As the coward checked in?....PalenQ where are u....u want t go down memory road with the Germans?

I realize this is a year old thread but I have something to add.
We were in Budapest last week and had similar experience with our tickets. One guy came to check them, husband could not understand what he was after, two other guys materialized from some where and offered to help. They did not know i can speak hungarian, so when I said it is better if we go to the police to solve the problem, they went away for a "Talk-over" and did not return????!!!! By the way, we did validate our tick

If this is the worst her life has been she's had a very lucky life so far. Her luggage was misdirected and she was asked to show her tickets on the metro. What a shame!!

This started my morning with a laugh.

I must first say that our trip to Budapest has been thoroughly enjoyable and I would highly recommend it to other travellers.
However, this morning it sounds like the very same two ticket inspectors caught myself and my partner without validated tickets. Reading this made me smile, as we too thought the women were migrants - they were really scruffy.
We caught the metro from heros square to go into the city for the first time. I assumed the ticket would've validated when you bought it. Let's be honest,why would you buy a ticket to use on another time?
After trying to explain it was a genuine mistake,she threatened to call the police and instead of having to pay the 8000 forint we would then have to pay 16000 forent. By this time, I didn't trust them so I told them to call the police. She supposedly called the police,and we proceeded to wait for them. During this time my partner decided to call the hotel from his mobile phone for advise. Surprising,the two women promptly told us to go - they were very abusive towards tourists at this point.
Luckily, we did not pay the fine. We weren't intentionally trying to abuse the system. It should be made more clear that you need to stamp the ticket. The stamp machine is not obvious, it's just a small box on a pole. It should be an electronic barrier of some sort.
I know they have a job to do but I don't see why tourists should subsidise the Budapest transport system especially when they only use it for a few days.

Stamping your ticket is common practice in many palces in europe. How else would they know that the ticket you had wasn;t months old and you were using it for many differnt rides.

And they do tend to stop tourists because 1) locals often have a monthly pass and 2) tourists are more likely to flout the rules - even unintentionally.

When in St Pet we were stopped all 3 times we rode on the bus - and each time the (granted tattily dressed) conductor looked very disappointed that they had been validated.

And it makes no sense for a city to conpletely retool it;s transit system because of something that confuses tourists. All the tourists have to do is ask.

<< Let's be honest,why would you buy a ticket to use on another time? >>

To save money. A book of 10 tickets costs less than buying 10 individual tickets. And not only in Budapest.

Wow, this posting by verynaiveirishgirl was Jan. 4, 2011 with many replies soon thereafter. And then it got revived and regurgitated.

Budapest was for us a special place but we were on a guided tour. This meant when traveling on the subway we were in a group and our guide directed us on tickets and warned us about pickpockets. Sure enough, several rough characters got on and off who may have been working the crowd.

So while original poster may seem overwrought I can appreciate the ordeal. Personally I'd go back to Dublin any day but not sure about Budapest on my own.

expatinbudpest, a good advice sheet!
Bill in Boston

<<And it makes no sense for a city to conpletely retool it;s transit system because of something that confuses tourists. All the tourists have to do is ask.>>

My point is that the Transport System is privately owned and they most likely rely on Tourists not validating their tickets so they can issue on the spot fines to subsidise their transport system. We used the Metro for the first time at Heros Square, as this is not a central station there were no inspectors or any personel at the station to ask for advise.
The only way to know that the ticket needed to be validated was to press the icon with 'I' on the ticket machine, (we know this, because the women proceeded to show us when they were demanding the fine). And then you needed to read a page of text before you actually got to the bit which explained validation.
I don't expect the City to completely retool itself but they need to have a friendlier transport system with conductors who do not prey on tourists who don't know about ticket validation. All they have to do is put a sign up which is visible warning about ticket validation. Maybe put a sign on the machine which validates the ticket - even a diagram indicating a person placking their ticket in the machine would be sufficient.

Our tickets were stamped at 8:30am with the date, it was 8:40am when the two women demanded we pay a fine. We proved to them we only purchased it 10 minutes earlier and we therefore could not have used it previously, but all they were interested in was the money. They hate tourists, that was pretty clear when she was moaning about them to us.

This is from another post on Trip Advisor -
"The Budapest system is privatized. These folks work for the private company that runs the buses and metros, not the government. As a result, although they will ask for your passport, you do not have tio give it to them. Although they may threaten to call the police, and may even call the police (especially if you get abusive), the police will not force you to pay.
They are required to give you a citation if you will not or cannot pay on the spot. It is for more than the on-the-spot fine, and increases as time passes, but it, too, is not an official summons. It is, essentially, a civil action for breach of contract.
So you can walk away with the summons, or if they refuse to give you one, with the guys shouting after you. And you can ignore the fine."
and
"I have never seen them call the police. In fact, just before I started spending significant time in Hungary there was a court decision that affirmed the fact that the payment of transit fares was not a criminal matter but a civil one and that therefore the police had no role unless the passenger became violent or abusive. In essence, whether o not they threaten to call the police (and they seem o do so pretty regularly when people raise their voices), they don't do so."

One would find a similar system on the Berlin public system (validation boxes on the platform), or on any Paris bus, and now in the above ground San Francisco transit system where if one does not know English, Spanish or Chinese one would not be warned that one must have a validated tickets on the platforms as well as the trains or buses.

I went to Europe in 1977 and in Italy their was a shortage of coins. You literally could not get change in coin - at a restaurant or shop they would offer you a pack of m and m's or something instead of giving you change in coin. But the busses had machines that only took coins! So once I rode (in great fear since I am very law abiding) back to my hotel on a bus without a ticket! I suppose (but didn't know) you could buy a bus ticket from a news stand - but you would not have gotten any change!!

My 12 year and 15 years old daughters and I were traveling Back from secheny bath last night around 10:30 and got off blah luzia train station as we are staying at courtyard marriott. As we got off we were stopped by extremely rude 2 female and one male people and we're ask to show our ticket. Upon showing they told us we have to pay 24000 huf fine as our tickets are not validate. I told them we did not see any machine or a person or a sign to tell us what we are suppose to do. At first they thought we are Indian because of our skin color, upon showing my driver lichen they told us, oh American now pay the fine. I politely tried to explain them and told them that I did not know what to do. They told me they will put me and my daughter in a room if I don't come up with the money. They took me to ATM and machine did not accept my pin. I told them let's go to my hotel it is right across the street, they refuse and told me we will keep increasing your fine if you don't pay us cash now. Then they took me to other machine, by now they we're join by one more man, now I was really scared for the safety of my daughters and I. They told me they will keep me at the station until I come up with money, I wished to speak to higher authority or police and they told me, if request more they will do bad to me. Took us to different ATM and card worked here and I gave them 24000 huf. I got the badge number for these scary people it is 5219, 5217, 5765. Is their any justice for their behavior. Our flight is tomorrow morning. Girls are so scared to get out of the room and want to go to the airport right now. We were up all night long, and scared of our safety. These neo nazi ladies kept smoking and blowing smoke on my daughters faces. I will never ever come back to this country and would not recommend it to my fellow travelers. Hungary country hungry for your money !!!!

Very unfortunate, sumba2002. You do realize that you are mostly repeating what was posted three and a half years ago about such ticket scamming. And then others testified to bad experiences as well.

When we were in Budapest several years ago we were warned about pick pockets on the subway and indeed saw some! This is a place for tourists to be on guard. I think being in a tour group (Grand Circle) gave us a measure of safety for sure.

Our guide pointed to something to ponder. Under Communist rule travel and freedom in general was restricted and there were shortages and life was drab. Post Communist Hungary you have a thriving economy but maybe crime and drugs. I am not well informed but hear about a political shift to the far right, and that problems exist regarding treatment of gypsies, etc.

It isn't a tourist scam but the policy of the public transport company. I think it's handled in other countries in a similar manner if the public transport runs on an honor system, i.e. you have a valid ticket or you pay when caught without one.

http://www.bkk.hu/en/fines/

I think some of you are totally missing the point of the complaint. It wasn't that you must validate the ticket -- but rather the very threatening way that violaters are treated by the "authorities". For example "I wished to speak to higher authority or police and they told me, if request more they will do bad to me." This is the sort of think the poster is complaining about and rightfully so in my book!

Yep, they're threatening. People who want to collect a fine normally are.

See it from their point of view. They are there to collect fines from fare dodgers to scare people into buying tickets. They've heard any excuse before and the majority of them were lies. This includes lies from tourists who think that they'll get away with not buying or validating tickets.

If you get caught, you get the easy and cheap option to pay a fine on the spot with minimal administration effort for thtransport company. If you don't, the fine doubles.

They also do a tough and often dangerous job facing all kinds of people a large city has to offer, including the drunk, the mad and the violent. They experience people who run away or attack them. They don't walk outside of stations to hotel rooms or such stuff and they make sure that they aren't alone with someone who might turn violent.

As for speaking to higher authority, the higher authority is probably at home sleeping and certainly unwilling to come there to discuss whether the fine is a scam or not. These guys are the authority.

I agree with you, Neo. I chalk a lot of these responses up to magical thinking: if I do everything right and am well organized and prepared, nothing bad or unpleasant can happen to me. The flip side, of course, is that if something bad or unpleasant does happen to you, it must be your fault. Which is nonsense, of course, but it may be the most cherished illusion of many travelers who post here.

I had virtually the same experience in Budapest in 2002. Friend and I had been out at a lovely dinner and were taking the metro back to our hotel around 10:30/11 at night. We were using metro as we'd been told at our hotel and by others that the cabs could be sketchy. We knew about the ticket validation requirement, we'd been there at that point for 3 days, but when we went to switch lines, we could not find ANYWHERE the machine to validate our second ticket. We spent about 15 minutes looking and tried to find an English speaker to ask with no luck, and when a train pulled in we decided we had to get on it since it was getting so late and we didn't know whether that was the last train.

When we got off (along with lots of other people) at our station, three "ticket inspectors" immediately beelined to the two of us and asked in English to see our tickets. We explained to them what had happened, showed them the one unvalidated ticket as well as the 10+ validated tickets we each had in our pockets and purses from our previous metro trips, including the validated ticket from the first 1/2 of our journey that night. They immediately started SCREAMING at us, very aggressive, backing us up against a wall. At this point, it was 11/11:30-ish at night, and the station had completely cleared out so it was just us and them. For two 20-something females, this was terrifying. Then they demanded cash. Again, they are SCREAMING at us, all three at once, rather than just saying "look, the rules are the rules so you need to pay a fine." I was trying to explain that we were leaving early the next morning and had no cash, and one of the ticket inspectors grabbed my wallet out of my hand and started rifling through it. Then they said they would take us to an ATM so that we could pay the "fine", otherwise they would call the police. I seriously contemplated making a run for it - they were older and overweight and our hotel was very close by - or letting them go ahead and call the police, but my friend was terrified and so we let them march us to an ATM where we each withdrew the $6 fine.

I have traveled widely and used public transportation all throughout Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and I've never had an experience like this. I was never so glad to leave a country as I was to leave Hungary and I have no desire to return to Budapest - while this was the worst experience, virtually everyone we encountered was unhelpful and unpleasant.

Not related perhaps to the ticket problems...yet maybe reflecting discontent is a long article in The Nation (May 26) entitled "Hungary and the End of Politics." While it is about the present government and questionable political tactics, it does underscore unsettled conditions which might discourage travel there.

One line has this: "When Hungary joined the European Union in 2004, Hungarians took advantage of the new opportunities to migrate, but they did so in smaller numbers than most of their counterparts in the new member state. Recently, that pattern has changed. Faced with targeted austerity, Hungarians who are able to survive outside the country...are leaving in drove and looking for work." This if they have good contacts, speak a second language, marketable skills.

>>Yep, they're threatening. People who want to collect a fine normally are.<<

No, actually, most people are in official uniforms or display ID that authorizes them to collect fines. They don't need to resort to threats.

I live in a large city in the northeast US and have been to Europe a dozen times, plus lived there for about 2 years. And I can tell you what my reaction would be if a civilian, displaying no official ID, walked up to me and demanded to see my ticket. I would tell them to take a hike. Or maybe I'd ask to see their ticket. Hell, how does anyone know I'm not a ticket inspector?

Two ladies and one man from Nazi regime.>

to equate this will Nazis is IMO terrible and an insult to all who suffered at the hands if Nazism and calling it so taints the caller - with such an attitude no wonder he/she got so much harassment - probably deserved with such an attitude.