TV Series on Tourist Scams
 

Hello,
I'm working on a series of TV documentaries on Tourist Scams all over the world. We want to focus of clever elaborate scams.

I am especially keen on hearing from any tourists who have been scammed whilst on holiday in the UK - are there any of you out there?!

Thanks very much
My telephone number is 0044 (0)1273 224 251 and my email address is:
[email protected]

Kyra

When we were teenagers (this was in 1997)we went to London on a school trip.

While unsupervised some of the boys went to the Soho district and were scammed at one of the strip clubs.
The scam involved a "hostess" sitting at the bar - who insisted you buy her drinks as a covercharge while you watched the show. By the time you are ready to leave, you find out that each drink you bought cost 50lbs.
They threaten you to pay up (which one person's tab came to 400lbs - and at 18yrs old thats a lot of money). So to get out of there, all 3 people that this happened to - forked over all the money they had on them (as much as 100lbs).

No, but thanks for identifying who you are and the purpose of your question. I hope you get the information you are looking for.

Don;t see how you could pull clever, elaborate scams on tourists.

How would they be around long enough to get involved in a "clever elaborate scam" - which I assume would mean something like false mortgages, home improvers who take the down payment and disappear, or reselling flood-totaled cars or something.

Just due to their limited time in any one place, and limited contact with big budget items - don;t see how this could be common with tourists.

(The one noted above is hardly a clever elaborate scam - just kids that are too naive to be out alone acting silly. And it's been going on since WWI.)

Do you think the original poster wants to learn how to make money :)

"Don;t see how you could pull clever, elaborate scams on tourists."

You mean like the AAA Travel Card? Only by very careful examination and even then often not revealed is the fact that any foreign use of the card including use at ATM has a 7% currency conversion charge on it. Yet they keep selling these to countless tourists. I'd call their marketing scheme for these things based on "low cost" and "convenience" to be a pretty clever and elaborate scam.

I think that Dynamic Currency Conversion would be another good example as it is often both clever and elaborate.

Post on the Peru board. Everytime a local opens their mouth to a tourist it's a scam.

Those don;t count as scams - since all the info is available if anyone bothers to read it. Granted they're a waste of money - but if people don;t look into things there really isn;t any deception involved. (This is just like people who pay list price for cars because they don;t bother to do their homework - or are afraid to deal with the salesman.)

Well, I might argue with that last point. If you walk into an AAA office and ask about their travel card that you've read all the advertising for, and the agent insists that all you do is pay the initial cost and then your money will be given to you at the current rates from an ATM. And if you say "are you sure there's no charge?" and they insist there isn't -- I still call that a scam, even if you haven't gotten a copy in print -- which the offices don't even have available.
I recently went back and forth here with a poster who had gone through all that, asked all the questions and was still convinced there was no charge for ATM withdrawals. I'm not sure where there is even fine print, because you don't get anything to sign when you buy one -- unlike a credit card agreement where everything is spelled out. It took me three emails and then even double checking before I could get the actual figure of what the charge is. Forgive me -- but I call that a scam.

If you can find that 7% figure in black and white print on any of their material made available even by asking for it, then I might withdraw my calling it a scam.