New site wants to help you avoid travel scams

Travel scams sort of come with the territory — if you’re continually putting yourself in situations where you’re confronting the unknown, at some point someone is probably going to con you. We’ve all given in to lesser scams like over-priced cab fares, greedy tuk-tuk drivers and the like. Sometimes you do it because you’re tired, sometimes you just don’t care.

But then there are more sophisticated scams that bilk their victims out of sizable chunks of change. No one wants to fall prey to those sorts of things, but the question is how do you avoid them?

Well, one tried-and-true method is keep in mind that anything that sounds to good to be true, probably is. But how do you know a scam when you’re presented with it? And what about credit card fraud, forced bribes and other traveler woes? As they say, knowledge is half the battle and that’s where a new site by the name of Worldswirl might come in handy.

Travel writer and blogger Erik R. Trinidad is getting ready to launch, Worldswirl.com, which hopes to help spare you a scam or two. The site is currently collecting tales of travel scams big and small with the hope that, by compiling the stories in one spot, it will become an educational resource for travelers on what to avoid while abroad.

If you’ve ever been scammed while traveling and want to help others avoid making the same mistake you can submit your stories to Worldswirl. Here’s the rough guidelines:

I’m looking for narratives about the various travel scams out there, no matter how obvious you think they may be. Written contributions should detail the location of the scam, the circumstances, how it is executed and how it could be avoided.

You can send contributions as e-mail attachments (RTF or Word documents) to submit@worldswirl.com. And keep in mind that you don’t necessarily have to be an established writer to be considered. The site would like to hear from you by the end of the year if possible.