Has anyone had problems recently in Istanbul with children dumping shoe polish on your shoes to shine them for for tips?
It happened to a co-worker of mine a few years ago. I'm just wondering if this was rare or if it is an on going thing to look out for. I'm leaving for Istanbul on Friday.

I've made six trips to Turkey in the past few years, but never encountered this scam. Istanbul is, along with Rome and Madrid, a city where I try to maintain a heightened level of awareness regarding bag-snatching, street scams and like, but I haven't actually encountered any problems there.

Yes, most definitely and I recently posted to someone to preferably wear cloth shoes. These kids come out of no where and plop it on your shoes...or in my case...my nice leather boots that I didn't want polish plopped on... and then grab your foot and start shining, smearing the stuff all over the place, and then ask for money. Happy Travels!

Thanks for the info. I know anything can happen anywhere. I will have to keep an eye out!

You'd better hope that its shoe polish and nothing else, as apparently happened to both halves of an elderly couple I know... (so they said)!

I didn't have any such experience in Turkey. Turkey was one of my best ever vacations. Wonderful country.

Vikinggirl...It can happen VERY fast even if you're watching. It happened to me while at the Suleymaniye Mosque on top of the hill. An aquaintance,whom I'd met at my hotel, and I decided to go out in Istanbul during the day. She was also female and traveling alone, so we decided to team up.

We had just finished seeing the inside of the mosque and went outside for a split second to sit down before walking back down the hill and back to our hotel in Sultanahmet...yes, a REALLY long walk, but we did it. Then out-of-the-blue the kids appeared, didn't even see them...just felt the plop on my boots! Happy Travels!

I had completely forgotten until I read the last post - but same thing happened to us when we were walking in the area near the viaduct. We just laughed and waved them off and they went away.

Clearly it did not feel threatening as I woud have remembered it. Also not nearly as annoying as the Delhi trick - when it is not shoe polish that is used!