China Scam Count: Grifters 3, Us 4

Please don’t get me wrong. I love China.

But, over the last couple of weeks, it’s really felt as though China’s not loving me back.

It’s about the scams, really. For which China is, it appears, particularly in Beijing, Shanghai and the tourist centres, considerably worse than Thailand and at LEAST as bad as Vietnam.

There folk will barefacedly deny that the boat in front of you exists, or claim that the hotel they have delivered you to, despite all evidence to the contrary, is the one that you wanted to go to.

But I’m feeling a little shamefaced about all this, really. After almost two years in Asia, surely I should be a little smarter.

But, frankly, when to get to door of the Apple Store in Beijing you have to fight your way through a wall of guys selling fake iPhones, and when the National Museum of China has an exhibition sponsored by BVLGARI next door to one created by the Propaganda Division of the People’s Liberation Army, you realise that state capitalism makes for a million sorts of crazy

Anywise: here are some common Chinese scams I DIDN’T fall for…

FAKE ART EXHIBITIONS

It’s hard to approach the Forbidden City without being assailed by young “students” whose college is allegedly hosting an art exhibition. Should you go, you will be treated to some combination of high-pressure selling of commercial artworks, a studio entrance fee, and dinner or tea at a place with no prices on the menu, where you will be stranded with a bill for hundreds of pounds.

How to Avoid The Art Exhibition Scam: Don’t go to art exhibitions with strangers. Check the English language media for news of what’s on.

THE FAKE TICKET SCAM

Scalping is a sort of bizarre mania in mainland China, and fake ticket vendors can demonstrate the persistence and creativity that made China the size it is today.

Entire travel agencies have been set up, in some instances, just to sell expensive tours and rail tickets, and then disappear.

The guys selling “tickets” outside the waterpark in the Olympic Water Cube followed us for hundreds of metres, virtually thrusting them into our hands. So, for that matter, did the guy selling completely unnecessary swim hats.

Probably the prize for randomness, however, goes to the chap in Shanghai who insisted that we buy fake passes for an exhibition of (no kidding) Japanese marine engineering equipment. Which, obviously, we TOTALLY looked like we wanted to buy.

How to Avoid the Fake Ticket Scam: Don’t buy attraction tickets on the street: look for the formal ticket office. If you want to buy plane tickets online, go for a reputable agency like ctrip.com. Buy train tickets from a dedicated train ticket reseller, the station or your hotel.

THE TAXI SCAM

At every railway station, bus station and airport in China, we’ve been greeted at the gate by folk, often wearing official-looking badges, offering to provide us with taxis. Funnily enough, these cost two to five times as much as the metered taxis in the orderly rank outside every station.

How to Avoid the Taxi Scam: Follow the signs to the taxi queue. They are well organised and move a lot faster than you’d think.

THE BAR FIGHT SCAM

I am not sure whether bar fights are started deliberately to extort money in China, but extortion tends to follow soon after. Should you become embroiled in a bar fight as a Westerner in China, you can expect to be sued in a civil court and/or deported. For obvious reasons, this normally targets the chaps, not the girls.

How to Avoid the Bar Fight Scam: Avoid hitting on Chinese girls or hitting anyone Chinese. End of.

And here – and I must confess I am embarrassed by this – are the scams that I did fall for.

Why? Well, firstly the vast majority of Chinese people have been incredibly sweet, friendly, helpful and interested in us – more particularly, my son – which means my guard has been down.

Secondly, I’m British so, I think, concerned about being polite. And thirdly, I guess, because the rest of South-East Asia has softened me.

THE TEA SCAM

The tea scam is the absolute classic Chinese scam, probably the best known of the bunch. And, you know what? We (both of us) knew about it too. And we STILL fell for it.

The classical format goes as follows. A couple of girls who want to practice their English befriend you and invite you for tea. There are no prices on the menu. At the end of the evening, you are presented with an enormous bill (I’ve heard of them running into the hundreds of pounds) and threatened if you don’t pay.

We got grifted in Wangfujing, Beijing’s answer to Oxford Street, sitting over dumplings in a cheap restaurant in a mall, fresh from dropping thousands of yuan on a PowerBook.

Two girls fell into conversation with us – complimenting Z on his use of chopsticks – and it emerged that one was a high school history teacher. We talked about Chinese history, where she explained, quite plausibly, for example, that Empress Wu Zetian’s role has been reevaluated…

We finished our meal. They finished theirs. The “high school teacher” suggested we join them for a coffee, because she liked speaking English with English people.

Feeling guilty about turning down a meal with Martin, our guide in Songpan, and wanting to find out a bit more about schools in China, I went with them. Though as we left the mall, for an anonymous alley, I felt progressively less comfortable with every step and hugged my bag like a demon.

In the teahouse, there was a menu, with prices that were steep – equivalent to a 5* hotel – but not completely ludicrous, particularly not when you’ve just spent thousands of yuan on a computer.

As we were upgraded from the entry level unlimited pot of tea at 200 yuan to unlimited “Dragon Well” tea at 300 yuan, my mind constantly ticked over whether this was, or wasn’t, the tea scam.

At the end, I paid the bill – despite knowing that in Chinese etiquette the person who invites you pays the bill! – and left pondering whether we’d been scammed.

“Well,” said Z, when I ran it by him. “They DO say two girls looking to practise their English . . .”

Back at base, I remarked to a Dutch guy that we’d just had an extremely expensive pot of tea. “Were you on Wangfujing?” he asked. “Yeah,” I said. “That happened to me there five years ago,” he said. “Cost me about 30 euros.”

How to Avoid the Tea Scam: Don’t go for drinks or food with Chinese people unless you know them well.

THE FAKE NOTE SCAM

Buying cheap goods in China, or taking change, one needs to be on the qui vive not just for short changing but for the multifarious fake notes. So, when a chick selling People’s Liberation Army hats outside the Summer Palace in Beijing passed me a 50 so different from the ones I’d seen that it HAD to be a forgery in my change, I objected.

She gave me 100 back. Unfortunately, THAT was also transparently different from the note I’d given her. We argued for a while, Z chiming in quite heatedly, with her opening her wallet to show only notes identical to the ones she had given me, and a young kid keeping an eye open for police.

Why didn’t I call for the police? Well, firstly I wasn’t entirely sure the note was fake, because it seemed so different from the traditional Chairman Maos that it would be odd to pass it as a fake (it was, in fact, a commemorative note). Secondly, we had limited time to see the Summer Palace.

And, thirdly, because my Chinese is still pretty rubbish. And if she had turned round to the police and said that I had passed HER the fake, things might have turned very ugly indeed.

How to Avoid the Fake Note Scam: Carry enough change to pay the right sum for whatever you buy. Be very cautious if someone drops their price too easily on haggling. They’re likely to make their money back on a fake note.

THE BROKEN GOODS SCAM

Many street vendors in China source their toys from the quality testing division of factories – the ones that have failed to pass muster and should have been destroyed. Most will have one version of the real toy that works, which they use for demonstrations.

The same, of course, goes for electronics: it’s not uncommon to sell hard drives or other kit that look and weigh exactly the same as the real thing (not to mention the functional demonstration model) but are full of scrap metal instead.

How to Avoid the Broken Goods Scam: Don’t buy electronics on the street. If buying toys, insist on testing the one you buy.