Originally Posted by
YuropFlyer
^ This
Most people won't manage to go "incognito" in another country, heck, even another area. But taking crappy luggage and relatively crappy clothes does make scammers think "nah, not worth, probably only has little cash".
I do keep some older clothes and luggage especially for countries where I know that there is a lof of those scammers/thieves etc. - it won't work THAT well when you massively blend out and they're used of scamming (Say, in Egypt..) but as long as you don't look like a "hot target", you'll have a much easier holiday.
I was recently flying intra-asia with a colleague who works for the company's office in Singapore. He appeared at the airport that appeared to be nothing but duct tape, but upon closer inspection was actually a reasonably expensive suitcase. When asked, his reply was "camouflage so no one will steal stuff from it while checked baggage. Very important for some of the locations they make me fly to."