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Josef K. Sourdust posted:Anyone have an experience of the petition scam? There are a few variations on these. In Rome, there was a dude claiming to be Slovenian apparently collecting signatures for a petition against drugs. Now, this particular scam is described on various scam warning sites, but even without that foreknowledge, it was suspicious that he asked me whether I was Italian or not and attempted an ungrammatical phrase in my native language when I told him what country I am from. If they had been legitimate, they probably wouldn't have gone after foreign tourists specifically and they would have stuck to their native country instead of going to Italy. Also, in Paris there was this young woman with an English accent who went: "Hello, do you speak English? I've got this[petition]..." Suspecting a scam, and in any case feeling no obligation to speak English in France, I simply ignored her completely. Apparently that annoyed her, making her go "Hellooooo...excuuuse me". Why she thought that would get her anywhere is beyond me.
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Feb 27, 2016 12:22
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Angry Salami posted:One scam a friend of my parent's fell for in Bangkok is the suit scam. Basically, the scammer dresses as a tourist information guide and waits outside the Royal Palace, and regretfully tells tourists the palace is closed to the public today because of a public holiday/religious festival/the King's visiting/whatever. He then encourages you to take a – conveniently waiting – taxi to some other attraction you'll really love. How is this going to work if the Palace isn't actually closed? I took a look at the site in google street view, and it looks like the compound is surrounded by big white walls with large gates in them and soldiers posted next to them. If the gates are open and tourists are miling about, how is the fake guide going to convince anybody?
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Mar 22, 2016 10:39
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If he really was that affable and interesting, he could probably make a decent living being a legitimate tourist guide. Seems like a waste. On the subject of scams requiring extreme naivety on part of the victim, in Rome some dude attempted to pull the following scam on me: quote:The lost fashion designer. Here's a classic: A guy pulls up next to you in a car and asks for directions, or some other way to start chatting with you. He's suave, speaks English and dressed well. He tells you he's a manager/designer/executive for Armani/Versace/Gucci and seems to "prove" it by showing you his designs. Oh, and just because you're so friendly, he gives you a couple of coats he just happens to have in his car that are leather/silk/suede. That's when he asks you for gas money, because he's almost out -- you know, €50 or €100. Because he just gave you a couple of coats and because he's such a swell-seeming guy, you fork it over. This has happened again and again and again over the past few years. The guy must be making bank. Don't be part of his profit margin. The thing about this is that you would have to be extremely naive and credulous to fall for it. In my case, he saw fit to ask me for the way to Piazza del Popolo. From an obvious non-Italian like me. In English. While brandishing a road map and being in view of at least two obvious landmarks (the Aurelian walls with the Porta Pinciana and the Villa Borghese park). And for some reason he wore sunglasses even though it was cloudy. This made it difficult to read his expression, but he did seem surprised when I laughed derisively at him and walked on.
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Mar 22, 2016 14:31
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Avalanche posted:These poor soldiers would dish out fistfulls of rubles from their pockets... What could you possibly spend rubles on in East Berlin unless you had access to commissaries or equivalent on Soviet bases? Wouldn't GDR marks make more sense?
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Apr 19, 2016 10:40
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