25 Tourist Scams You Should Watch Out For This Summer

[GreatGazoo]

4. many tourist scams are as old as europe

the shell game is documented to have been going on during the Roman empire and conquests. They literally used shells from chestnuts -- 3 shells, just point to the one with the pea under it and you get paid.

2000 years later, the shell game was run in NYC on Canal St and other high tourist areas. In the mid-1990s they would use cardboard boxes for a table and work in rings of 5 to 12 people -- lookouts, confederates who seem to be playing the game and winning, the dealer and maybe a pickpocket or two. Tourists would watch and pretty soon the dealer would point to the tourists to guess which bottle cap the pea is under...

Tourists are targets because they are tired, they carrying cash and language challenges can make it difficult for them to enlist help or deal with local police. I found one YouTube channel where the guy is collecting footage of the shell game scam from around the world.