I can`t speek for the one from Garmin - i use TomTom myself worked very good the one time i was in Australia and also every time i am in Austria - two countries where i didn`t have a internet connection.

Not exactly a scam, but thought it could be...
 

I've been scammed before (petty scams, like being charged more for something that locals pay, etc), so I tend to have my guard up even though I travel quite a bit.

When I visited my brother in London a couple of years ago, we decided to make a side trip to Belgium. I had taken French and know the basics, and my brother, even less ;)) but I can read better than I can speak French.

We spent all our Euros by our last day on food and chocolates. We packed our stuff and checked out of the hotel and decided to walk around town and walk back to the train station for the afternoon return. I guess we stood out as tourists because we each had a backpack on (and cameras, though I only take it out when I see interesting stuff). We are also of Asian descent, and we didn't notice a huge Asian tourist population there.

In any case, I was fumbling something in my pocket while my brother walked ahead. In the few split seconds, a bunch of school-age girls came and surrounded my brother and kept thrusting some papers at him. My brother kept saying "no, thank you." and "no, I don't speak french"). My brother is (athletic, almost 6 feet tall) and while I am much smaller, I tend to be more firm on things.

I had my guard up and walked over and asked what's going on. They tried to explain in French, and I didn't get it. When I looked at their piece of paper, there were some words on it and I read it to understand that they were asking for our autographs. :confused: It was no harm done, so we autographed it and they were happy and went away. :p Further down, another older group of teenagers ask if they could take a picture with us. :confused::confused: I get the impression that they are doing something for school, so we entertained it. My brother is loving the attention, so we grinned and took a picture with them, they thanked us and we went along our merry way.

I didn't know what was going on at the time, but my scam radar did go off and I checked to see if anything was amiss. I had read that in some places kids can surround you and steal stuff from you while you're distracted. We just checked to make sure we still had our passport and cameras (the rest is just travel stuff, whatever) and all was good.

While we were somewhat confused at the time, I think they are doing some sort of school assignments (probably requiring them to meet tourists or get proof that they met with some tourists), and we apparently stood out like sore thumbs.

Just get a cheap GPS tracker app (I'm a fan of the $4.99 MotionX GPS, but I think they have a free version, too). Then, next time you are in an area with no cell signal (or are overseas with data roaming turned off), fire it up and see if you can obtain a GPS fix (it'll display your latitude and longitude if it can find you).

Another hotel scam that I was warned with a flyer in my Marriott Algonquin room in New York is that shortly after checking-in and arriving to the room one will receive a phone call from "front desk" saying something like the credit card didn't go through and that one should provide an alternative credit card [over the phone.] Then later your CC statement will probably show those 7 HDTVs mention in the post above.

Not too worried about credit card scams, since you can just dispute those charges. Most credit card companies won't leave you with any liability; for the few that do, the legal maximum you have to pay is $50.

Just don't go giving a debit card number out over the phone. Debit cards don't have the same legal protections that credit cards do.

GPS is just a signal that anyone with a receiver can receive for free.

"The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a space-based satellite navigation system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. It is maintained by the United States government and is freely accessible by anyone with a GPS receiver."

This includes all cheaply made Made in China tracking devices to spy on your husband/wife's use of the car, GPS fitness watches, car navigation devices like Garmin or TomTom, maritime navigations, aircraft navigations, hiking navigation, to Android and iPhones, geological fault measurement devices for earthquakes used by the USGS, to Tomahawk cruise missiles by the US military.

Simply put, the only difference with Android and iPhones and something like a Garmin/TomTom car navigation device is that the maps are downloaded as you go from the cell network instead of all the map data built into to the car navigation device. If you leave the cell feature off (which is a smart thing to do when you're roaming overseas), you still can receive GPS signals as that costs nothing. The only problem is, how to overlay the free GPS data that you're receiving and translate that to a dot on a map.

So where do you get a map without going through the cell network? Pre-download the maps of where you are going through the iTunes store or Google Play.

Thanks for the response.

What I'm driving at is testing the ability of an IPhone to quickly process Garmin's GPS signals without the cell signal boost.

I have a Garmin Navi with both US and Europe maps, and it works well in both areas. I would like to not have to bring the Navi back and forth and instead use my IPhone which, as I've said, does not have cell service in Europe. So I'd like to test whether this set-up will come close enough to the Navi's performance to work for me without investing $100 in Garmin's Europe maps before I have the answer.

I saw the cheap tracker apps on the APP store and maybe that's a place to start.

I haven't been in a place with no cell signal in awhile, but I'll be driving through the Missouri/Arkansas Ozarks today and will see if I have the opportunity to test this out for you. (That's about as remote of an area as I've been in recently...)

You need to do it either where there's no cell signal or overseas with data roaming turned off, since if you try to artificially turn the cellular data connection off using airplane mode, you'll shut the GPS off, too.

I was thinking the same thing, not to mention I can't recall ever ordering a pizza from my hotel room, particularly one from a place that slipped a menu under my door.

Although I'm not an iPhone user as I'm an Android fan, I can attest from my own experience that the GPS technology used between the two are similar, if not the same.

Both the iPhone and Android uses AGPS which as you mentioned, utilizes cell phone reception as a signal boost to connect with GPS faster. However, even without cell reception, the GPS clings on fine, albeit it takes a bit longer. However, technological improvements on the latest model phones these days has made that difference very small, probably mere seconds that's unnoticeable.

Speaking from a personal experience, I used to own one of the first Android phones available (T-Mobile G1) and used that for two years with the cell feature off, GPS turned on, with MapDroid offline maps. With the cell phone boost the GPS locked in less than minute, without the cell boost, the GPS took about five minutes. It usually takes longer if you moved quite a long distance from the last time you used it (i.e. in Los Angeles one day, in Tokyo the next day you fire up the GPS). But after you get it to lock on, the GPS has a figurative idea to know where you are in the world so it doesn't take long the next time you fire it up, unless you move a long distance again (Tokyo to Osaka, meh not a big difference to catch GPS signals again, but if you moved from Tokyo to Hong Kong, it might take a while to recapture the GPS signal).

Despite that, the GPS of my old G1 was still very helpful in navigating my way around India to protecting myself from attempted tuk-tuk scams "I drove you for five kilometers, that's 100 more rupees!" "Um no, I had the GPS on, you only drove me one kilometer." I've taken my old T-Mobile G1 everywhere and used the offline map GPS solution from Laos, Thailand, India, Jordan, Egypt, and have never been charged high data roaming fees.

Today I own the latest model T-Mobile HTC Amaze, and with the cell boost, the GPS it connects in less than 10 seconds, without the cell boost, the GPS connects on an average of 15 seconds. Still worked lovely when navigating my way through the streets of Vancouver and Victoria, BC without being dinged at T-Mobile's notorious $15/1MB international data roaming rate.


The best way to test this out IMO is to take your cell phone with you to a location nearby without zero cell phone reception. Places like hiking trails, national parks, fishing spots, etc. Heck, you can even download offline US maps for your state, turn off the cell phone signal, and see how accurate it is to where you're standing. You'd be surprised at the accuracy of your phone's GPS as you'll find that it works just as fine with or without the cell reception.


You don't really have to be overseas to turn the data feature off; that can be done within the US too. Your smartphone will just become a typical GSM dumbphone. :D

I don't think that can be done on the iPhone without the intervention of the cell carrier. And I sure as heck am not turning my grandfathered unlimited data package off--they will pry that out of my cold, dead hands! :p

I didn't encounter any lack of cell coverage yesterday. AT&T's got the Ozarks lit up like a Christmas tree. I dropped to EDGE for about 30 minutes, but that was it.

I have found that the quickest way to get rid of people who try to sell me things on the street is to wag my index finger horizontally. I seem to remember reading somewhere that in much of southern and southeastern Asia this is a universal symbol for "no".

At least, it worked well in India...

I think you're right-you can not just have an IPhone stop using cell service for a while.

Not saying that someone couldn't use this as cover for a scam, but I've run into students in the parts of Seoul that tend to have more foreigners (e.g. Insadong) who were fulfilling English class assignments. Usually they have a list of questions they're supposed to ask you ("Where are you from?" "What is your favorite food?" etc.) and then they sometimes want a picture as proof. It's kind of fun and it's usually only one or two kids. But I keep my guard up just the same.

Then what does Airplane Mode do? Or going to Network, then turning off 3G and Carrier Data? Sounds to me like that would work.