JeaninGeorgia

We were near the Picasso Museum yesterday-Nov 15th when a young dark woman approached my sister and did the 'ring scam" on her. My other sister and myself said come on! but she still gave her money. After we got back to our apt and I showed her the Fodor site on scams she felt silly.
However later we were ourside the Musee Orsay and an elderly woman bent over and begging and we gave her a little money just cause it was so cold and she was working hard begging. (later in the night we figured she probably will be upright and tapdancing.)

Belledame

No doubt. A tiny old lady, swathed in layers of many colored scarves beat the living crap out of my suitcase when I refused to step out of her way in CDG. The area was nearly empty and I was standing against a structure. There was no conceivable reason for her to steer her cart right up to me and ask me to move instead of going right around me. When she started shouting and ramming my upright with her cart I was totally startled. It became a scramble of trying to pull my bag out of the way and spinning around to make sure there was no "partner" emptying my open purse.

The day I arrived in NYC in 1997 an old lady roughed me up on Mott Street. Little old ladies are really strong.

Padraig

Belledame wrote: "It became a scramble of trying to pull my bag out of the way and spinning around to make sure there was no "partner" emptying my open purse."

That's clear-headed! You deserve never to be pickpocketed.

Okay, I concede that nobody deserves to be pickpocketed, but some people deserve it less than others.

cigalechanta

One year, alone in Avignon, while strolling the Place de L'Horloge, I came upon what liked like an organ grinder with a tiny dog sitting on top of it wearing a denim jacket.
I stopped and snapped a photo of it when suddenly this young gypsy girl came running from out of nowhere, saying: aha, you took photo now you must pay me. I was startled and not liking her attitude and left several centimes on the cart which she threw back at me. Later I was to see photos of her and the dog in a few travel books. I wondered how much she demanded they pay her.

SeaUrchin

I have written this before but we watched a little old lady (and her cohorts who were younger) work the railroad station in Florence.

The well dressed women and men would pickpocket and then discreetly hand the money to the little old lady pushing a cart. She was the mobile banker.

The legit venders (such as snacks and magazines) knew full well what they were doing. Even the police were not fazed when they saw the team working.

We sat there waiting for over an hour for our next train and could pinpoint the whole scheme. There was no one to tell about it because they all seemed to know already.

tedgale

1. I LOVE it when they try the ring scam. The ring always looks so cheesy -- more like a curtain ring than anything precious.

2. I'll happily give money to panhandlers, never to the scammers and hucksters, eg: "I'm just 5 euros short on the train fare."

3. All-time favourite scam, from my distant youth: Outside Naples, a car drives up -- "Hey-a, I'm a Namericana citizena and I jus' been robbed. But I'll sell this genuina Rolex watch jus' for the cost ova gas to get to Thamericana navy base in Livorno...."

4. Driving out of Rome -- we are stopped at a stoplight, where a tragic-looking gypsy girl makes piteous gestures and leans beseechingly over our windscreen. I shake my head.

Without departing even momentarily from the Mater Dolorosa act, she mutters "Stronzo!" -- i.e. "Asshole!" -- and wanders off.

SeaUrchin

Those incidents are so amusing, tedgale. The curtain ring!! lol

luv2cthings

tegdale, very funny! Especially #3, ROFL. Oops, are <s>acronyms<s> <i>abbreviations</i> still allowed here (sorry, Robes)? </s></s>

luv2cthings

Sorry, should be:

tegdale, very funny! Especially #3, ROFL. Oops, are <s>acronyms</s> <i>abbreviations</i> still allowed here? (Sorry, Robes)

Mark

chrissymack

I got approached with the same scam in the Tuileres on my way to the Louvre. Thank gooness I just kept walking. Lesson: never stop. I'd rather have them think I'm rude.

sarge56

Happened to us not once, but twice on our walk along Seine from Louvre to Pont Neuf. Fortunately, we'd read about it beforehand and loudly waived them off. (This was Oct.18th)

P

hopscotch

tedgale,

Great post. I had number 2 pulled on me in Amsterdam Centraal Station. It was a great sob story and I paid. The next day the same guy came up with the same scam. I told him which train to catch, but there was no schedule to *ell.

DAX

Well at least they tried to put a romantic twist in their scamming; it was in Paris after all.

We were in Graben,Vienna last September and a youngish pretty woman came to us carrying a young toddler who looked very sad &amp; listless. Both of them had such deeply moving and heart tugging expressions. She asked for money for her sick kid and lingered for a long while pleading. I almost felt guilty telling my friend that I bet she rented the little boy for the day as they didn't look related. Sure enough a few minutes later we saw the same toddler running around among a cheerful group of gypsies including the sad young woman.

I couldn't help thinking that they must see it as an art to act/fool people for money. I saw her the next day doing the same thing with an even younger toddler. What's amazing was how good the young toddler was in acting so sick &amp; listless in an instant. He looked like he's just over a year old.

logos999

They were trying to use the same &quot;trick&quot; in Munich too, but child protection services intervened. They managed to stop the abuse. In the end, no mother wants her child to be taken away from her, just because someone did this stupid &quot;begging scam&quot; with the child. I wonder why it's different in Vienna? It would call CPS and tell them about it.

DAX

Yeah I was wondering about that too, perhaps because they are still new. I've never experienced it in my previous visits to Vienna.

JeaninGeorgia

Well, today my sister who was RING scammed 2 days ago at the Picasso Museum , was approached at the Seine by a swarthy man holding out the &quot;gold &quot; ring he found. She reached in her pocket and pulled out her own &quot;gold &quot; ring , told him she hadfound it -did it belong to him? He made a face, muttered something we couldnt understand and huffed off. We laughed our heads off.

kb1962

We just returned from a 2 1/2 weeks trip to France and spent the last 5 days in Paris. I encountered this scam 3 times. The first was on the Champs Elysees when my friends had just walked a few steps away while I waited against a wall for them to return. They were not more than 20 feet away and was approached by a man with a gold ring. I could not understand what he was asking as he kept handing me the ring but as my friends approached and began to push him away, I got really scared and felt VERY stupid and vunerable that I had let me get that close to me. I realized while we were at the Eiffel Tower my friend walked just a few feet away to look for someone and I could feel and see several guys moving towards me. I was floored my friend had just stepped away and as soon as I yelled for him. They scattered. But the worst experience happened after we left the Opera district and were strolling beside the Louvre. We were approached by a woman with a gold ring who, after we told her to leave us alone, followed us yelling and screaming. When we turned around a short time later we noticed she had stopped a young couple who seemed as though they had been reeled in by the scam. We approached the couple and told them to get away from her and that they were being scammed. After they walked off she tried very hard to get them back but they thanked us and moved on. As we window shopped our way down the street she came back with a friend and tried the same thing not recognizing that she has already approached us. When it dawned on her who we were, she spit in the face of one of my friends and ran off. It was truly disgusting!! Although I regret her final act I have no regrets helping out the couple and ruining her attempt to extort money from them.

travelproMD

I had a similar experience in Paris. The gentleman said he had just found the gold wedding band he handed me and said he was hungry. I figured it was a scam, but I decided if it wasn't the real thing at least I would have done a good deed. So I gave him the equivalent of about 6 dollars and put the ring in my pocket. When I returned home, I took the ring to a jeweler who told me the ring was 18k gold and worth between $350 and $550. The next time I go to Paris, I'll look for this generous man and give him a lot more money.

And speaking of &quot;gypsies,&quot; our family had a terrible experience 8 years ago when approached by one at the train station in Paris. She kept grabbing my sleeve to try to get me to give her money, and finally I pushed her
away. She then proceeded to put a &quot;curse&quot; on my year-old granddaughter. Fortunately I'm not superstitious, so this experience has remained with me as an interesting story and nothing else.

kerouac

As I left my office near the Champs Elys&eacute;es the other day to go on vacation, a young man found a ring on the sidewalk just behind me and asked &quot;Did you lose this?&quot;
&quot;Do I look that stupid?&quot; I replied.
He laughed and winked and went on his way.

I think it is people who become flustered who become scam magnets.

rachelnyc04

I am so happy I read this before I went because the same thing happened to us. I lived in NYC for three years, Wash DC for 6, and now live in Geneva, and in none of those places did I see the amount of scam artists - even in the most touristy areas. At the base of Eiffel, I watched family after family get approached by them (ill refrain from using the controversial word for them used earlier), ask each if they spoke english, and if the poor people replied yes they would shove a paper in their face no doubt with some pity story and follow the tourists around until them gave them money. And, as predicted, we were offered a &quot;gold ring&quot; along the Seine. I wonder how many a day get duped by these people. I had a wonderful time in Paris only bc I know to simply ignore these advances, but its a shame to think it probably ruins a lot of vacations. Can't believe, however, that so many posters allowed themselves to get so close to strangers.