PresRDC

I was the unfortunate victim of the scam in Istanbul noted above.

I am happy to discuss it in more detail, if you are interested.

cestmoi123

I've had the mustard/bird poop scam tried on me in Buenos Aires (got out of that one mainly because I only later understood what the "nice" people with the napkins were trying to say, I speak minimal Spanish!) and the ring scam in Paris. The woman was very sincere, but since I'd read about it here, I immediately said, yes, that ring does look valuable, I should hail a police officer so you can turn it in, there might be a reward. Saying that earned me evidence that her English knowledge definitely extended to rather more, shall we say, colloquial, words.

stifle

I've had to shout at the wife to get her to move on from a ring scam artist in Paris. But that's been about the limit.

aanswer

On a recent trip to Buenos Aires:

Walking near the clock-tower across the Sheraton Convention Center. A friend and I were taking photos. Me with a DSLR, him with a point-and-shoot. We were a little further apart, so no one really knew that we were together.

A guy started walking really close to me (aka: right behind me) in the extremely open space, so it was suspicious. Thinking nothing of it, we headed towards the hotel, where a lady approached me and said that I had something on my back. It was hydraulic fluid and she was very eager to clean it off. We sprinted away to prevent the camera from getting swiped.

Same location, a day later, our friends weren't so lucky. The scammers got their cash and passports.

MRKEY

Ancien Maestro

Perhaps the looks they're after.. a certain profile..

You being intelligent, doesn't match their profile obviously after they discovered your intelligence and moved on..

zombietooth

A friend and I spent about 3 weeks in Bali on a salvage dive and needed small amounts of cash around town (Kuta and Denpasar), so we tried the street changers which always have the best rates posted. After I changed my first $200-, I noticed I was short and told my friend that I thought that I had been scammed, so we decided to go into an exchange separately so that he could watch what they were doing.

Through dogged persistence and careful observation, we were able to determine how we were being shorted:

These little exchanges are always set-up with a higher counting shelf and then, there is a shelf below it in the back that is not visible to a person standing in front of the counter. There are multiple techniques involved in shorting the exchange, but the primary one involves laying out stacks of 10 to 20 bills, correctly counted initially, next to each other. As the victim watches each stack being counted, each of the previous stacks will have bills slid away that fall onto the hidden platform behind during the counting process, either through palming at the start of the count for the new stack, or through an exaggerated counting motion, whereby the previous stack is covered by a bundle of bills in the scammer's hand and he flourishes his count hand outward and up to the top of the source stack, or by several other techniques, such as a faked mistake, requiring a recount or correction. They do all of this in a very choreographed manner like they have all gone to school for it.

I became obsessed with trying to get a fair exchange and so we went to dozens of exchanges, like some modern day Diogenes, looking for an honest exchange. We actually were able to video about 10 of these operations surreptitiously with my friend pretending to be another disinterested customer who just walked in and was, on occasion, able to position his phone up and to the side of the counting platform and video their moves. In dozens of attempts over multiple days, we never got a fair exchange, even with an amount as small as $20-. What was amazing, was the patience these cons had. To frustrate their efforts, I would pick up all of the stacks and make one big stack, and then, count the money. Every time it was short, sometimes by as much as 40%!!!, I would tell them how short it was, and then, they would count it and add some bills, whereupon I would count it again, and so on, ad nauseum. One exchange persisted for about 20 minutes at this! They even ran after us when we left and apologized for their mistakes, but, of course, there was no hope to get the correct amount, so we left that exchange.

In short, we were never able to get the actual advertised exchange rate at any of the street money changers. They have signs that say "Authorized Money Changer", usually on a small sandwich board with the offered rates, but none of them are actually legitimate.

The bank exchanges and some at legitimate businesses, like Circle K, were honest.

BrewerSEA

This exact scam happened to me in February 2008 when I was getting off the 1 train at 125th and Broadway. I was 16 at the time doing college tours and felt really bad so gave the guy $60. 30 seconds later I realized I had been scammed.

UKBob64

In my opinion there's an ongoing scam in every UK airport. When traveling to the continent I tend to purchase Euro notes from travelex cash machines located in the departure halls at LHR. To make such purchases I use an e-wallet card issued in USD. Whenever I buy Euro I get a screen giving me the option to accept travelex best exchange offer (fully detailed) or accept the card issuer offer (no details).

I always chose the card issuer offer. One day I took note of the "best offer" of travelex to compare it to my issuer once the charge posted. Guess what? On a 500 Euro withdrawal my card issuer charged me $98 LESS than Travelex "best offer". That would be 14% on the total amount withdrawn

I believe this is a commercial scam, because the way the screen appears to the user, it greatly induces to accept the travelex offer which happens to be MUCH WORSE than the card issuer one.

I checked in four more occasions and all four times the travelex exchange rate, advertised as "best offer" was at least 12% more expensive than the card issuer.

I would have no problem if the screen you see wouldn't induce you to take the worse offer by making it so appealing. I call spade a spade and, in my humble opinion, this is a full blown scam.

stifle

Welcome to Flyertalk! The above-mentioned issue is not limited to the UK (I have been offered it in Switzerland and the USA, for starters) and is called "dynamic currency conversion". You will find a lot written about it.

sokolov

My Ex (who lives in Europe) "won" a free trip to Turkey - a flight to Turkey, a bus tour around some part of the country with stays in various hotels. She had received an e-mail and believed it (though she hadn't taken part in any contest). She replied and booked a trip for her and me and payed a booking fee plus "fuel surcharges". Now it was not free as such any more, but still a good deal. She told me she had won a trip, I had no idea that this had been an e-mail out of the blue, AKA as Spam.

A couple of days before we were supposed to leave for Turkey, I had a sport accident. There was no point in going on a tour around Turkey.

So I contacted that "travel agency" to cancel the reservation. But I was shocked to find out that the "travel agency" demanded a "no show" fee of several hundred Euro (IIRC something over 500 or 600 Euro) - much more than the whole trip would have been worth.

Luckily, I could find a friend to fill my place. For that I had to pay a rebooking fee and courier fees, as a new plane ticket had to be rushed to us.

My friends who went on the trip generally enjoyed it. Sometimes the hotels were somewhat of an imposition (my "replacement" friend even opted to sleep rough one night, but I don't know how much of that was attributed to the hotel) and at times they were subjected to involuntary selling shows, for example at a rug factory where Turkish salesmen tried to coerce them into buying overpriced rugs.

Later, I received similar Spam mails and reported them to the relevant authorities. AFAIK, this is a program sponsored by the Turkish government and/or tourism authority to keep at least some tourism business going on in low season. Reportedly, the tour guides, bus drivers etc. are not even paid but receive health insurance and the promise of paid employment for the next summer season. I think the western Spammers ("travel agencies") who are in charge of "selling" these trips have to meet certain quotas, hence the huge "no show" fee.

Even some credit card companies offer "free" trips like these as part of their points programs. It is not as good an offer as it looks like.

themagicman00

Traveling downtown from EZE, a cab and I agreed on a $120 pesos trip. Once downtown he wanted $120 dollars before giving me my luggage. After arguing several minutes, I flagged a passing cop car. Common sense prevailed, the cop stopped a random cab and ask him what was the going rate for the ride. Paid $120 pesos, later the cops tell me they know about this scam, and sometimes tourist fall for it.

Jamarynn1

Since it seems half the world ends up eventually here in Orlando, the big scam here are Disney, Seaworld or Universal Studios tickets that .....pssst, the guy just incidentally has on hand that'll only cost you half or one third the usual price. Try to use them and you'll find out they're counterfeit, stolen or useless in some way. The ones you get from attending a 4-hour timeshare presentation are "usually" OK, but don't buy any on the street or from guys in temporary-looking booths outside gift shops. They won't be there when you come back tomorrow looking for your money refunded and nobody, but nobody, at the gift shop knows anything about them....

AlohaDaveKennedy

My companion had her wallet lifted in Budapest by what appeared to be a three party scam (a woman scout, a male distractor and a male pickpocket). I can recount the whole incident in detail if you want it reenacted.

This happened at a bus stop on the Pest side of the city. The scout dissappeared after giving the go ahead. The distractor and pickpocket boarded a bus right after the theft occurred. A police report was filed and everything was recovered except the money as the pickpocket tossed the wallet at the next bus stop where a policeman found it.

AlohaDaveKennedy

Another scam I happened into involved a fake card reader in front of a newstand shop in JFK airport. You swipe your card at a card reader on the counter, but it does not appear to work, then the counter attendant says he has had problems with that card reader and uses the card reader on the monitor of the computer/cash register. Within hours an attempt was made to book a hotel in Ottawa, Canada throughan Irish travel agency using my stolen card information.