I am a complete idiot.Have you ever been scammed?

Jinonatron · 05-06-2014 10:29AM #1

Have you guys ever been scammed? Normally I think I am pretty street smart but got fleeced to the tune of 94€ by a Beijing Taxi Driver last night and I am raging now.

I took a taxi home and the cost came to 190 RMB. That should have been the first warning sign but as I was in the Taxi quite a long time thought maybe it was ok. I paid with 2x100 notes.

Grand and as I am getting out the driver is complaining that they are fake and I look at them and they definitely are. I give him two more. Same thing. Then I do it again. And again. 4 times. I noticed on the last time he was swapping the notes. Now I was not so drunk just had 2-3 beers but I feel stupid and naive. I took the money from the back 3 hours earlier ffs! And to fall for the same trick over and overso makes me feel thick. This happen to anyone else before? Now I have 800 fake RMB in my wallet!

Whats worse is I have even seen this trick on the TV. But when a guy is shouting Chinese at you things seem a bit less clear.

fl4pj4ck · 05-06-2014 10:31AM

Barbra Streisand

Birneybau · 05-06-2014 10:33AM

How much is that worth though? Can't be @rsed working it out myself.

4zn76tysfajdxp · 05-06-2014 10:34AM

The same thing used to happen to me all the time, OP. But then I decided to carry these magic beans with me in my pocket all the time and I haven't been scammed since! I have more if you'd like to buy some.

The Master · 05-06-2014 10:34AM

Jinonatron wrote: »

Then I do it again. And again. 4 times.

Once is a scam, 4 times is just your own stupidity

danniemcq · 05-06-2014 10:39AM

back in the day when i was horribly short on cash and needed to pay the ESB i took a job as a kinda door to door salesman except we went to businesses and stuff instead of houses.

I won't go into details but on my third day I was in Dublin with another new guy and we ended up in a pub selling Disney toys to the ones in there, all was grand and we came away with 60 or 70 quids worth of stuff sold.

It was only after we left and got into the daylight again that we realised they were dud notes. Really good quality but duds none the less.

Unsure of what to do we rang the manager and were told to find some old fashioned shop with some old woman in there and swap them for change in there.

Me and the other lad looked at eachother and took the hit ourselves. Wasn't gonna pass the buck on this one.

Sadly that 30 quid or whatever would have been enough to pay off the bill so I had to go out the next day again but once I hit the target I packed up my stuff and sat by a river in Limerick watching the paddys day parade had a pint, ripped the tenners up into pieces and threw it in a bin.

danniemcq · 05-06-2014 10:39AM

Oh and a mate in Spain kept falling for those 3 card monty games.

EVERY FECKING TIME

stimpson · 05-06-2014 10:39AM

If you got a taxi from Beijing to Ireland for less than €100 you're doing well. I hope you tipped him.

danniemcq · 05-06-2014 10:43AM

stimpson wrote: »

If you got a taxi from Beijing to Ireland for less than €100 you're doing well. I hope you tipped him.

€94 by the looks of it

PizzamanIRL · 05-06-2014 10:58AM

Wow. That thread title suits perfectly

Donkey Oaty · 05-06-2014 10:58AM

It happens frequently enough to warrant this advice in Tripadvisor's general Beijing taxi guide (my highlighting):

Insist the driver drops you off at the main entrance of the hotel and not on the street. Most hotels have entrance security cameras capturing all taxis' numbers, if not staff as well. Cheats will try to drop you off on the street to avoid being detected and have been known to switch fake bills for the real ones you give them and then demand another bill. Some people have reportedly parted with numerous bills before one was accepted, thus ending up with a pocketful of returned fakes!

Jinonatron · 05-06-2014 11:18AM

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

It happens frequently enough to warrant this advice in Tripadvisor's general Beijing taxi guide (my highlighting):

That description on trip advisor is text book my situation!

Caliden · 05-06-2014 11:34AM

danniemcq wrote: »

Oh and a mate in Spain kept falling for those 3 card monty games.

EVERY FECKING TIME

The trick with those is you pick 2 cards and say "it's not these 2!" then see how he reacts.

whiskeyman · 05-06-2014 11:35AM

A great bunch of taxi drivers...

josip · 05-06-2014 11:36AM

Similar thing happened me in Rome years ago.
Driver had paper over the meter hiding an extra 100000000 Lira.
Then when I paid, he swapped the notes for a smaller denomination.
When you've got 14 zeroes in a note, it was easy to lose track.
So I paid 4 times more for the fare than I should have.

Pumpkinseeds · 05-06-2014 11:38AM

A guy on a crutch called to my house an hour ago. He seems to have forgotten that he called about this time last year, on a crutch selling the same story about opening a business locally. Now I don't know exactly what that business is as I stopped him at the same point in his story this morning as I did last year. He must be fooling some people or he probably wouldn't still be at it.

Sunny Dayz · 05-06-2014 11:39AM

That taxi scam is a regular one right across the globe.

You should watch a program that does be on Discovery sometimes called Scam City - it's brilliant.

Sunnyisland · 05-06-2014 11:44AM

This was me being an idiot,

In portugal years ago when they were still using the Escudo,in which 1000 escudos was equal to about four Irish punts at the time, Anyway I gave in a 10,000, escudo note for a cup of tea and told them to keep the change,In fairness the waiter kept saying are you sure,are you sure, big spender me said ya no problem, it was only a short while later that I realised I paid 40 odd punts for a 2 punt cup of tea, ah well we live and learn.

trey99 · 05-06-2014 11:59AM

I laugh at things like this, people that get scammed these days are seriously in need of a head check, there is so much info and knowledge about scamming that it is on tv it is all over the net, you can't miss not being educated in it. And these emails people get and they get scammed?? Oh i am a foreign prince and my familys fortune is not safe here please give me your bank details to post the millions to your account. Pfffft

Riamfada · 05-06-2014 12:01PM

I was scammed by a head case once who was setting up businesses and conning people to do work for him gratis.

brian plank · 05-06-2014 12:09PM

wait a minute... that's not the wallet inspector

Chancer3001 · 05-06-2014 12:12PM

trey99 wrote: »

, you can't miss not being educated in it.

Dat Gud English.

danniemcq · 05-06-2014 12:15PM

trey99 wrote: »

I laugh at things like this, people that get scammed these days are seriously in need of a head check, there is so much info and knowledge about scamming that it is on tv it is all over the net, you can't miss not being educated in it. And these emails people get and they get scammed?? Oh i am a foreign prince and my familys fortune is not safe here please give me your bank details to post the millions to your account. Pfffft

The thing is people like those scammers send out MILLIONS of emails to try and get someone,

The cost of all these emails is minimal and all you need is one person really and you have made your money back.

Take the computer "helpdesk" calls. People here might know a lot about computers and all that but think of parents or grandparents who call the computer "the internet box" or something. These calls are aimed at them and they are effective. Even if you knew something about a computer seeing the below image would be enough for most people to think something was wrong

http://cdn.blog.malwarebytes.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/eventviewer.png

This is the screen you get when you type eventvwr into run. How many people know that this exists? And look at all those warnings and errors, I mean there HAS to be something wrong with my PC.

And they don't give up, I have been on the phone with these people and wanted to see just how things went and they are damn persuasive when it comes down to it, even when i challenged them to the fact that they were chatting out their arse.

michellie · 05-06-2014 12:17PM

You're a big ejit OP!

Fighting Irish · 05-06-2014 01:01PM

Scammers love people like you

I am pie · 05-06-2014 01:49PM

Taxi Driver in Istanbul, I knew the scam he was pulling (the old trick to do with the similarity between a small value banknote and a bigger value note looking very similar, insisting I gave him 10 and not 100 etc), started arguing with him and he got fairly threatening and noisy. Was with he missus who got a bit upset so went along with it. Probably lost about 30 quid and a bit of pride but my OH was happy to be out of the cab.

buck65 · 05-06-2014 01:56PM

I scammed a taxi driver in New York once. He brought us across Manhattan but for some unknown reason started abusing myself and my wife about God knows what - he was speaking Russian I think. I said to myself bugger this so we got out of the cab and he drove off roaring out the window without asking for a fare!

We were a block away from our hotel.

Kaycee2 · 05-06-2014 02:15PM

Yeah i've been scammed but not for much.

Bought a 'big issue' which was actually a free events guide off a fella one night in Dublin, in fairness i was a bit tipsy and it only cost a few euro and a couple of Panadol.

whiskeyman · 05-06-2014 02:15PM

I got scammed big time last night.
Popped out to the shop for a pint of milk.
When I came home and opened the bag.... no milk but a laptop!

jacko · 05-06-2014 02:21PM

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." —President George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

Chip Whitley · 05-06-2014 02:24PM

I wouldn't like to think of myself as an idiot per se

:o:o, more naive than anything else, but I was done twice in Rome a few years back. Was literally just off the train from the airport into the main hub of Rome, took the first cab that seemed to have a nice aul fella leaning against it. He didn't have English (that I knew of) so I showed him my hotel address, he indicates he doesn't know where it is... goes and asks a fellow driver, comes back, says get in and we get there eventually for about €34.

The day we leave Rome the hotel books us a cab to get us back to same train station... €16. Reckon I was done.

I also got scammed out of €5 by those chancers who hang around the Colosseum dressed like Roman Centurions. Posed for a picture and went to walk away, he starts shouting that he's not there for free and that I had to pay. I told him to fcuk off, he should have said that before offering to take a pic. He starts following me with one of his mates and then my missus started panicking so I threw a fiver at him and told him it was all I had.

Oh yeah, I also got fined €25 for getting on the train with the wrong ticket. Ignorant conductor was ignorant.

My one little victory or so I thought over there was haggling one of the vendors selling a miniature Colosseum down to €20 from his asking price of €50. :cool: I didn't even want it really and was even more sick when I saw the exact same models for sale for €18 in the shop near the hotel. :pac:

I literally did no research before I went over there which is my own fault, but had been to Milan, Barcelona and Munich before that and encountered no problems.

I am a complete idiot.Have you ever been scammed?

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