Travel Tips: Beware of Scams
Traveling to foreign destinations, enjoying exotic cuisines, revelling in fun filled activities the entire day and bringing back loads of cherishable memories!
This sounds like the perfect vacation and every traveler would want the same. However, there are loads of things to be taken into consideration when traveling. And one of them is tourist scam.
Scam artists are abundant in every field and travel is no exception. There are tons of people out there ready to turn your holiday into a potential nightmare by tricking you one way or the other.
But this doesn’t mean you have to refrain from traveling. There are many ways to stay alert and travel smart. Here are a few of the most popular tourist scams in the entire world.
Free trips: Probably the cleverest one of all thieves would be the one who tricks you even before you start to travel. We all get hordes of phone calls where so called agents claim that we have won a free trip to a key destination.
The next question the agent asks in almost all these conversations is the person’s credit card number for verification. The agent promises a small amount would be scratched off the card for the registration and finally, you get to see money missing from your account and no call back from the concern.
Money Exchangers: Traveling to a foreign destination requires us to change our currency into the local money that is used there. Here is where several scammers try to trick tourists who have little or no idea of the exchange rates there.
So called cashiers and money vendors scrounge public areas like markets, shopping malls and even airports, promising tourists better conversion rates than those offered at an exchange bureau.
Most of the time, the money exchanged is either fake or less than the original amount that needs to be received. It is advised to refrain from paying with large bills.
Most vendors and cabbies in foreign destination take advantage of the fact that you may not know the correct exchange rates and try to ask you for more when you would have already paid far more than the original fare.
Make sure to count out the change that you receive as there are chances that one or more coins in the lot would be fake or outdated. The best possible option to avoid getting stuck in these situations would be to exchange your money only at authorized centers and keep a sharp eye on the money handed back to you after you pay for something.
Helping Hands: Most of the time, the people who tend to help us in a foreign destination turn out to be con artists in disguise. A simple gesture of taking a photograph of you and your loved one can turn bad if the person happens to be a theif and runs off with your camera.
In railway stations, some people offer to buy your tickets for you and run away with your money. Some puncture your car tire and one of them acts like helping you when the other steals your valuables.
Worse still, some offer to help you in using an ATM machine and march off with your PIN number. Some also try to steal your card by setting a trap wherein your card gets caught in the machine and by the time you come back with an officer, they would have run away with it.
There are also bizarre cases where people demand payment for showing you to your seats, purchasing your tickets or even reading your palm by chance.
In many countries like India, some people sit by you in the public transit stations and spill something on you by accident. They then volunteer to take care of your belongings while you clean yourselves. By the time you come back, there’s no sign of the person and you baggage.
Avoid all these uncomfortable situations by buying your own tickets or availing the help of the concierge service (if available) at the hotel you are staying in. Do not let anyone help you in using the ATM machine and do not accept anything offered by a stranger.
Police Trouble: It is pretty bad to notice that in many popular tourist destinations around the world, several scam artists dress as policemen or officers and trick innocent tourists.
Most of the time, they claim to check your wallet for counterfeit bills while taking some money in the process. Some even run away with your wallet before you realise what just happened.
Make sure to never hand over your wallet or personal papers like passports to anyone. Ask for necessary identification like ID cards or badges.
Cab and Auto Drivers: Most of the time, tourists to foreign destinations get taken for real rides by cabbies in the area. Taking advantage of the fact that you are a newbie in the area, cabbies will try to swindle money out of you in any way possible.
Some take you on a roundabout route that takes more than 45 minutes while the actual travel time is only 15 minutes or less and then charge you like crazy. Some exchange the money you give them within the blink of an eye and say that you had not paid enough.
Some take you to hotels promising discounted accommodation. Upon arriving you find all the rooms filled up and find the need to pay double the amount to get a standard room, thereby unknowingly paying the cabbie an extra commision (paid by the hotel).
It pays to actually book you accomodation in advance. This way you can avoid falling prey to the cabbies who offer you package deals on hotels.
Getting to know the travel durations to important places in the area from the hotel staff will also be an added advantage. Call for taxis and cabs through the hotel and if you need to avail one outside, make sure that the cab has a valid logo and telephone number.
Distractions: The best and most popular scam of all has been saved for the last. Almost all of us have fallen prey to atleast one scam that happened due to distraction.
The more common forms of distractions in public places include: fights between two locals while another local steals from the crowd that gathers there, children surrounding you and begging for food while one of them steals your wallet; and a local pretending to faint or fall down in front of you and an accomplice running off with your money while you are tending to the former.
Unfortunately, there is not much that can be done in these cases as it is quite easy to be distracted in public. The only way to avoid these situations would be to wear minimal valuables while traveling in public, walking with a closed bag slung across the shoulders and perhaps carrying money in a pouch or pocket sewn under the clothes.
