Talk:Common scams/Archive

Source of Maradona information

This text accompanied the Maradona information. I've moved it here. -- (WT-en) Hypatia 19:09, 29 Nov 2004 (EST)

The information on the Maradona is taken, with permission, from Joe Mabel's Bucharest Practicalities page (http://www.speakeasy.org/~jmabel/travels/bucguide.html ) and released by the copyright-holder under the appropriate license.

Please add more help

It is all very well to describe scams. But we should also tell how to avoid them and how to get out of them once you are in the situation. For example, "Rental damage": Can you rent jet skis witout leaving something as guarantee and if not what should you leave? And if they do take your passport hostage, will it help to call the police? --(WT-en) elgaard 11:26, 4 Jan 2006 (EST)

Hypnotism

Can we have a cite of some kind of this (here, not in the article)? It does sound rather strange... (WT-en) Hypatia 02:22, 31 May 2006 (EDT)

Taxi scam advice: print a map?

I'm kind of "meh" about this: If you can, go to a map website, print out the route, then hand this to the driver. Taxi drivers picking up fares at any international airport in the world are always looking for a good fare, and any opportunity to make it longer to justify their waiting time.

In many cities (practically anywhere outside Singapore in South-East Asia, for example), the fastest route between point X and point Y not only involves three U-turns and driving past squawking chickens through somebody's backyard, but changes depending on the time of day and the phase of the moon. If anything, the hand-a-map routine is a big whomping red flag that you have no clue. The previous advice of using fixed-price taxis and getting an approximation of the fare in advance is IMHO much better. (WT-en) Jpatokal 07:46, 25 December 2006 (EST)

Jpatokal's got it right. After all, the taxi driver knows the streets better than anyone else. 202.141.69.245 06:57, 17 January 2007 (EST)

Yes. I was once a taxi driver in Ottawa, and I'd say at least 70% of the customers who told me which route to take picked routes that were slower and more expensive than what I'd have chosen. Fine by me; the customer is happy and I get more money. (WT-en) Pashley 04:51, 13 November 2007 (EST)

Art school "scam"?

What? There's no scamming involved. It's 100% subjective what the price of a work is. If you like their work, then just fucking buy it. I don't understand how this is a scam. --88.192.83.11 16:03, 9 February 2008 (EST)

No, it's the way they get their customers that the scam. The "students" (who probably aren't students at all) befriend you seemingly innocently, practicing English, maybe a bit of a romantic vibe... but it's all just a set-up to get you into the gallery. (WT-en) Jpatokal 22:54, 9 February 2008 (EST)

I've expanded the art school section by a couple of sentences to clarify that they aren't usually actually students, and that it's a social pressure scam. (WT-en) Hypatia 09:58, 19 March 2008 (EDT)

a suggestion

Just a suggestion: for many descriptions of the scams, it would help to have a clearly-defined "how to recognize" and "how to react / how to protect yourself" sections.

Opinions? (unfortunately, I'm not feeling competent to plunge forward with this initiative) --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 15:38, 26 February 2008 (EST)

Perhaps informally: each section has a couple of paragraphs: 1. the form the scam takes and what the initial bait is and 2. how to react / protect yourself. Having an actual subheading for each of 1 and 2 seems overkill. (WT-en) Hypatia 10:00, 19 March 2008 (EDT)

Scamming the scammers?

I think this advice is unethical and possibly dangerous:

You can help to end this scam by using it against taxi drivers. Arriving in a new city, where the train, bus stand, airport is far from the centre, a lot of taxi drivers will offer a really cheap taxi fare if you mention you need a guesthouse. As soon as they take you to the 'recommended' place, say no thank you and either walk away or take a different taxi. You will save a ton of money even with the second taxi, now that you have to go a shorter distance, for example you can get across Delhi for 20Rs instead of the standard 150Rs.

If you ask an airport cabbie to take you to any hotel/guesthouse/whatever, and they take you to one, they've done exactly what you asked them to do, and they're going to lose money if they don't get their commission. It's only a scam when they refuse to take you where you want to go. (WT-en) Jpatokal 23:58, 16 November 2008 (EST)

List of scams

Not sure a link to this list belongs in the article, but it seems worth having here. (WT-en) Pashley 08:32, 15 December 2008 (EST)

Drugging

I am not sure about whether the "Drugging" section belongs in this article. I'm not exactly sure why, perhaps because it seems more like generic (albeit terrible) violent crime to me. We're not listing "in a new city, you might not know the dangerous areas, and someone may mug you" or "in some cities, residents have guns and may shoot you" type of things in this article are we? Someone slipping you drugs seems less travel/ignorance-related and also less avoidable with a bit of research and care than most things we list. (WT-en) Hypatia 06:43, 26 December 2008 (EST)