From mothers with pretend babies and orphans asking to sign a petition to pick pocketing or simply sell you fake tickets tourist scams are as popular as they are various.
I’ll run down some of the most popular here, but also will help you with much more resources and ways to use google to search for scams specific to your destination.
- Watch for any distraction in public and travel locations – any petition you are asked to sign by gypsy or orphan kids, any “baby” you’re asked to hold, or even beggars that ask you for money – there might be an accomplice that will pickpocket you while you’re distract, or just find out where your wallet is to pickpocket you later.
- Foreign money is usually very hard to handle – watch out for fake banknotes people give you as change or others that’ll give wrong change hoping you are not really used to each and every coin size and color to quickly count the money.
- Museum, train, bus and attraction are only few of those places you have to buy tickets to. Scammers will try to sell you fake or expired tickets for less money or for the benefit of not standing in a long line. Be sure to buy only from official machines or box office. Also in many tourist locations you can find a combined tickets – transportation+discount for attractions and museums so be sure to look for those (example – in London they have London Pass, in Berlin they have Berlin Welcome Card. Actually stay tuned for a whole article that’ll sum up those tickets ).
As you can see you must be very careful not to be ripped off. Justtheflight.co.uk actually did a very nice infographic with 40 of the most popular scams: http://www.justtheflight.co.uk/blog/16-40-tourist-scams-to-avoid-this-summer.html. You can look for more in Google, but I suggest you to search scams per city\per country – then you’ll not just find out the most popular scams in you destination, but also their locations – usually near the main train stations, main bus stations, tourist locations like parks, big hotels and more. For example – it’s much more efficient to look for “berlin tourist scams” than just “tourist scam”.
P.S. And remember – don’t puts your valuables in the back pocket – you are just inviting trouble!
Main photo credit: https://pixabay.com/en/money-card-business-pocket-256282/
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