Silly me! I must have misread the notes since I don t know pesos very well. I gave him a $100 while

Before arriving into the Buenos Aires airport, I memorised the Lonely Planet s advice on getting a cab into town and the best way to avoid getting scammed by cab drivers. I speak Spanish and am usually a sceptical traveller, so figured it wouldn norwegian cruise lines houston t be too bad but 24 hours of flight makes you a little ripe for ripping off.
Basically the Lonely Planet said there were two main remise (private taxis, generally regarded as more secure) companies at the airport but the average cost was around 90 pesos. So imagine my surprise when the quoted price by both companies was 180 pesos. norwegian cruise lines houston I argued in Spanish that it was double what it should have been. They laughed in my face and said yeah, 18 months ago! Welcome to inflation in Argentina. Such is the problem of a printed guidebook
norwegian cruise lines houston So I spent the whole taxi ride into Buenos Aires trying to figure out if I was being ripped off. I knew inflation was a problem, the guidebook WAS published 18 months ago and we didn t really have an option. I was so busy wondering norwegian cruise lines houston if we were getting norwegian cruise lines houston ripped off with the original taxi price that the driver then pulled a classic scam without me even noticing.
norwegian cruise lines houston He was chatting with me in Spanish very politely, telling me about the weather, asking about how long our trip had been, noting norwegian cruise lines houston that we must have been very tired etc. We pulled up in front of the hotel. I got my $180 pesos a $100, $50 and three $10 notes ready to hand over, my first peso transaction. I gave them to the driver, grabbed my bag, and then the driver turned to me and said hey, you didn t give me the right money! and showed me the four $10 notes and a $50 in his hand.
Silly me! I must have misread the notes since I don t know pesos very well. I gave him a $100 while he told me how careful I have to be getting my wallet out on the street, how dangerous this area is, how quick people are to rob foreigners. What friendly advice, norwegian cruise lines houston I thought.
My dad is ripe for scamming. When he travelled to Turkey norwegian cruise lines houston a few years ago I joked that it would save time if he just opened his wallet and gave them everything in it as soon as someone started talking to him. My brother and him were scammed into buying some priceless old coins by some guy by the side of a road that claimed he d just dug them out of the ground. A few days later in the markets of Istanbul they saw scores of these priceless coins for sale for half the price they d paid,
He also bought a real Rolex for $40 that he claimed he knew was fake but seemed like such a good quality fake that it was worth it. Imagine his surprise when it stopped working two weeks later (though to be fair on him, he owns a real Rolex and it probably wasn t the worst idea to wear the fake one while travelling through Turkey and Greece).
Also in Turkey our family went out for a quick snack at a cafe. We never saw a menu, we asked for prices but the extremely friendly restaurant man just waved away our worries and said he d bring us some delicious treats. We had some dip and bread. When we went to leave, a bill for 50 euros appeared. My dad paid it (of course) before I realised what happened and demanded half our money back.
Carolyne Lee who has written for Back in a Bit before norwegian cruise lines houston wrote on her blog escape to Paris today about witnessing the gold ring scam in Paris. I d never heard of this scam before, but it s a clever one. As Lee explains:
the other day, while passing near the Louvre, I saw a couple a few metres in front of me, with a tall man just to the side of them picking up what looked like a gold ring. 'Aha,' I thought, 'this looks interesting.' Sure enough, norwegian cruise lines houston the man offered it to the male of the couple who shook his head, but then the other man sort of pressed it on him (I didn't really hear their exchanges norwegian cruise lines houston and in any case I think it was done mostly by mime, since it turned out that the couple didn't speak much English or French). By this time, I had passed the couple and sure enough they were moving off, with the man holding the ring in his hand and looking rather mystified, with the scammer just behind them.
I asked the couple if they spoke French, but no. English? A little. 'Don't take the ring,' I said. 'It's a scam, he'll ask you for money for it in a minute.' The couple were looking mystified. Who should they believe? Me, a complete stranger, and an interfering norwegian cruise lines houston busybody to boot, or the 'nice' young man who'd just found a ring on the ground and offered norwegian cruise lines houston it to them, for luck, since his religion norwegian cruise lines houston forbade him wearing such things/wasn't his size, etc etc.?
But upon hearing me telling the couple it was a scam, the 'nice' young man yelled at me in loud and very clear if accented English, 'F@#$ you! F@#$ you!' Strong evidence that my interpretation had been correct. The young couple hastily gave him back his ring, and scuttled off.
Apparently, what usually happens is that once the 'target' has taken possession of the ring and started to move off, the ring-finder then says to them that he's hungry, could do with a few euros, would like some recompense for giving them something valuable, norwegian cruise lines houston or some variation on this. I have heard of people parting with as much as 10 euros.
Any other typical scams people have fallen for?  I ve heard of the asking people to take your photo (usually when someone is in national costume etc) and then charging for it , the taxi driver tells you the hotel you re booked has closed but they know another one that s better and the here s a bunch of information you didn t want or ask for but please give me some money for my time one. I m talking more about annoying scams that don t cost a lot apart from your dignity when you realise you fell for it. Spill your scam stories please.
I was done over yesterday by a very well-dressed guy in Riga who needed a note rather than the coins he had to get out of a parking station. I changed 2 5 LAT notes for 5 2 coins, which turned out to be Lithuanian and worth a tenth of the similar norwegian cruise lines houston Latvian coin. A very convincing scam, though, in retrospect, what parking station takes notes not coins?
I was near the Louvre about three years ago when a man walked up to me and started asking me what I was up to in Paris very friendly. He then seized my arm and started rapidly tying on a string norwegian cruise lines houston friendship norwegian cruise lines houston bracelet. Once this was done (and tied on with a knot that couldn t easily be removed) he demanded 50 euros for the bracelet. When I told him he could have it back, he threatened me that I would be cursed by his people for rejecting his gift .
The next day I was walking along the Seine towards the Eiffel Tower when another guy tried the same thing. I told him I wasn t interested and ducked around him to keep walking, and he got very angry and loudly shouted at me that I was a racist. Quite awkward!
@grahame I ve seen that happen before! Also reminds me of one that happens a lot in Spain and France where gypsies grab your hand and start reading your fortune, before demanding money or threatening to curse you.
I have to tell you, that knowing I haven t been the only skeptical-cautious-read everything i can traveller that has been caught norwegian cruise lines houston by scammers in Buenos Aires gives me some small reassurance. Now I don t feel so much like a crazy person. Knowing about the taxi scam, we booked a driver as part of our hotel account norwegian cruise lines houston before we went. Yeah, that didn t work out. In the end it cost me $80 in US currency to get my luggage out the boot of his car, which was sposed to cover the return trip 8 days later. Nope, it didn t, and even the hotel staff who had also been paid for it refused to recognise I d now paid 8 times the amount.
Considering the way he drove, in the end, all I wanted was to make it to the airport alive to be honest, norwegian cruise lines houston so i offered to tip him if he limited his speed back to the airport to 110kph norwegian cruise lines houston max. Yeah I m a wuss, but wow excesses of 150kmph norwegian cruise lines houston weaving through traffic after a long flight was too much for my brain.
One day I ordered a meal in a cafe. An hour later I get the bill. No meal. I ask where is the meal, he says I had it. There were no dishes on my table. I keep saying, where is the meal, where is the coffee etc. I ve watched 10 other customers come, eat and go. Sure my accent is pretty bad, and I m sure I don t speak Spanish or French as perfectly as some, but hey it s not that bad that I can t communicate. On top of that is the logic . There are no dishes. I am saying I haven t received my order. By that logic, I shouldn t even have to use speech norwegian cruise lines houston . but in the end I just left the money on the table and left.
One of my least favourite scams is going to restaurants in countries that don t have a tip system, telling them to keep the change (as a courtesy anyways) and being told sometimes quite aggressively that I also owe an invisible service charge on top.
I m also not a big fan of the bunny hop taxi driving in Los Angeles. I understand that there is a tariff if the taxi is caught in traffic, so when the vehicle is stationary for a certain period of time, there is an additional charge. (This is what it said on his dashboard). I kid you not he accelerated norwegian cruise lines houston so hard and then braked suddenly and then sat idle until the tariff ticked over, the entire way to our destination. The receipt he printed off was like something you d see in a spoof. I m not kidding when I tell you it was 2 metres long.
Guy drove up to my girlfriend and I in Paris with a load of suede jackets and gave me one for free. Then asked where the French embassy was and requested petrol money which became more, more as I handed him notes from countries I d passed through. Then I twigged it was a con and grabbed all of my money back through the car window.
The second con was when we visited the Moulon Rouge area and chose a cheaper norwegian cruise lines houston club at about $20 to get in. When two beers arrived the bill was just under $200 and the little creep manager said Cabaret prices. monsieur when I questioned him.
Edward James on Red Ink Run: moonshine at 9am, welcome to Georgian hospitality K Johnson on Red Ink Run: moonshine at 9am, welcome to Georgian hospitality Johnstone Sarah on