Ticket scam at Macau Ferry Terminal
 

Ran into an odd scam on Sunday at the Macau Ferry Terminal. Here's what I wrote to TurboJet:

On Sunday, July 5th, I purchased a ticket at the HK Macau Ferry Terminal
TurboJet counter for the 18:45 sailing from Hong Kong to Macau. At the
entrance to the boarding area, I was stopped by two young men wearing
TurboJet colors, who "inspected" my ticket, told me "Six thirty, hurry
hurry" and let me pass. Puzzled, I double-checked my ticket, only to
realize that they had switched it and given me a 18:30 boarding card
instead -- and it was already 18:36!

I confronted the tout, who returned my real ticket and waved me off.
But what would have happened if I had not noticed the smooth sleight of
hand, and how many travelers did not notice and missed their ferries as
a result? This happened within the Shun Tak centre, directly in the
line of sight of a real TurboJet employee 20 meters further down the
corridor. Why does TurboJet tolerate such blatantly illegal scamming,
in its own premises, directed at its own customers?

Is this scam common, or just a one-off? Is it actually possible to board ferries past the official departure time? :confused: FWIW, the 18:45 departure actually pushed back at 18:54, so for the 18:30 I would have had about 3 min to pass through immigration, find the gate and talk my way on board...!

TurboJet responds (emphasis mine):

Being one of the most reliable ferry operators in the Region, Turbojet will not tolerate any party and/or action that are in breach of our pledge to the provision of reliable and hassle-free services to our passengers. We have been aware of incidents similar to yours in the past and have reported them to the Hong Kong Marine Department, manager of the Hong Kong Macau Ferry Terminal. The cases have also been brought to the attention of The Hong Kong Police. Since then, the Marine Department and the Police have deployed extra officers on patrol at the Terminal. Turbojet, in co-operation with the property management team of Shun Tak Centre, have also taken steps, which includes putting up notices at the entrance gates, to alert our passengers not to exchange tickets with other parties before arriving at our Check-in Counters.

The attempt scam on 5th Jul has been reported to the Marine Department and the Police immediately upon the receipt of your message. The case is now being handled and investigated by the respective authorities, and we may contact you for further information to facilitate the investigation.

Please accept our regret for any confusion and inconvenience that the subject incident may have caused. Turbojet will continue our effort and to work closely with the authorities to prevent incidents that will violate our passengers’ rights from arising.

Of course, I didn't intentionally "exchange tickets with other parties", the tout switched it with practised sleight-of-hand. :td:

Good reply from Turbojet, I thought.

+1. Sounds like they're aware of the issue and tackling it. In this particular case though it seems like the scammers were pretty close to a real employee. Perhaps there's still an opportunity for Turbojet to examine their ID cards or something like that.

I'm not entirely sure what the scam is though. What is the benefit to the scammers for taking an 18h45 ticket and switching it with an 18h30? Do they take the 18h45 and try to get a refund or something?

I think what they try to do is to sell the ticket with a later time. If the departure time is passed they have a hard time selling it.

This happened to me once. It happened so fast I did not have time to react. The person with the expired ticket just took my ticket and gave me the expired one and told me to hurry. By the time I looked at the ticket he was gone. Luckily it wasn't very busy and I was able to get on the next departure.

TurboJet seemed pretty liberal about standbys when we used them in June. If you miss your designated sailing you should be able to get on a later one, assuming space is available.

This is exactly the situation. During busy times, the touts have always been able to sell tickets with closer-in sailings than the ticket windows. Sometimes they cut it too close and the tickets expires so they pull the switch.

I was trying to find their exact policy on this on the website, but couldn't find anything. They do sell "Super+" tickets that allow you to take any ferry within six hours of your scheduled departure time.

Glad they weren't able to pull the switch on you. I can see how easy it would be for them to do that at a busy time.