Beijing Travel Forum

Has anyone else out there been hit by the Beijing Tea Scam- students pretending to want to practice English and taking you to various tea houses where the merchants then charge approx. $500 to your credit card for a round of tea? Any advice on dealing with your credit card company in the aftermath?

I have been wondering about that scam. If I go with anyone I want to pick the place and pay up front with cash (I will only go to a place that I can pay up front). Do you think that will keep me out of trouble?

My wife and I encountered similar scam in Macau involving an independent limo shuttle driver. Yes. Choosing your own place should be safe enough. The establishment are always in cahoots with the scammers.

we encountered a scam like this frequently in beijing. espcially in the forbidden city area. except they were art students wanting to "show you paintings". i quickly realized it was a scam, and pretended i could only speak spanish with everyone else pulling the scam. why not just tell your credit card that it was an unauthorized charge.

-pj

* "American Express Global Customer Service, how can I help you?"
$ "Hi, I'm in Peking, Chai-na and just spent 500 US dollars on a pot of tea."
* "One moment, please" (places customer on hold) "Hey John, sounds like I got another one of those tea scam victims in Beijing, ha ha! You wanna talk to her?"
# "Oh yeah? How much this time?"
* "Uh, ... four thousand yuan!"
# "Jeezus, Lord have mercy! Ha ha! Yeah, lemme talk to this one"
* "Hello, I'm going to connect you now with Mr. Hancock , our international tea specialist."
$ "Your international tea..."
# "This is John Hancock speaking. I understand you bought all the tea in China. Was it jasmine or oolong? "
$ "I don't think that's very funny."
# "Listen, lady, we get these calls almost every day from people who fall for this silly teahouse scam in Beijing. Didn't you read the Lonely Planet China guide or the Confucius Beijing page on VirtualTourist.com? There are plenty of warnings about these so-called students in Wangfujing. I'm sorry we can't refund your money."
$ "So I'm stuck with this 4000 yuan charge for a pot of tea?"
# "Only one pot? Was it one of those fancy little clay kettles?"
$ "Why? Yes,..."
# "Did you get to keep it? Ha ha,... just kid-..."
$ (slams down phone in phone booth, smashing receiver)

......Shocked......
Feel Shame for those evilhearted merchants......But feel hurt at the same time while seeing the words" be VERY VERY WARY of ANYONE that comes across as too helpful or "friendly"......

It only took a 12 hour stop-over in Beijing while flying from Bangkok to Vancouver for this to (almost) happen to me. One of the first things I noticed about Beijing vendors is that they were very aggressive. In Thailand they want to close the sale too of course, but it's friendly bartering fun. In Beijing, they were WAY too pushy. While hanging around outside the Forbidden City, I was approached by an attractive and friendly girl who took it upon herself to show me the walking streets near Tiananmen Square and we were soon joined by another girlfriend of hers. They brought me to a tea house where we spent roughly 35 - 40 minutes and tried probably 10 different teas. I had warned them beforehand that I only had about 100 RMB in cash. The bill came to 2200 RMB. The girls were like: it's okay, you can use visa or debit. My visa was at the airport and fortunately my debit card chose that moment to not work. In retrospect later, it was the one time I was thankful for a failed debit card. They took me to several machines, but the magnetic strip couldn't be read. In my naivete, I wasn't fully aware at the time of the scam, but thinking about it in the taxi to the airport it dawned on me - I mean, come on: 2200 RMB? That's about $275 CA for bloody tea?

oh my god, i was in shanghai last year. i did come across a scam of ktv bar. which is supposed to be a karoake bar, but they have this scam..luckyly i didnt have a credit card with me, and i ended up paying 400yuans only. even thats expensive but i felt happy it wasnt 500$

be carefull people