Scams in Shanghai

johnnyboy4711

Hi all!
Just back from Shanghai after being in New Zealand on Honeymoon for a month.
Let me tell you the 2 days we were more stressed out than a month in NZ.
We as westerners were constantly harassed by people trying to sell us knock-off Gucci bags, watches
Or anything we didn’t want constantly!
After the 1st day I even contemplated staying in our hotel complex until we flew home but we chanced it thinking that these hawkers could not be out the following morning at 9am, WRONG!
Around us like sand flies to the point that I nearly got knocked down trying to cross the road trying to avoid them.
They are trying to get you to go to a market and the only peace you can get is on the metro.
That’s not all; While walking around Peoples square the first day we arrived a young Chinese couple started chatting to us and being a friendly person started to make conversation.
Gradually the conversation lent towards going to a Chinese tea Ceremony and as we had nothing better to do we decided to go along .We were led to Tea rooms just off JinJiang road in a small shopping mall type complex.
We went in the lady performed the ceremony where we sampled 5 different types of teas and had the equivalent of bar snacks Chinese style.
For the tea ceremony and the bag of tea we were charged €83(I worked this out after as we were very jet-lagged had not yet used of the money as we had literally got to the hotel from the airport and showered, changed and hit the town!)
I thought I was pretty savvy when it came to scams but this couple were so convincing we were taken in totally.
Later on that evening we went for a walk around the bund and more hawkers chasing us down at this stage I was becoming upset and stressed as to was my wife.
A very similar situation arose whereby a Chinese couple tried to introduce themselves to us then the penny dropped!
So I told them where to go!
Shanghai nice city but not if you’re a westerner.
When the Olympics role around all foreigners will be like shooting fish in barrel to these Scam artists unless something is done.

johnnyboy4711

BuffyBot

Afraid you got stung by one of the oldest tricks in the book.

For anyone travelling to China, research is your friend! Make sure to read up on your destination before visiting!

niceirishfella

hi,

yes, i know Shanghai well. I have been many times as i do business in China and agree. There are lots of scams going on.

If you are a westerner - you are a target. I always find myself attacting very attractive, well spoken young chinesse women offering me "suckey suckey ****ey ****ey"??? My Chinesse is not very good -
I always say "not tonight Josephine" and then say to them "boooooooooooo" and threaten to call the cops. Then they disapper quickly.

Great city tho' - and the true chinesse are nice warm and friendly people imho.

Bosco2085

I'm going travelling around China for a month and i'm really worried about getting done by these scams.

Is there anything else I should look out for?

BuffyBot

http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/China/Beijing_Shi/Beijing-1024960/Tourist_Traps-Beijing-Tour_Scams-BR-1.html

http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/China/Shanghai_Shi/Shanghai-1003464/Tourist_Traps-Shanghai-R-1.html

Google, and you'll see plenty of info

Oracle

I've been to Shanghai and I really enjoyed it. I hadn't heard about the Tea Ceremony scam but it doesn't surprise me, sorry for your trouble. I think part of the problem is most of us in Europe & the US still view China as romantic, unsophisticated and charming. So we arrive wide-eyed and innocent, not expecting a Western style con job or rip-off merchant. The reality is China, besides being all the nice things we think of, is also sophisticated, ruthlessly commercial and has it's share of scammers and hawkers. However, I felt very safe walking around Shanghai, even at night. I really liked the Chinese people, many seemed genuinely happy to see Westeners, and were very open and friendly. When I was there I took a guided chauffeur driven tour in a limo with a friend. It's very affordable, much cheaper than you'd pay in Europe, and it's a great way to see the sights.

RATM

The best thing to do in China with these sort of scams is to threaten to call the cops in. Chinese ppl are scared ****less of them, once its mentioned you'll soon find things going your way.

niceirishfella

+1

shout Booooo at them!

faceman

Im off to Shanghai on friday. sounds like a bit of cop on is all thats needed

Oracle

RATM wrote: »

The best thing to do in China with these sort of scams is to threaten to call the cops in. Chinese ppl are scared ****less of them, once its mentioned you'll soon find things going your way.

Yeah that could be true, never tried it when I was there. I'm going a bit off-topic here but I seen a great series on BBC TV years ago about the Chinese police. In a nutshell the way they operated was someone phones up making a complaint, for example that they were assaulted or stolen from. Then the police get in their car go to the place, pick up the person and bring them back to the station. There they are interrogated heavily and beaten, then released. Some people would probably say that's appalling, others that it's a great idea; either way it seems to work, they've a very low crime rate.

smcelhinney

niceirishfella wrote: »

+1

shout Booooo at them!

Ha.. most important phrase I ever learned when I lived there.. "Bu yao" which I think means "I dont want it".

It could also mean "I just farted".

Either would make them scurry in terror.

niceirishfella

good one.......LOL

julesrtc

Bu Yao (pronounced BOO YOW) means Please F*** OFF.
They wont be insulted and will go away...

faceman

Well ive been in Shanghai for over a weekend now and i will be sad leaving next week. This place is fantastic. Im deeply compelled to post to offer contrast to the OP's comments.

There are hawkers in certain areas, particularly the Nanjing road but simply ignoring them more so than saying No or Bu Yao has the best effect. Things get a little bit annoying if you are a guy walking alone in certain areas at night as there are guys trying to set you up with hookers. But again same rules apply, ignore.

The OP gives the impression they are everywhere which is simply not the case. People here in general are very friendly. There is very little crime.

As for the knock off products, some of the quality in some markets is top class, but i wouldnt be condoning that kind of thing!!

To anyone considering a trip here, as long as you dont accept invites from random strangers (honestly, would you do that in ireland?) and ignore hawkers then you have nothing to worry about.

monument

faceman wrote: »

Well ive been in Shanghai for over a weekend now and i will be sad leaving next week. This place is fantastic. Im deeply compelled to post to offer contrast to the OP's comments....

What he said.

I've been to Shanghai, and while a native of the city was showing me around a good bit, I was in loads of places on my own from shopping areas, to tourist traps, to poor neighbourhoods. Just say no like you would with somebody in Dublin.

I felt safer in Shanghai then probably any other city I've been to.

I'm sorry about what happened to the OP, but the first thing you should always do when arriving in any country with a different currency is figure out what one of pounds, dollars, yen, or whatever is equal to euro - or even do it before you go.

Burko

Welcome to the wild wild east.

This would have happened to me the first time in I came to China.....had I not been reading all about for months before I arrived.

I dont mean to be a dick, and I really do feel sympathy.....but research research research.

Same tea-house/ student art/'lets have lunch' scams in several Chinese cities.

okidoki987

On the currency point, I always print up a small spreadsheet of
the different amounts and what they are equal to both ways before I go.
So when I'm in Thailand I work out how much 5,10, 25, 50, 75 and 100 Euro are in Bahts and then the opposite, how much 5, 10, 25, etc Bahts are in Euro and I carry that in my wallet everywhere.
Saves trying to work something out especially when you've a few drinks on board

vibe666

good tip okidoki, hadn't thought of that.

it's pretty much the same everywhere.

actually, it's the same here with those chinese herbalist yokes that seem to have popped up recently in shopping centres in Ireland.

you go in for a 'free' consultation or massage or whatever and they start off all nice and friendly then before you know it they're pushing more and more on you a little at a time, €20 here, €35 there, you need this, you need that, we make you better, all that nonsense and an hour later you're €200 odd lighter a whole lot wiser, but with nothing to show for it except a bag full of sticks and leaves to boil at home.

feckers will always try and convince you you need to keep coming back too.

CliffHuxtabel

I love this thread

Recently spent 3 weeks in Shanghai on my travels. Didnt mean to spend so long but met a girl, fell in love, etc.

Once day out of curiosity I counted how many times i was approached by hawkers walking up east nanjing road. In a 15 min walk i was approached 17times!

Sometimes if i was in a good mood i would stop an chat with them but mostly it just wore me out. I agree after a while it can become so demoralising. Its been mostly the same everywhere ive been in asia. In Hong Kong its indian tailors who are constantly offering to measure you for clothes, in bangkok its the tuk tuk drivers and their offers of boom-boom massage. The list goes on.

Beijing was just as intensely annoying when it came to scams and hawkers as Shanghai. Within 5 minutes of walking on Wangfujing street I was approached by this bizarre brother/sister team of art students asking me to see their gallery. Luckily my Lonely planet had warned me before about the impending scam so i declined.

One day in Shanghai on east nanjing road i was approached
by these two chinese babes asking me to go for a drink with them so i just went along out of curiosity. They took me up to what turned out to be a plush karaoke bar. I ordered this tiny can of Tsingtao for like 5 euros and decided id finish my drink and then leave. I was chattin away with the girls and this waiter kept on bringing in this bar food and the girls ordered these 10 euro drinks. I told them i hoped they had the money to pay for them but they just smiled and looked away. We were sitting there with the music on in the background when the karaoke machine broke down. I told the girls i was gonna leave and they started to get visibly nervous. Just when i was getting up to leave the waiter and his friend came in and demanded i pay them something like 75 euros. I kinda anticipated this so i just started yelling at them, i mean really yelling at them. For a minute they were sticking to their guns but they backed down after i said id tell the cops. I paid for my drink and left. I thought the whole thing was hilarious.

Anyhow to the op im sorry that they screwed you. I met several people it happened to. I think the trick to get out of it is to threaten to tell the cops or just yell at them like i did. Some chinese can be cute whoores but I think fundamentally theyre quite gentle people and they dont want any trouble especially from the cops.

As a rule though, for anyone going to China (or nearly anywhere else in the world for that matter) if someone approaches you in the street then they want something, most likely money.

(although in fairness if you go to peoples square in shanghai on a sunday you do meet young people who genuinely want to practice their english).

Sorry about all the useless detail but I really miss China and i love my memories of it.

faceman

CliffHuxtabel wrote: »

One day in Shanghai on east nanjing road i was approached
by these two chinese babes asking me to go for a drink with them so i just went along out of curiosity.

Curiousity, sure, we believe you!

CliffHuxtabel

faceman wrote: »

Curiousity, sure, we believe you!

:D:o

Fighting Irish

johnnyboy4711 wrote: »

When the Olympics role around all the stupid foreigners will be like shooting fish in barrel to these Scam artists unless something is done.

johnnyboy4711

fixed

presuki

When I was in Shanghai last year I got many of the usual tea-house scam attempts (not only Shanghai, by the way, Beijing, Xi'an, etc. too!) but luckily I had read about them before going.

Another scam attempt went as follows:

I was approached outside the [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Shanghai Museum in People's Square by an attractive young Chinese girl. The reason I didn't suspect anything [/FONT]at first was because we talked for a good 15 minutes without any mention of dodgyness.

Eventually she asked if I had seen an acrobatics show yet, I wanted to so I said I'd like to.

To cut a long story short, she wanted me to go that evening & was asking me to go with her to a ticket office she knew to buy tickets. It wasn't at the theatre where the show was on so I decided it didn't seem kosher.

I'm not 100% sure it was a scam, but pretty confident. If anyone comes across something similar use caution.

macman2010

I was thinking of stopping off in hong Kong on my way to Oz for honeymoon but after hearing these stories i might rethink my itiniary.
Is hong Kong the same??

presuki

Hong Kong is very different than mainland China. I didn't get any hassle there apart from people wanting to sell me electronics or make me a suit.

Hong Kong is a beautiful place, I would recommend it to anyone as a good introduction to Asia because it blends Western and Asian cultures quite well I think.

Priapus

macman2010 wrote: »

I was thinking of stopping off in hong Kong on my way to Oz for honeymoon but after hearing these stories i might rethink my itiniary.
Is hong Kong the same??

Hong Kong is great. I totally recommend you stop there. The Indian blokes wore me down with their "Nice suit???" every few yards over one particular strip. But they are not scamming as such. One time I was looking for a particular address and an Indian guy was following me around getting in my way, I'd go to turn around and he'd be there. I got so annoyed I grabbed his arms and moved him out of my way. I would never do that normally. They really are harmless, and HK is quite safe.

I would totally recommend a visit there.

Also, Beijing. I spent a month there and friggin loved it. Also met a girl and you know how that goes. It's easy to do over there. I was approched numerous times for the tea scam. "Oh you speak nice English, I like speak with you" . I told them to keep practicing and kept walking. Also it really is mad how a little aggro goes a long way over there.

I was also approached by an illegal taxi guy at the Summer Palace. When he asked me if I wanted a lift I pointed to his car and laughed in his face (really you'd want to see the state of him and his car). The other taxi drivers were laughing their asses off that the foreigner told him to p*** off. He lost face.

Overall I felt ultra safe over there and can't wait to go back!