Anatomy of a travel scam

Vagabonds tend to be less susceptible to travel scams than other travelers, if for no other reason than most vagabonds are on a tight budget to begin with, so unplanned expenditures are always going to set off alarm bells.

That said, no one is totally immune to being scammed. Somewhere out there is a scam with your name on it. So how can you avoid being scammed?

One way to avoid scams on the road is to learn from others, which is why this video from Vagablogging alumnus Tim Ferriss is worth watching. In it Kevin Rose (creator of Digg.com) and Glenn McElhose detail how they were scammed in Beijing (warning: there is a bit of colorful language at times, if that bothers you skip the video).

The video is a bit long, but if you skip ahead to around the 4:00 minute mark, Rose begins his story of the scam, which is perhaps fairly obvious in hindsight, but was good enough to snare Rose and McElhose at the time.

What emerges are a handful of tips for avoiding scams on the road.

Perhaps the biggest help is to know a bit of the local language; you’ll notice Ferriss knows quite a bit of Chinese while Rose and McElhose don’t seem to speak much at all.

Another point worth mentioning, if you’re ever unsure of something on the road, pay for it with a credit card. That way, even if it is a scam, you’ll have some recourse — calling the credit card company and asking them to reverse the charge. It won’t work every time, but most credit card companies are reasonably understanding about this sort of thing.

Another helpful tip is the website Ferriss mentions, Virtual Tourist, which has a section on travel warnings and scams. Obviously, not every scam is going to make it on Virtual Tourist, but it’s worth a read before you arrive somewhere new, just to see what’s out there. To find the scams, pick your destination and look for the “Warnings or Dangers” link, which will give you reports from fellow travelers.

Similar warnings can be found in Lonely Planet’s forums, Boots’n’all and even in most guidebooks (though the scams in guidebooks tend to be a bit outdated).

Another part of avoiding scams is being a savvy traveler and avoiding some of the tell-tale tourist signals that made Rose and McElhose tempting targets — avoid heavily touristed areas when possible and if you are headed to a tourist trap, don’t wear your nicest clothes and certainly don’t pull out your map in the middle of the street.

As a final thought, while yes, the odds are pretty good that you will be scammed at some point in your travels, don’t let a few scammers cloud your perception of the locals everywhere you go. Scammers are a minority, most of the people you meet in your travels are not out to get you; don’t be paranoid, just be aware.