Sasha: Welcome to another video. [Beeps] [Upbeat Music] Winston: Alright guys the first scam that we're going to be looking at today is what I call the daylight robbery scam and It's actually really disgusting and you're going to see in a minute exactly just how bad it is So there are these places in Beijing and well in all the big cities in China anyway where people or tourists especially are bussed in to go and buy things right, so this place Silk Street. It's very well known in Beijing as a place for people to go and buy all sorts of things like silk and Chinese knickknacks, and you know shoes and clothing and all that kind of thing, and people think that they're getting a good deal because, oh well, you're in China, and things are supposed to be cheap in China. Anyway, let's go and find out just exactly how much we're going to get overcharged for an item that we already know the price of. All right, so C-milk and I have just basically gone in and there was a helmet that I know costs 110 RMB. He went in there to ask her how much it costs. She gave him a discounted price of 999 RMB. C-milk: Not getting a deal here.
Winston: No. Ok let's rewind a little bit here. The reason we chose this helmet is because I actually own a couple of them and I've bought them before off TaoBao And it's cost me 110 RMB usually, and now as you can see as you saw from that screenshot actually only costs 105 RMB, I just looked it up now. C-milk went in there, and he negotiated and asked how much it would cost the first price that she gave him was 1088 or something like this which is ridiculous, and the final price she was willing to offer was 999. Uh, When he left she was furious, she just you know what really wasn't happy with him because he after a really low price. Anyway, we decided that I would go into a different shop selling the exact same helmet and pretend to be a really really dumb tourist and just see how much they would charge me. Grab the camera. [shing] Okay, dude ... C-milk: This is so ... you're gonna get kicked out of here Winston: Okay, first first of all it had a price tag like you said 1200.
C-milk: okay she whips out the calculator first price she gave me was 2280. Bro, You win! 2280 then, when she saw that I wasn't interested in it, then she was like, Um oh, how much you want to pay how much you want to pay, then I went down to like 1200 or something. Then went down to 800, as I was trying to push my way did you see how they were trying to force me from not leaving, they're like, they were saying "be nice, be nice" and they cornered me, they're like shoving me in there. It's ridiculous. Then she's like okay 200. Okay 150. The last price she gave me as I walked out, 150 ... from 2280 down to 150 RMB. C-milk: Of course we know that they're going to go for that price and still make a profit, but nobody's gonna ask that here. C-milk: Yeah, that's pretty hilarious, good find. Winston: Yeah guys don't .. if you gotta come shop in a place like this, be a little bit informed. [Don't] Yeah, just don't actually. Be informed otherwise you're going to get ripped off. Right guys, the next scam we're going to talk about is probably the most popular scam in Beijing, and Shanghai for that matter and it's called the tea house scam. Scammer: Which country you from?
Winston: I'm from England. Scammer: England, oh, the British English? Winston: Yes, thats right. Scammer: Are you from London?
Winston: Yes, I'm from London. Good guess. Yes. How about you? Where are you from? Scammer: From the Xi'an. You Know?
Winston: Oh yeah, I heard about that. Scammer: From Western China.
Other: Terracotta army. Scammer: Yeah, yeah, terracotta army, our history. Winston: That sounds very interesting.
Scammer: What's your plan right now?
Winston: I just want to take some pictures here, and then no plans. Scammer: Oh very awesome, take the photo. Winston: Yeah, yeah, okay.
Scammer: [unintelligible] Scammer: somewhere for the juice, some drink.
Winston: Oh, you want to find some drink, yeah.
Scammer: Finish your bottle and want to go there? Alright, sounds good. Is there good places to have a drink? Scammer: [unintelligible] together.
Winston: Oh, that's that's okay. I think I have to meet a friend much later, so maybe don't have time. Scammer: After the bottle my friend is about 10 minutes near back here.
Winston: Really.
Scammer: Now yes, the juice and coffee. You'd love to come. Winston: You have coffee here? That's nice haven't had coffee today yet.
Scammer: We'll go have coffee! Winston: Oh, that's that's okay. Like I said, I'm a little busy. I'm just going to take some photos see, that's why I have my camera, but thank you. Thank you very much, bye-bye. Fail! Alright so since since they failed at their scams see, they're now currently walking back to the Subway like well, not the subway, but the entrance so let me get them those 2. So I didn't go along with them. So now they're heading back to see if then can spot another gullible looking tourist. Yeah, that's ... that's exactly how these scams happen. Right, so there it is guys. You will be approached by people speaking English which is first of all very rare. You don't get Chinese people that just speak such good English randomly approaching you on the street. It normally doesn't happen. And especially these women, they're middle-aged and that sort of age group they don't speak English at all in China. So the younger people usually do. Usually actually it's younger women that will approach tourists or people they think are tourists like myself, but I was approached by two fairly ugly middle-aged women here. But doesn't seem to matter, their whole MO is this. They're going to approach you, they say they're also tourists, they're also busy walking around and they usually try to chat to you about your hometown or something make you feel a little more comfortable and The whole idea is to get you into their friend's teahouse or the tea house they work for, It's either a tea house or a coffee shop or a restaurant or a KTV or whatever and once you're inside, and you've ordered something to drink that's when they nail you like there'll be some catch, it'll be something like, the drink that you ordered says 20 RMB on the menu but it's 20 RMB per sip, or some such thing, or they'll open a bottle and say it's a really expensive bottle of wine or whiskey or something and and try to charge you 10,000 RMB. I've got videos about this on my channel so you can go and look at them. I'll leave the links in the description below, so you can hear more about this scam in detail. But either way warning bells if they come to you and start talking English to you and if they start talking about going anywhere, just, just ignore them. Like seriously, that's what they do. That's their job. They hang around the tourist places to do this. So, be warned. This is a really bad scam and it can really end you up in a lot of trouble. As you can see by following the links below. Now that being said, I don't want you to be put off being friendly to local people because as you can see in this little time-lapse, C-milk and myself when we went there on a different day, we're approached by tons of Chinese tourists who just come to see the the Tiananmen Square, and they wanted to take photos with us. But I'm going to tell you that none of those people taking photos with us in that time lapse could speak English they all came up and just kind of gestured that they wanted to take photos or spoke Chinese to us. We can understand Chinese. None of them asked us. I started a conversation, and you know wanted to go anywhere with us or anything like that. So yes, you can feel free to take photos with locals and not everybody who approaches you is going to be a scammer. But it's those ones that approach you and start talking to you, and in depth and asking what you're doing, and how long you've been in China, and that kind of thing. Those are the ones that you should definitely avoid. Winston: This is the first first time to ever come to China. We both came here yesterday.
Scammer: Welcome. I hope you nice time. Winston: Thank you.
Scammer: You are from which state?
C-milk: New York.
Scammer: Oh, city or state?
C-Milk: Just state. Scammer: I'm from Xi'an, you know terracotta army.
Winston: Yeah, I heard about that.
C-milk: Nice great. Great place. Sure.
Winston: That's super cool. Right guys, now that clip you've just seen was the next scam we're going to talk about. But before we talk about it I want you to notice the the similarities in the conversation that he had. He asked where we're from and he said he was Fred from Xian you know the place of the Terracotta warriors. Which is the exact same place those two women had told me the day before. And I can tell you this much, they certainly didn't look like they came from Xi'an and neither did he to be honest. And I think this is just a point of conversation they bring up because they know most foreigners know about the Terracotta warriors in Xi'an. Anyway, this scam was an art-gallery scam. Which is something very similar you'll get, usually young people saying they're art students and they want you to come and take a look at their little art exhibition or come and look at their art gallery something like that. And they will take you into some little room or some small little art gallery and try to sell you, you know, really cheap reproduction prints for a lot of money something that should only cost about ￥20 RMB, they tried to sell for like ￥300,000 ； ￥400,000 RMB, and they will also like give you a free gift and then make you feel guilty and if you kind of try to back out of the deal, they'll they'll kind of bring lots of people in there and kind of put the pressure on you and all that. So once again, just if anyone's trying to invite you anywhere, just kind of you know, if anyone's coming in speaking to you at length in English, kind of trying, to you know, talk to you a lot. You know that it's a problem. Now there is one more scam I'd like to tell you all about and I didn't get any footage, hence me sitting in front of the camera now, and that is the Rickshaw scam. Now picture this, you arrive at Tiananmen Square, or Temple of Heaven, or whatever place in Beijing, and someone comes up to you and hands you a little card or something with a picture of a rickshaw, and they say I would like take you around ￥150 RMB or ￥100 RMB or something. And I'll take you around the all the cool sites, and you know, the back alleys and stuff, and you think, cool great idea! That's very picturesque, that's you know very authentic, I want to sit in a rickshaw and be taken around. Don't ever, ever take one of these rickshaws, Okay? First of all: I've never heard a good thing about these rickshaws. I only constantly hear how people are scammed. And how it happens is usually, they'll target you know, sort of groups of girls or you know people that are obvious foreigners. They'll get you in the Rickshaw, they'll take you down to some Hutong. Which Hutong is kind of like an old village area, these alleyways which you'll see in my upcoming Beijing video anyway. And what they'll do is, they'll take it to a dodgy one in the middle of nowhere, they'll stop the Rickshaw, and they'll demand more money, or they'll say, Oh I Didn't mean ￥30 RMB, I meant ￥300 RMB, some sort of nonsense like this. And they'll either start to threaten you, or they'll kind of abandon you there, or they may even pull out like a meat cleaver or something, I've heard various different stories. But from actual friends of mine, not secondhand stories. And it's true, you can just google it, you'll see it's all over the place. Don't ever get in one of these guys' rickshaws. Okay? And I'll tell you what happened: C-milk, and I after this art gallery guy tried to scam us, we walked in and this rickshaw guy kept following us and just telling us random information, like what time parks close and open, you know, because he's trying to get in there with some some useful information. And we kept saying no, it's okay. We don't want to ride in your Rickshaw. It's okay. We don't need it, We don't need anything. But he kept following us following us, and he wouldn't stop talking, talking, talking, talking. Until finally, both C-milk and myself in Chinese, said in fluent Chinese: That's okay. We really don't need it, we don't have time. As he heard us speaking Chinese he shut up, he literally just shut up, turned around, and just walked away, straight away. So you can see, soon as he knew that we knew what we were talking about and that we could speak Chinese, Obviously, we're not just gullible tourists, he straightaway left. So, no rickshaws. And that pretty much covers it guys. It is all about common sense. Okay, you're traveling into a strange country don't follow strangers into strange places. Definitely don't, okay. Especially if you're at a tourist spot, all right? Literally, that's the worst thing you can do. Anywhere around Tiananmen Square, Temple of Heaven, any of those kind of places that are known for being good, or great wall, anything like that, these these big touristy areas. Don't follow strangers. Okay? And if they start coming and talking at length to you in English, and following you around and stuff you know that they're trying to scam you, okay. However, like I said be prepared to have just normal tourists wanting to take photos with you. There's nothing wrong with that, and you know, you may actually meet some genuine friends. But there is a litmus test, if someone is talking to you and you think they may be genuine, you invite them out for a coffee, or something at a place that you know. Like, maybe a Starbucks around the corner, or a place near your hotel or something. place near your hotel or something. If If they're willing to go and follow you into a place of your own choosing then they're probably okay. But don't later on go follow them into some other place. You know just go sit down have a coffee with them chat with them, maybe you'll make a friend. But guys please be careful, especially you single guys traveling alone. That's it for this video guys. That's the Beijing scams, all done. It's pretty much all of them. Sure there others are slipped through the crack. But stick around because I'll be making some more Beijing videos because I've got lots of good footage and I'll see you in the next video. Until then guys, as always, Stay awesome. [Upbeat Music] [Be AWESOME support me:
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tl;dw
Shops will try to rip you off with prices and may be aggressive if you do not buy anything (trying to not let you leave)
If random people approach you with english trying to invite you anywhere (art show, tea, coffee), there will be a catch and try to scam you.
Don't take rickshaws, they are scams. May overcharge, take you to wrong areas, or threaten you.
Anecdotes and actual footage of scams are nice in the video and worth the watch.
I remember going to Silk Street when our school went over to China for a trip. I was surprised how angry the Chinese sellers got when you see decided not to buy something - they were shouting at me loudly in Chinese (obviously) and holding onto my arm stopping me from walking away - I was 14 at the time and it shook me up quite a bit.
A better tip is just to be wary of anyone you don't know in China. It's a different culture and most people who are trying to sell you anything are probably going to try and rip you off there.
As for Rickshaws or Tut tuts, don't get in them in London either, they're a fucking rip off.
You forgot one that is pretty common. You get into a Taxi, you give them say 100RMB. When you're not looking they replace your REAL 100RMB bill with a fake bill. They put it up towards the light and tell you it's fake, demanding you give them another 100RMB bill. Do not fall for this, especially considering 100RMB bills are the highest denomination bills you can get so likely you got it from a bank or ATM machine.
Here is a video showing a "rickshaw scam": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOjP_3dvtXI
I had something very similar happen to me in Jamaica. There are scammers in all parts of the globe, don't just think that this happens only in China.
Same shit they pull in Cuba.
Haha, that time lapse. Pretty cute how they pretty much became an impromptu tourist attraction just by standing there.
Ahh Winston, I love his videos!
I can't wait for Conquering Southern China later this year.