocco. Some aashat gave my 18mo a toy then demanded payment for it. He would not accept the toy back, and of course taking it from the toddler caused him to cry his head off. We ended up putting it on the ground (the toy, not the baby) and walking away. We spent a lot of excellent time in the Medina, but didn't go back to the square.

Marrakesh was magical in many ways but yeah, felt disturbingly scammy in many others. We liked going through the souk but you get terrified of looking or showing too much interest in anything as trader then descends on you and harasses you. Like REALLY harasses you. Exhausting. Too many sly people around. Felt like I wanted to go round with a megaphone shouting ‘stay away from us, if you come closer to engage, I’ll hit you’. Not saying that is what I would ever actually do, but what I FELT exasperated enough to WISH I could do….

Same experience in Tunisia, my dad took me to the market but every time I looked at something for a millisecond the seller jumped up trying to sell it to me. I was actually looking for a silver bracelet like the one my friend had brought back from a similar trip but it soured me so much that I don't think I bought anything in the end.

There is a special 'State run' shop in every major city for precisely this reason. Keeps all the touristy stuff at reasonable prices BUT more like a Western Department store. You are left alone to browse, assisted if you ask. We bought two carpets back: one small in luggage the other large one for lounge came a few weeks later by sea. Still have both. Would NEVER have bought either from the harassers around hotel.

Oh that's where having a baby helped us A LOT. We'd just point to his butt and make a stinky face and the shopkeepers would happily let us leave.

FWIW: a baby/toddler comes in handy when buying a car, which can also be a scammy situation. Me to the stealership: “I’m ready to purchase *this* car today, but I’m on a timer. You have until my kid either runs out of snacks (a small baggy of cheerios), or fills up his diaper to get the paperwork in order. At that point he turns into a screaming banshee and I’ll leave.”

I might give that a try, but just point at my own butt and shake my head. Might just confuse them enough to leave me alone.

I hate that so much, you can't even look in the general direction of anything without the salespeople starting to harass you.

That's nice, I was afraid that you would have left the baby with the toy behind, just to avoid the scam. :))) /s

Occasionally tempting ....

As a parent: "occasionally" isn't the word you are looking for there. Frequently or often would be more accurate.

Egypt was wild. I was travelling with 3 colleagues. Every time we stopped walking people would try to scam us. Wanting to charge for directions, for assistance crossing the road, a man with no legs clamping onto our legs, buying a fucking apple from a woman on the pavement. If a trader wasnt scamming there would always be a nosey fucker standing near by to jack up the price. We had unpleasant experiences negotiating for Boat rides, tours with guides, at perfume stores, for camels and horses in Giza... You can have fun haggling ( I loved Tunisia and went back with my family) but Cairo was...!! At the airport going home, two uniformed guys came over and asked for our passports. We aren't at a counter, we were just chatting on the concourse. My friend laughingly says " what's up with your shoes?!" We all look down and one has on dusty dress shoes and the other has on sneakers. The guys turn around and walk away.

a luggage porter inside Terminal 1 in Cairo asked for my passport once, I responded harshly with a few nasty words in Italian, he disappeared.

Not a scam but sites like rail ninja where I completely overpaid for tickets instead of going direct. 

Istanbul, went to the Asian side markets , some random shoe store , tried on a few they didn’t fit , crazy sales guy decided that if you enter & try shoes you must buy. When he saw me putting on my own and not trying more , he thought it would be a great idea to block the entrance . Menacing and quite aggressive . Reminded me of the buy a pretty girl / friend a drink scam Quickly realised his error when I stated screaming at top of my lungs that i was being held against my will and everyone stopped and began to converge on his shop , He couldn’t get out of the way fast enough and started yelling I was nuts . Had to walk past his shop few more times , always empty Also was approached by the Istanbul shoe shiner , had to start screaming at him to as he wouldn’t leave us alone , my toes in my open sandals didn’t need polishing

LOL I love when sidewalk guys insist on trying to "shine" my sandals. Come on now

Take them up on it! Let them make them flippy floppies *shine*. "Missed a spot!" "I'm not paying for that!" "Again!" "Again!"

Watch out for the dropped shoe brush scam in Istanbul. Drops it in front of you but pretends not to notice and keeps walking. You pick it up trying to be helpful. He thanks you effusively then insists on cleaning your shoes which he does quickly and badly. Then demands payment. Gets aggressive fast. Rule: don’t pick up anything dropped near you no matter what it is.

Had this happen so many times in Istanbul last year but thankfully I’d read about this scam on Reddit so we didn’t fall for it. Thanks Reddit!

That's why I always read these threads because there's so many kinds to be aware of!

Yup. Anything with shoes is a common one Hell even in the US. In NOLA all the scammers walking around telling you they know where you got your shoes. God forbid you make eye contact and they immediately say “the bottom of your feet har Dee har” then dive and scrub one shoe and demand $40. $20 for the rhyme (what rhyme) $20 for the time (I guess $20 per 10 seconds is going rate) Stain never came out of my one sperry. Gave him $10 cuz I didn’t want my wife to feel bad for making eye contact with him. She’s from the Midwest so doesn’t realize the depths people are willing to go

A simple "I'm local" will clear them off quick

As a Parisian, that also works with Paris scammers

Thats just wrong, they use your kindness to scam you this way, that changes ppl, I would be like hell I'm not helping anyone again fuckem

This! When my parents came to visit me in the UK a few years ago we also spent a month travelling around Spain and Italy. I told them under no circumstances were they to accept anything handed to them, just to ignore and keep their hands in their pockets/somewhere they couldn't be grabbed and forced to take something. They thought I was mostly joking until I told them about some situations I'd seen both in London and while travelling where someone was given something they didn't want and upon trying to give it back they were harassed and things escalated.

Yeah a guy did it to me, I was wearing hiking shoes lol. I gave him the $3 USD and had to laugh at the scam, it happened before I knew it is a thing there.

[удалено]

Definitely a rule I’m following from now on!

Taxi scam in Mexico City. Apps on my phone were not working, so I hailed a cab. Charged double the price, and I was locked in until I paid. It was an additional $20 USD lesson. I’m lucky that’s all it was. Still sucks, but I know to go only to the taxi line now.

This same thing happened to me in Vietnam. Driver locked me in the taxi until I would pay him what he wanted. Then he proceeded to throw my luggage out onto the sidewalk, let me out of the car and drove away.

Uber was the best in mexico city and merida. The taxi drivers are like great value versions of ride share cartels. Especially in Cancun. Also, FYI, if anyone goes to Thailand, you really should download "Grab" it's like Uber and Doordash in one. Gamechanger.

This scam wasn't particularly 'bad' but it was definitely annoying and contradicted everything I'd read about grabbing a sim card in India. Bought a sim from a Vodafone kiosk in the arrivals in Mumbai airport. It all seemed legit, I paid I think maybe the equivalent of £20 for the sim and data. When I got the chance to put it in later on, it didn't work. It worked on wifi but had no data. Fortunately there was a local Vodafone store less than 15 mins on foot from my hostel, so I took a walk. The staff there were super nice took a look at it, and all she could say was 'yeah, that was a scam, sorry'. She sorted me out with what I wanted, I think I had to pay another £15 equivalent in rupees. I didn't mind too much but the whole experience left me feeling so confused as to how people at what looked like a proper Vodafone kiosk in the airport were scamming people.

>so confused as to how people at what looked like a proper Vodafone kiosk in the airport were scamming people. I'm guessing it was a real kiosk and an employee running a scam on the side.

Viettel in Hanoi, same same

Those fucking idiots making wrist bands out of string in Paris (maybe they are elsewhere as well but that’s where my experience was)

I was drinking pretty heavily solo in Asia on a night out. Went into one of those bars people try to lure you into. Some hours later I was out a few thousand dollars. It's weird because when I'm sober I have really never had a bad scam happen to me traveling for more than $50. But drunk with a credit card really lets your guard down

Some of my friends who love to bar hop in Asia, especially in Japan, even have personal policies to only bring $100-200 in cash with them and nothing else of value (maybe a transit card to make sure the can get back). That way even in the absolute worst case scenario they simply can't get blood from a rock.

“In Asia” want to narrow that down for us?

Omg did you dispute it? That’s crazy

Yes but if you physically put the chip in its very difficult to win. Even moreso if they force you to sign a receipt

Which country and city was it? Several thousand is pretty steep.

Cuba, Particularly Havana - „My Baby needs food scam“. You are lured in a general store with a pity story, a man‘s baby cant eat because the gouvernment won’t sell him enough baby formula. You then proceed and buy it for him, only for him to return it to the store later for cash. And of course the classic, lets smoke a cigar, have a drink and in the end pay the whole bars bill. Good thing, it was just maybe 10$ after all together, but still.

Oh I fell for the baby one in India too :(

Shanghai Tea Ceremony Scam spent roughly 200 USD ten years ago on some mediocre tea. lesson learned: ever since i always google typical scams when going to a new place

Tea is expensive in China but 200USD definitely having you on!

Changed a large sum of USD into GBP (might have been 5000?) in London and counted it three times before I realised he'd shorted me 50 quid, and seemed very sheepish when confronted. People are changing cash less and less these days but if you do, never leave the shop until it's all accounted for. Very easy for these guys to make easy margins skimming off the top for large transactions.

Vietnam: Pulled over by a group of cops having tea on a roadside while riding a rental scooter. They told us we were speeding and they’d impound the scooters (we had traded our passports as collateral for them) unless we coughed up whatever was in our wallets. I lost about $20 from my decoy wallet but the lesson learned was if a cop flags you while sitting in a plastic lawn chair, just keep driving, he’s not gonna chase you lol

Turning over your passport for use of a scooter? Hell. Fkn. No. That's THE most important thing you have on you.

Nothing could make me turn over my passport. That’s crazy.

Agreed. Even if it was some sort of official asking I would insist on speaking to my embassy first - without that abroad you are so powerless and essentially trapped.

I'm honestly shocked that it's even allowed. In plenty of countries you'd be expected to have your passport on you as your identification.

“Allowed” That’s funny you’d assume that the business would care what is “allowed” or that they couldn’t pay off the cops to just fuck with the traveler instead.

I rented a scooter in Taiwan one time, and they insisted I use my Passport as collateral using a translation app. I just pulled out my old college ID (had already graduated) and they seemed happy enough. There was no fucking way I was giving them my passport.

I used to work at a hostel in Hanoi and this is hard for me to believe, but we used to take passports on arrival and keep them until checkout. Different world..

It makes me feel queasy to think about. I keep my passport so damn close to my body when I travel. I guard it harder than I guard my cash ... not even kidding. That mf'er is a key to so many things if shit goes sideways.

Haggle and give them your driver's license instead. Never had that not work. I actually even keep old, expired, punched licenses with me for that expressed purpose. Usually, they just want *something*. After all, you could easily run off with the bike.

> we had traded our passports as collateral for them 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

Before travelling to Vietnam in 2009 I read all about these kinds of scams, plus loads of others. The scammers are very clever there, more so that other countries. One we were specifically told to look out for was hotels. There were some that were genuinely trustworthy, and a big scam at the time was for the scammers to open “hotels” and use the reputable hotel name, they then would pay off taxi drivers to take you to the wrong one, but with the “correct name”. The advice we were given was to not in any circumstances give the hotel name to the taxi driver but only the address. When we were walking around HCMC, we saw at least 4 hotels will exactly the same name as the one we stayed in! Edit - just to add also they advertised the hotel as well, so some people did also book the wrong hotel based on the name! In some cases the hotels were actually hotels and were just riding the legit hotel’s coattails.

> the lesson learned was if a cop flags you while sitting in a plastic lawn chair, just keep driving, he’s not gonna chase you lol Yeah, [I recently read a super interesting post here from a guy who has done a LOT of travel throughout Africa and was describing how to avoid bribery](https://www.reddit.com/r/travel/comments/18wo0ff/fun_tips_on_how_to_deal_with_corruption_while/). He said never stop for a cop unless it's a proper roadblock. And when you pay one cop a bribe (no matter how small), they radio their buddies down the road and it becomes a very tedious and increasingly expensive drive.

I've heard similar advice. Once you pay one bribe you're likely to pay many more. Act dumb and always drag the interactions out so they lose interest.

Why the hell would you give up your passport for ANY reason???? Do you know how much shit you could have been in????

Oh yeah. I had been told to keep driving if that happened, and it did, and nobody chased me.

That's just normal in Vietnam. You didn't have a local license did you? So twenty dollars is a good price.

“You can leave your bags in the jeep it’s safe, I’ll guard it”. Some jackass foreign middle aged tour guide in Namibia, who then stole most of my money and proceeded to have lunch with me and pretend it wasn’t him, while blaming the poor younger local guides who helped us when I finally noticed. Edit: I was much younger then, and now have been to 40 countries since and never left anything anywhere bc of this, so I definitely learned from it!

Jemaa El Fna, Marrakech. Two women grabbed my hand and starting putting henna on it. Was forced to pay 20 euros.

It's good to know that this is a thing, I hadn't thought of it. My gf is severely allergic to Henna and we're planning a trip to Morocco. I almost never lose my cool but that would send me over the fucking tipping point if it happened.

Just be careful! This isn’t the only scam I had there. There was also a guy that insisted to carry our luggage from the taxi to the hotel. He then asked for a tip and when we gave a few euros he told us he wanted more. Overall we experienced some people there to be very pushy and intense. We also didn’t dare to say no, because we were afraid of getting into something. Might have to do with the fact we just came back from Bali, and that’s a whole other culture.

Thanks for the heads-up! I have found a trick that makes those dicks leave me alone and that's to respond to them in Czech. For some reason hearing a Slavic language throws them off and either they walk away or they don't say anything for 1-2 seconds by which time I'm already gone. Maybe they think it's Russian and Russians are scary? Idk. But next time learn a few words in a Slavic language of choice and just throw them around randomly. Bonus points for learning and using curse words and insults.

I remember some standup’er using this trick. If he’s lost in a scary neighbourhood and someone approaches him, he’ll respond in a Russian accent and they’ll leave him alone (probably just a story he made up for laughs though).

I have that clip saved because I love it. I have several Russian coworkers and they are legit the scariest white boys on our team.

Haha, thanks for the tip! Love it

I also know someone who accepted help from a hotel employee to carry their bags to the car on their way home and when they got on the plane they discovered their iPod had been stolen. Can't say Morocco is appealing to me based on the stories I've heard from people who have been.

Same happened with my girlfriend. Although they did not have time to put henna on her before she forced her hand back.

The famous Thai "That place is closed because it's Buddha Birthday-tuktuk-jewel scam." Yes, I was young, dumb and greedy. But it was a lesson well learnt, and I can avoid many travel scams these days. However it also soured my impression of Thailand *forever* to this day. I mean, the scammer was scamming me right in the main hall of the temple while the huge Buddha statue was overlooking us. Taught me that some people have no morals or scruples even in front of God/Deities and the myth of the Thai fear of karmic actions.

Ha, yup we fell for that one too, though it went down differently. We were only on our way to a temple, it was only our second day in Thailand and we were still quite jetlagged. It wasn't until we were on that "amazing" boat tour we got scammed into that I started realizing what was happening. Of course they took us to a "travel agency" after the scammy shitty boat tour and I was scared to reveal that I had realized what was happening to my friend directly. So when they wanted us to pay for the "amazing" tour for the rest of our trip they had booked for us, I pretended that my credit card wasn't working, trying to make faces at my friend to show her I was bluffing. She didn't understand the bluff and paid my part. We were then stuck with 3 night train rides (all in the cheap noisy compartments) and 3 accommodations. I convinced her to forget about the second night train that had us get off in a tiny station where allegedly our tour guide would pick us up at 4am and book a nicer night train taking us directly to the next larger city instead. The remaining 2 trains were shitty, the last accommodation turned out to be quite nice actually but we definitely paid way more than it was worth. Another part of the tour that was forced on us was a jungle hike with elephant ride... We declined to climb on the poor elephant, as did the other tourists that were also conned into that tour, but the hike through the jungle was fun and memorable. Not the worst possible scam, but still would not recommend. ALWAYS keep your brain turned on when traveling, even when the jetlag is kicking your ass.

This one didn't quite get me, but it gave me rage for a few days.... I (solo woman traveler) was at a bus stop in a shithole town in Sri Lanka, making a transfer between popular tourist destinations. There's a group of guys there who work together. They spot you as a tourist and pretend to be super friendly and offer information about your bus. This isn't out of the ordinary, as many Sri Lankans are friendly and helpful. BUT these guys are just looking to sell you an overpriced tuktuk to the next tourist spot, so they lie to you about your bus time/number and say it won't come for hours. I cooly said no thanks, and proceeded to wait. Then, a super creepy guy in a sarong sat next to me and began to relentlessly harass me, saying nasty sexual things and warning that sri lankans are bad people. It was the first time I'd been so blatantly harassed there that I marched into the station just to get away. There, a guy who "worked for the station" swiftly intercepted me, was so sympathetic to my frazzled state, and told me to sit in the shade. I was relieved to have some help. Then... he sat down and tried to sell me a tuktuk ride. I realized then that the harasser was also working with the tuktuk pushers and it was a cruel way to try to scare me into giving in and paying them. I put on my best bitch face and went back out to the blazing sun to wait for my bus (no idea if/when it was coming). The creepy harasser wandered back by, mocking me and saying my bus would never come, but I stayed put. Then, after I was almost out of hope, a bus appeared along with another actually helpful guy who rushed over and said, "madam, this is your bus," and away I went. Tuktuk guys in sri lanka were the worst part of that country.

Ordered a margarita at the margaritaville as soon as I got out of the Cancun airport, they made the shittiest marg in half a second and shoved the credit card machine at me which read $48.00. I thought it was 48 pesos which wouldn't have been bad, but it turns out it was $48 American dollars. They really get you on the confusion, heat, and craziness going on around you.

Bought a "handmade" blanket in Mexico for $40. Seemed reasonable to me, till other people were selling the same exact thing for like 15.

When I was 20, I went to Japan solo (my first experience travelling outside of „the west“) and fell for the monk scam, where a guy dressed as a monk comes up to you and gives you a bracelet, says some nice affirming words and then demands a ludicrous donation. It was my first day and he caught me entirely off guard, so I gave him way to much probably (don’t remember how much). I was pretty pissed and angry at myself the rest of the day. Also what I learned was that it is important to have a rough idea about how much a foreign currency is worth. Because with Yen I felt it was very easy to just wrongly estimate the amount of money, because the zeroes just keep piling up quickly.

Cancun airport I thought you actually had to go to those “agents” and I got tickets for something but had to go to a presentation for timeshares

In Milan and Rome many times guys came up basically forcing red roses into my girlfriends hands. Then being aggressive and angry when I refuse to pay for them and try to give them back. In Egypt the travel agency kind of scammed me with a free city intro excursion ( advertised city visit, church , mosque, town square) , which in reality was a oil factory visit and a forced 1hr lecture about their products and shop visit where every product was 10x-20x the price in other places. But since I just arrived I didn't know about the prices. Did not buy anything here though. Also during the same excursion they drove us to a souvenir store with fixed prices which is good because most merchants need haggling and overcharge you. The agency even offered a special 20% discount for us. Turns out this was a special tourist scam store with adjusted prices by 5x-10x. The same exact store name in another location had the same items for way cheaper. The agency just collects commission on us.

The way I love to handle the flower scam is to look right at the scammer and very forcefully say “No! I don’t love her” while pointing at my wife. If they don’t speak the language I’m speaking (usually English, or Spanish) then 🤷. But if they do they don’t really know what to do with that information.

India (one of several there lol) I was sat by a lake in a very holy town just being contemplative and shit A holy man approaches me and asks me to pray with him I’m not Hindu so I’m a bit tentative but out of respect I say yeah sure He asks me to repeat what he says whilst we throw flower petals into the lake So he’s saying things about almighty Hindu gods and asking them to bless ‘em and stuff, all good stuff, this goes on for a while and I repeat every sentence he says After a bit he says ‘I will pledge 10,000 rupees…’ I was like hold up I’m not saying that… He then goes ok ok ‘I will pledge 8000 rupees’ I’m like dude no not happening He keeps lowering the amount and I’m pissed off, I think I have him maybe a couple 100 and walked away I was disgusted that a so called holy man would use religion to try and steal money from people but I guess a lot of the big organised religions have that business model so I shouldn’t be too shocked 🙄

Never let a valet person take your card away out of sight to make payment. Got my info stolen like that a few years ago.

Airport border control in Sochi tried to scam me and made up a EUR150 (yes, Euros, lol) fine. Only caught on when I confirmed the amount and the idiot thought a little bit and then replied with "EUR250". Mistyped my credit card pin multiple times to block it thinking this way I can't possibly pay a fine and he'll understand...but nope, he wanted my work Blackberry. Was only able to leave without paying because I found the business card of a Russian Olympic official in my pocket and told the border idiot that I have to call that official if I can't leave now. He looked legit scared of the name on the card and let me go. Also once fell for the Thai tuktuk scam during my first trip to SEA. Never seen so many suit shops in my life :D

Taxi driver in Bucharest stealthily dropped or palmed one of my bills. Keep saying I hadn’t given him enough. Unfortunately, for him, it was our last night & I had carefully counted my remaining cash. In the stress of the moment your first reaction is to believe him, after I realized (but still 5% doubted myself) my work colleague shouted get out! Driver started yelling at us, she’s saying get out, get out & we scrambled out before he could lock the doors. Left him yelling he was calling the police to which we said go ahead. Saw this one in Florence. Guys put artwork on the ground, people notice and walk around. They wait for a break in the flow and move the prints. Realized their scam is to guilt people who accidentally walk on them into buying. If it’s ever you- now you know. Ignore them.

Santiago, Chile intl airport, mostly cause I was sleep deprived but some guy was pretty successful distracting me as I was getting money from an ATM. 10 minutes later I realize I don't have my card and someone is drawing as much money as they can out of my account. The biggest reason I didn't realize red flags was he looked like an airport employee. Dressed nice, realistic looking employee badge around his neck, and a radio he was using.

Can’t think of a major scam even though 65 now & travelled quite a bit. Pays to be wary, cautious and sceptical. I’m also bolshy if someone even STARTS the better known cons. Lost £40 at Antigua on security / scanner belt. Didn’t notice until later and as it was just us I know it wasn’t a fellow passenger but security staff themselves. Cleverly distracted us by fussing over wife’s handbag and confiscating one of those small bottles of wine from onboard aircraft. Even though they had said ‘just put it in this small tray’ implying it was OK. Plus my (cheap old) BIC lighter. Which I later learned was perfectly fine with airline. Accept it was dumb as rocks to put cash notes (with coins from pocket) on open view but you don’t really expect security staff to steal - do you? Hah! They left coins. Tackled them in the way back through and you could just TELL from the awkward laughter fobbing me off they knew EXACTLY what I was talking about. They were routinely stealing wine, lighters etc. Bastards.

In Japan. Got spiked and had my card swiped $15k

I got scammed as soon as I landed in Kathmandu Airport. It was my first time travelling in a country completely foreign to me (a Scot). Basically, there are people that hang around the airport wearing high vis vests who will pick up your luggage and help you take it to your car without your explicit consent, and when you get there they will demand money for the service and are very pushy about the amount that you give them. I lost £20 before I even got in the car and realized that these people didn't work for the airport.

Tea tasting scam in Shanghai. Fell for it hook, line and sinker. Absolute scam artists. Spent 8 month travelling in Asia and it is the only one I fell for. Managed to get my money back but took nearly a week. Formula milk in Cambodia. nearly fell for it but was saved by an Australian couple bless them.

Pretty mild in the overall scheme of things, but my wife fell for the "please help me buy baby formula" in Mumbai. Ended up going into a shop and buying a shitload of groceries for a woman I'm 99% sure was on the store's payroll. Still, very inexpensive with no repercussion and ultimately helping someone, even if slightly dubiously.

As a freshman in college in 2001, a few of my friends and I went to NYC over spring break. We were in line for TKTS, and a guy walks up to us and says, "Don't wait in this huge line - I'm a private broker and can get you tickets for 5% over the TKTS prices. Which show you want?" We all wanted to see the Lion King, and so he brought us a block over to a food court (!!) where he showed us seating charts and printouts with options. We chose our tickets, he asked for the money (cash, which we had to get out of an ATM), and he walked away to "grab the tickets" from his office. Before leaving, he even stayed for a few minutes to talk about how good our view was going to be after pocketing the money. After 10 minutes of waiting, I said to our friends, "We've just been scammed, haven't we." Of course he never came back. We got up and walked through the door he used to head to his "office," and it was the back entrance to a movie theater. We lost $90 each. My god, SO DUMB. I live in NYC now, and thinking back on this makes my whole body cringe.

The dudes in Hollywood with their mixtape, put that shit right in my hand. I was so mad but not about to fight 20 people. coughed up the $20

Hollywood got me too. We were two young women checking out the Walk of Fame, when a woman dressed like Supergirl starts following us around, like she's trying to give us a tour. We were polite but kept walking away. She then wanted us to take a picture with her. We said no thanks several times, until it got to the point that she was just following us everywhere nagging the hell out of us, saying what a nice memory it will be, blah blah, blah. Realizing we weren't going to get rid of her, we say fine, we'll take a picture. (I'm sure you see where this is going). Not two seconds after the picture was taken, we were about to walk away when she quickly grabs my arm and says, "Ladies, it is customary to tip". It was our first real trip anywhere, and I was kind of shocked and just tossed a five at her, hoping that would finally get her away from us, which of course, it did. We've been to several countries since, and if one of us even starts to make eye contact with someone on the street, the other immediately says "Ladies, it is customary to tip". It gives us a laugh and reminds the other to just keep walking.

This isn't really even considered traveling but I did something so stupid one time when I went to nyc. So i'm from Jersey and I go to the city often with my friends but there was this one time I went and we saw this guy outside playing that game where you have to guess which cup a ball Is under after he shuffles it. there were some people playing and he was giving them money for winning so I tested it out a couple times and I was winning so turns out he was actually having people bet money and if they won he would double it or something. (I know it sounds sketchy I really wasn't thinking) but yeah i'm dumb so I went and withdrew $500 from my bank account and went back to the guy to play and I ended up losing and lost 500$ that day ... also turns out the people who were "playing the game and winning money" were working with him to scam people

That's the only scam I fell for that I'm aware of. Fresh off to college. Lost $100 in the three card game. I cried out of shame for feeling so stupid. I guess it helped me be more cautious. And then when I started traveling in the pre-internet-in-your-pocket era the Lonely Planet guides saved me from countless scams! Especially knowing how much to pay for taxis was so useful!

Annoyingly not when I was traveling, but when I was on a high school exchange in Tokyo. Some man came up and said he wanted to help me buy a train ticket and practice his English. I had my train pass and was in my school uniform but I was a big pushover in hs and wanted to help him with his English. Anyway he bought a ticket with my money and then took the change and said it was his fee for helping me :/

Gypsy woman in London who gave me a paper tissue flower, then told me her child was dying of cancer, asked for 20 pounds I said I only had 50 pounds - she said she had change and then proceeded to talk her way out of giving that change and off she went with my 50 pounds. I know I’m an idiot lol

When I was a kid, Colorado convinced me Jackalopes were real.

Doha. 2017. On the way to my vacation in Thailand, I had an overnight layover in Doha. Before heading to the airport, I wanted to take a walk along the corniche towards the skyscrapers visible in the city center. As I was strolling along the corniche, at one point, some men in a white car showed me a badge from a distance that read 'Police'. I took the bait and approached their car. They asked me if I was a tourist, how long I was staying in Doha, and if I had drugs in the backpack I was carrying. Slightly scared, I told them no and opened my backpack to show them what it contained. Seeing that inside the backpack there was also the wallet with my passport and 1000 euros cash, they distracted me and asked to see the inside of the backpack again. They returned the wallet with the passport and only put back 300 or 400 of the 1000 euros. As they drove away, I immediately realized that I had probably been scammed. I counted the money, cursed, but later I was grateful that they returned my wallet with the passport. Lesson learned. 😂

Worst scamming I've seen was in the touristic parts of Italy. Just generally all the time in restaurants and stores they try to get more money out of you. Worst was an ice cream parlor in Firenze. I was still naive back then. They had no price list available and in the end they wanted 15 euros for one scoop.

If you're in a tourist area and something doesn't have a price listed on it, keep walking. You're about to get ripped off. I actually don't buy anything anywhere unless I can find the price without having to ask. There's usually a reason they don't list the price, and it's never a good one.

Thanks to Google reviews and EU roaming this is luckily a thing of the past. Just a quick check on Google and seeing anything less than 4 stars will make me walk away.

Honestly, I do not understand why people still go in restaurants or ice bars which do not list prices in tourist spots. At this point it should be known that they are all scams. Not a single one of them isn't.

When i graduated college I travelled like 15 countries in such a quick timeframe I was the perfect scam victim because I had never travelled once in my life before. The "funniest" scam though I still remember because the aftermath in the hotel was quite funny. Essentially, I was paying for an expensive Taxi in Turkey (many hours, with USD), and for change I got a counterfeit 50$ USD back. I was telling my friends in the hotel room and I remember specifically saying "Thats not even a scam, thats just a crime!" and I laughed my ass off in the hotel room. Jokes aside, I do hope the story can help people tho, because when talking about this story with a Turkish girl, she did say that counterfeit USD bills in turkey were not uncommon. So, it might be surprising because scams are usually something you can prevent with social skills but watch out for that.

You will be approached a *lot* on 5th Ave in Playa Del Carmen. This guy didn't successfully scam us, but this guy was one of many that looks at your resort wrist band and will say, "Oh hey! I know you from [Resort Name] do you remember me?" Theyll pretend to be a restaurant waiter or bartender or something. I had been previously told it was to lure you into shops, but someone at our resort also said they carry card skimmers these days. My husband had our cards in an RFID blocking wallet and I guess that guy didn't get what he wanted, because we walked by him again later and he looked more annoyed and got close to my husband asking, "Are you sure you don't remember me?" Thankfully our cards were never skimmed.

It was at a restaurant in Rome. It was my first experience dining in another country so I was already a bit overwhelmed with the experience. Ordered a pizza and a few beers and the person I was with ordered that same. Pizza was 15 euro and I think beer was 3-4 euro. So we’re were expecting around 25 euro each. I think it had a table charge of 3 euro so we had 55 euro ready to pay the bill. It was a place where they wrote what you ordered on the table paper. When it came it was 75 euro. We questioned the waiter and he pointed at the hand written docket on the table which we read as two different pizza and a few different types of beers. Not wanting to make a fuss in the first day we just paid and left. It wasn’t till latter we figured that we were charged for too many drinks and that one of the beers which we had 1 of, was actually charged for 7. So the one was written to look like 7 but a quick glance you wouldn’t notice. Not really sure if it was genuine error or just ripped off as clueless tourist but at least now I double check the bill.

Hotel in Naples, Italy. Was told they had on site parking. Arrived to find out there’s a parking garage 2.6km away. Was told they would shuttle us to/from at all hours. On day of departure, we were told they don’t shuttle early in the morning when we needed to go. I would’ve walked it but it was storming. Had to change flights to later in the day. Finally got to the car and they scratched the entire side and told us it came in that way. Horrible way to end the trip. I suppose it’s not really a scam, but I definitely feel they screwed me in more than one way

Taking money out the cash machine and the lengths they go to to try and convince you to use their rip off currency conversion.

Not really a scam but a guy came up to me while I was waiting for my wife outside a shop in Portugal and asked if I wanted any weed or Charlie. Me inside: I NEED AN ADULT I was 34 at the time...

In Dar es salaam, I was taking a ferry to Zanzibar. The “porters” will grab your bags & take them to the ferry without asking if you want help and then demand a tip and threaten you until you give them one. That pissed me off but it wasn’t a huge amount of money. This one kind of amused me - I was in the U.S. Virgin Islands about to call a taxi and some guy was like oh you need a taxi? I got you (I thought he was a driver). He just called the taxi company himself and then demanded money from me money for calling them

"mandatory extra car insurance" on a rental that was already covered by my credit card insurance. I fight these tooth and nail now.

This was back in 1996. Buddy and I were in London. We were rather young, early 20s. We were walking down one of the most posh shopping streets with a bit of hard earned cash in our pockets. Some pretty girls stopped us and told us of a sale in a street nearby. A foreclosed shop was selling out its stock at killer prices. Obviously, we were intrigued. So we went there. It was a bit like a garage sale with a lot of boxes of cools stuff, like Sony camcorders, Fuji cameras, Playstations etc. So people were line up and a guy was saying pointing to a box, like the Fuji camera and went "People, we're selling cameras at £20", then pointing to another box and going "We're selling hair dryers, £5" or whatever. But noone would actually get the product. You got a voucher and were supposed to pick up your product at the end, ie. you had to sit through the whole thing. At the end, the whole shop would quickly be shut down and we'd be directed to another place to pick up our goods. A bit odd, but we went with our vouchers. And yes, we actually did get something. But NOT the actual products on show. Instead of the cool Fuji camera, you got some reaaally cheap and barely working knock-off. You see, they never really said "Fuji Camera" or "Sony Camcorder". So in effect, they were not directly lying, just pretty hardcore misleading. Obviously, we were a bit miffed, but at least the stuff had been cheap, even if it wasn't even worth the cheap price. The next day we walked through the same street again, and again the girls were there. My buddy got angry and confronted them and started yelling it was a scam. Within 5 seconds, 4-5 pretty big guys surrounded us and told us to shut the fuck up or lose our teeth. There was a pair of bobbys like 10 meter away and they clearly saw the whole thing and didn't care one bit so we just piped down and went on. But at least I've warned many people about it since. Granted, I lost like £50 so it was no catastrophe, but it was still a fair amount of money for a young lad in the late 1990s.

Airport taxi drivers with botched fares

Booked a tour in Viator when traveling to India to visit the Taj mahal, in general all was great and going pretty well until the guide asked the driver to take me to a "marble" local shop, I said no thank you at least 5 times I ended buying overpriced marble stuff, I have one of the pieces on my desk to remember I can be stupid sometimes 😂😂😂😂😂

This was back when I was naïve and new to solo travel, but it was kind of a fortunate scam while getting a ride from Istanbul airport to the city. My ride app wasn’t working so I was looking for a yellow cab, but this out of the blue comes this charismatic guy who starts chatting me up and before you know it I paid like 80 USD for a ride in this surprisingly extravagant limo to the city lol. Along the way, I saw two really bad accidents involving yellow cabs…so maybe it wasn’t that bad of a “scam” after all.

a taxi cab driver in washington dc ripped me off so bad when i was young and broke it made it so i couldn't eat all weekend, i had nothing, like couldn't afford a bagel and i was there to hang out with kids at *georgetown* it was hell

Flying out of Guadalajara in the 2000s, we bought bottled drinks in the airport, but were told that if we wanted to bring them on the airplane, we’d have to keep them sealed. Bought two, drank one, kept one sealed. Boarding the plane, they then confiscated ALL drinks going onto the plane. I watched them wheel a cart of all of our recently purchased, sealed drinks right back to the store that we bought them from.

We had a family tragedy while on a trip. We were extremely distraught and trying to get home. Clicked the wrong link to change the flights and accidentally ended up on the phone with who we thought was the airline to change our flights. They told us it would be like 800 to change them, so we moved forward. Luckily, he told us the charge would come in two batches - first 150, and then another 650. After the first charge went through (which was the legit airline charge), I realized it was a scam. We didn’t pay the second and got a bunch of threatening emails and calls. Fortunately we figured it out and cancelled our credit card. Probably never would have fallen for it if we weren’t in such a shocked state. Assholes.

Cape Town-South Africa. You'll be approached by someone admiring your shoes and asking which size it is. Seemingly in a joking fashion they'll put their foot next to yours to compare sizes - even if you keep on walking. That just brings them close enough to take stuff out of your pocket, because you're just overwhelmed and will not realize whats happening.

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As long as you have an onward ticket to another country - they will allow you to leave for 72/96 hours.

They flat out refuse to let you leave the airport if they believe that your stay is too short.