12 TOURIST SCAMS you should WATCH OUT

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Our hardworking Insane Curiosity team has prepared a list of top 12 most common tourist scams to help you stay safe when travelling.
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12. Rose for girlfriend
If you’re travelling with your significant other, you need to watch out for the rose for girlfriend scam, which primarily targets tourist couples. The rose seller will directly approach the girl and put a rose in her hand before she can even figure out what’s going on. Once the girl grabs hold of the rose, the scammer will turn his attention to the boyfriend or husband and ask for money in exchange for the flower.
Since most guys don’t want to look like cheapskates in front for their better halves – especially not on holiday – they end up paying a price of between 5 and 10 Euros for a single rose. This scam is prevalent in almost all major European cities, but is particularly popular in romantic Italian destinations like Rome, Venice, and Florence.
11. “Helpful” locals
Most people like to get to know the local culture and meet new people when travelling to foreign countries. However, being too friendly with locals can be a double-edged sword sometimes and you can end up a victim of the “helpful” local scam. In this globally widespread scam, a smiling local will approach you and offer some kind of help or advice that usually results in you paying for something that you had no attention of spending money on in the first place. The overly friendly local will convince you to visit an overpriced restaurant or buy a fake product from them under the pretense they’re cutting you a great deal.
While you should always be polite and respectful to local people, just make sure you keep your guard up when some of them try to give you unsolicited advice. There’s no need to get into arguments – just walk away or tell them firmly you’re not interested.
10. Friendship bracelet
If you’re getting ready for a trip across Europe, this is one of the most common scams you need to know about. The friendship bracelet scam involves a pushy street vendor who approaches you and asks if you’ll help him with a “demonstration” while pulling you towards him.

He then starts to make friendship bracelet directly on your arm and before you know it – he’s done and he’s asking you to pay for that friendship bracelet he made especially for you. The bracelet is usually made in way that makes it hard to take off, so the frustrated tourist usually ends up paying in order to get the vendor to leave them alone.
9. “Closed” hotel
The closed hotel scam is a very common occurrence in places like Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and other South East Asian countries. This scam usually involves a taxi driver who informs you that the hotel or restaurant you’re looking for is closed and offers to take you to another place, which ends up costing way more.
Both the hotel or restaurant people and the taxi driver are in on the scam, and the driver gets a commission for every person he brings in. So if you a taxi driver tries to convince you that the place you want to go to has closed, don’t just accept it as a fact. Ask him to drive you there anyway, or just get out and find another taxi.
8. The broken camera
This popular scam happens to tourists all over Europe, particularly around major attractions of London and Paris such as the Buckingham Palace and the Eiffel Tower. A stranger will approach you and hand you a camera asking you to take a photo of him. After you take the photo and try to pass the camera back to him, he will fumble and drop it on the ground acting like it was your fault.
He will then blame you for breaking their camera and guilt you into paying for the damages. These scammers sometimes even threaten to call the authorities, and since the last thing tourists want is to get into trouble with the law in a foreign country, they will accept to pay for the broken camera. In order to avoid this situation, you can just politely decline to take any photos of strangers. If you accept however, do your best to handle the camera correctly and always wrap the camera strap over your wrist so that you will be able to catch it just in case.
7. Fake tickets
Virtually every tourist destination in the world is a potential scene for the fake ticket scam. In 2013, French police discovered a large-scale scam involving fake tickets for the Louvre museum in Paris sold to Chinese tourists. A similar scam also happened in Berlin around the same time involving fake tickets for the Berlin Pass – the city’s official sightseeing pass that includes free admission to the..