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Posts Tagged ‘watering hole’

With the news that police arrested nearly an entire ludus of gladiator impersonators in Rome last week for intimidation and assault, the topic of travel scams has been getting a bit more attention.

As long as there have been travelers there have been those ready to take advantage of them. the closest that I’ve come to being rooked – as far as I know – was during a trip to Tijuana years ago. It was nothing shady, though there was plenty of that for anyone willing. It was just a cash-for-conversation scam.

A friend and I walked into a darkened watering hole (at 6th and Revolucion – an icon of the old TJ) and suddenly felt ourselves being led deeper into the building by several large Mexicans.

Lesson number one: Don’t let the doormen seat you. I was young and naive.

My travel companion and I couldn’t see a thing since coming in from the bright sun left us all temporarily blind. We were seated in complete, utter darkness and we were being steadied by our “guides.” as things came into focus, I saw we were in a bit of a predicament – we were the only people in the place, other than the workers, and they were circling.

A waitress – ahem, this was Tijuana – sat down to take our orders in a rather colorful manner. It quickly became apparent we were probably prime for being scammed. Luckily I was pretty broke and too shy to talk to anyone because we learned later that the club charged for the time the waitress sat to take your order.

Lesson number two: Don’t let them con you into buying them a drink. Evidently the prices on their drinks go way up. I didn’t, because like I said I was young, naive, and I was brought up better than that. (Thank you parents.)

Then again, I was in Tijuana.

As soon as our eyes became accustomed to the dim lighting, we assessed our situation we thought it would be a good idea to make for the door. as we walked out into the blinding sun we were sent on our way by one of the doormen with this traditional Mexican farewell: “Pfft. big spenders.”

After a rather dicey interaction with someone we’ll just call “Mr. Neck Tattoo who Didn’t like Americans,” we crossed back over into the U.S. and headed for San Diego.

While I don’t wish difficult times on anyone, I do find stories of travel scams interesting.

Here’s a list of 10 common travel scams that the Overhead Bin at MSNBC has compiled.

Have you ever been scammed on a trip?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 at 10:15 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.