Bellcore's Guestbook

Date: 7th May 2011

They just got me!
..... same scam in Beijing

From Blog: The Beijing Tea Scam

Date: 26th April 2011

Tea scammed
I wish i had read your blog earlier. I fell for the scam too and ended up paying $1000 yuan for some tea that i didn't care about. This tea scam warning should be on every travel blog and related travel sites. We should never fall prey again!

From Blog: The Beijing Tea Scam

Date: 26th January 2011

Scam? not sure!
I was walking wangfujing area and two friendly ladies approach from behind asking if I speak English...I nodded and the conversation starts. We walked together and introduce themselves as visitors from Shandong province. After a couple of introductions, I asked them where were they going at that time and they said that they wanted to check some bar in the area and invited me. I was reluctant at first because I only wanted to see the area and not have a drink with two total strangers which oddly enough invites a guy and drinks with them. The older lady was even so kind to asked me what was my purpose at wangfujing and even let me do my shopping at the Nike Store in the area while they went to a nearby bookstore and even give her number and asked me to call her once I finished my shopping. To make the story short we met after 20 minutes and went to a Karaoke bar at the second floor of a small shop in front of the food stalls and I ordered coffee, the older lady ordered tea, the younger lady ordered juice...we sang and danced and ordered beers. After 3 hours the bill came out and it was 1170 RMB. I took out 400RMB and they asked me if I have credit card and I said no. So we ended up splitting the tab 3ways. We went out on separate ways and as I was waiting for a taxi, the younger Chinese called out from a taxi and I joined her in the cab and as it turned out we live almost at the same area. She gave me her number and I invited her for a lunch the following day and I said I wanted to see the Confucius Temple after lunch and she said yes. We did see each other the following day and went out. We went to the Confucius Temple, the next day to CCTV tower then Old Beijing. The next day she came with me to see the great wall. Honestly it was the best thing that happened to me while in Beijing and I'm back in my country now but we still have communications and she even invited me to Shandong. So what was it? Scam or not? But for what its worth, I should say XIE XIE for talking to the two wonderful Chinese ladies at Wangfujing otherwise i have never met someone very special to me now.

From Blog: The Beijing Tea Scam

Date: 8th December 2010


same shit

From Blog: The Beijing Tea Scam

Date: 15th October 2010

feel so dumb!
I arrived in Beijing a few hours ago and headed off to Tian'anmen square area to just explore a little... I can pretty much copy and paste your story!

From Blog: The Beijing Tea Scam

Date: 1st August 2010

Im a sucka too
Similar thing happened to me today. Was in Tienanmen Sq around 11am, a girl approached me asking to "hang out" cause she so rarely gets to speak English, her being from a small southern city in China and here on vacation. I obliged because I was obviously blind and couldn't see any trouble in that. We walked Tienanmen for about 15 minutes and she helped me take pics of my trip. As I was on my way to The Forbidden City we could see that it was packed at the south entrance so she suggested that we take the east entrance. While walking to the east she mentioned that she was "tired" and would like to sit and have a drink while we exchange email addresses. Once again I saw no harm in this. We passed a couple little places to drink until we came to a place that she pointed out as serving coffee, tea and beer. We entered, they sat us down in a private room where we would have a traditional Chinese tea tasting, or something like that. I had already been to one of these earlier on a tour, however she said she hadn't and insisted we try it. Anyways, we had sampled about 9 different teas and I finally said I had to go, we had spent the good part of an hour in this room and it was time to go. The bill came and it was a whopping 1200 Yuan!! For 18 tea samples!!! Samples!! Apparently it was 50 yuan a normal sample and 100 for their special samples. I converted this to Canadian and realized they were charging me around $200 for tea sampling. I made a fuss, and at one point realized this must have been a scam but didn't act on it. I was in a corner and had little cash on me so I had to throw my credit card down (This is another worry, I would cancel it but still need it for the rest of my trip). She offered to pay the little she had, but being from a "small southern China town" I didn't want to bankrupt the girl while she was here. The rest of the day I ran it over and over through my head, wondering if she was really part of the scam. I came to know that she was when I was leaving The Forbidden City and had a couple approach me with a similar story (young couple from a southern China town looking to speak English with someone). I spoke to them for about 10 minutes on the way out of The City, then they asked what I was doing. More skeptical by this time, I told them I was headed back to my hotel for a little bit to eat. They suggested I join them for a drink, "Maybe tea" one of them said. "No, thanks!", I replied. But "You dirty bastards" was what I was thinking. They left, and I watched as they entered the gates to go back in. Not once, not twice, but thrice. On my way to the subway station at Tienanmen East I was approached again, this time by two lovely ladies with the same story and a similar idea of where I should be taking them. This time I was not so friendly and asked them if they were part of a scam. I couldn't get to belligerent on the Beijing sidewalks but I made it known to them that I thought they were doing something filthy with themselves and left for the subway. Hopefully other travelers can read these blogs and not lose out on a couple hundred bucks and a cheerful smile. Matt

From Blog: The Beijing Tea Scam

Date: 4th June 2010

UH!!!!
This just happened to us today.

From Blog: The Beijing Tea Scam

Date: 28th April 2010

What a Mug !
I had an interesting experience yesterday. In hindsight, it was ironic that I had spent the morning at the China Police Museum. What a lovely, cuddly bunch of Dixon of Dock Green types the police must be over here ! Anyway after the museum I was strolling through QianMen Dajie ( one of the main shopping districts, tarted up in Qing Dynasty style ) when I fell hook, line and sinker for the Beijing Tea scam. "Hello, where are you from? " asked a female voice behind me. Turinng round, I spied a smiling attractive girl in her mid 20s. " Are you here on holiday ? " Normally I politely say a few words back and move on, but before I knew it, we were chatting quite freely. Was it because she was attractive, spoke excellent English and had a friendly face ? Of course it was but after a few minutes she introduced me to her "brother" who had been shadowing us a few feet behind us. He also spoke good English and said they were from Xian but on holiday in Beijing for a week. I've been coming to China for over 10 years and have in my time done a fair bit of travelling, and so I like to think I am reasonably street wise but nothing this friendly couple said or did aroused any suspicion. We wandered down the main drag and then deftly the brother steered me down a side street and then another. I still had some time to kill before I had to be back at the flat for lunch and so spotting a tea house I said I fancied a cup of coffee and would they like to join me for some tea. By this time, I was doing their work for them. I bet they could hardly believe their luck. We went into a tea house that I thought I had chosen. It was very small but we were offered a room upstairs as there was more room there. We were ushered into a private room as it turned out with just enough space for the three of us. The waitress came over and handed a menu to the Chinese guy. I said I ust wanted a coffee but they could order whatever they wanted. I didn't even look at the menu - it didn't occur to me that the tea would cost more than a few yuan. If I gave it any thought I assumed it would certainly cost less than my coffee which I had noticed on a board outside was priced at 23 RMB ( not an unsual price in Beijing for coffee - just over 2 Pounds Sterling ) The waitress bought us a pot of tea and some dainty tea cups, including one for me even though I was having the coffee. The tea was good and a bit unusual, but despite comments from the couple praising its quality,it didn't seem anything special to my untrained taste buds ( as far as tea goes anyway ) As we sipped on tea and intermittenlty on my coffee, we chatted about this and that. I told them my wife was Chinese and we were here in Beijing with my little boy and how we had been stranded here for the past week because of the volcanic eruptions in Iceland unable to fly home. I showed some photos from my digital camera from our trip and they told me about themselves. He claimed to be some kind of IT consultant and the girl was still studying, English and Accountancy apparently. We were getting on really well and I wanted to take a photo of my new friends. I raised my camera to take a photo - " No photos please - I am a Buddhist and it is against my religion " Hmm, that's a bit odd I thought but I respected his wishes. After a while, I said I had to leave and so I caught the attention of the waitress and said " 服务员，买单" ( Waitress, I want to pay the Bill ) It was duely presented to me but at first I couldn't read the hand-written receipt. I saw the number 650 but there didn't seem to be a decimal point after the 5. I enquired further and the waitress told me the amount was 650 RMB as if this was a perfectly natural amount for a coffee and a couple of cups of tea. If you have not been to China before I cannot overstress what an outrageous amount this was. For 650 RMB you could host a banquet for 10 people in a nice restaurant and still have change. I was in shock and confused. I wasn't even sure I had that much money with me but at the same time I couldn't believe I had been such a mug. Was this teahouse just a front for fleecing foreigners, were my 2 acquaintances in on the scam. Surely not, but when I mentioned I might not have enough money my Chinese "friend" helpfully pointed out that I could probably pay my credit card. Rather then kicking up the mother of all rows though I found 700RMB in various pockets and meekly paid up. I had fallen into the typical Chinese situation of not wanting to lose face. Afterall it was me who had offered to take them for a tea not them suggesting it to me. I had even chosen the tea shop myself or had I ? In a daze, we left the tea house and Chen and Yan accompanied me to the metro. I had been well and truely done up like a kipper but I still couldn't quite believe that my 2 companions had been involved. I wasn't sure whether to tell my wife what had happened because I felt such a fool. However by the time I caught up with her later in the afternoon, the shiock had worn off and I was determined to go back to Qian Men to try to confront this swindling couple as I was sure they would be repeating the scam on some other hapless tourist. I decided to tell my wife the story and although she was initially less then impressed by my naive behaviour, she agreed to come back with me. I didn't have much of a strategy other than to find the couple, take a photo of them and threaten to report them to the Police unless they reimbursed me for the cost of the tea. I wasn't confident though that a) we would find them b) I would get my money back. After all, apart from me being stupid, had a crime even been committed or at least had a provable crime been committed. A quick call to the Police explaining the situation, confirmed that there was little we could do. I would just have to swallow my pride and put the whole incident down to experience. Even so, for want of anything better to do that afternoon, we took the metro back to Qian Men, wondering along the way if the scam was operated by some mafia type criminals who it might be dangerous to confront. At Qian Men, I scoured the crowds for signs of the dirty rotten scroundels who had tricked me. I was looking out for the distinctive baseball cap worn by the girl but not surprisingly they were no-where to be seen. We then decided to return to the scene of the crime, the most expensive Tea House in China. After a couple of false starts, I eventually found it down a rather dingy looking side street. I took a photo of the tea house from outside and as I did so the manager stepped out to see what we were doing. He had not been there earlier but the 2 waitresses on duty at the time were still there. We went in and started our complaint, not even sure what outcome we were after. We demanded to see the receipt for our bill ( I had not asked for it at the time ) and for my wife's benefit the menu, which did state quite clearly that the pot of tea we had ordered was for 450 RMB. The rest of the bill was for hire of the private room I had supposedly requested, my coffee and some non-descript nibbles they had presented with the tea. Our case seemed pretty weak though as the menu did clearly list the price for the tea at least. I knew this already because I had asked to see the menu when first presented with the bill. My wife was firm but calm, and basically said that they had cheated us and that the other couple was probably in on the scam. I added that I would hang outside their tea house for the rest of the week warning customers away and that I would go straight to the Police if I caught Chen and Yan luring anyone else to the tea house. This was an empty threat as I had no intention of doing so but then suddenly the manager completely caved in and offered to repay 43RMB of my bill ! I was almost as shocked as when I had first been presented with the bill. What do you mean he wants to pay back 430RMB, I asked my wife. That is an admission of his guilt and it was the last thing I expected to hear. I had spent more time haggling over the cost of a T-shirt at the Silk Market and now after 5 minutes the Manager was offering to pay back 430RMB just like that. We decided to take the money. Perhaps we should have argued for a full refund and we may well have got it, but at that stage I felt face had been restored and I was happy to leave. I still ended up paying 200RMB for a cup of coffee and some tea, but actually I had paid 200RMB for a lesson in how not to be a mug. I really resent that this experience has probably left me less trusting and more suspicous of people, but in the big scheme of things this one unsavourary experience does dent the overall positive impression I have of China and the Chinese people.

From Blog: The Beijing Tea Scam

Date: 21st April 2010

To Continue
So the question I have do the police know or are they turning a blind eye? These same two con artists (who change their names) and their friends are doing nothing to enhance apparently numerous visitors stays in Beijing.

From Blog: The Beijing Tea Scam

Date: 20th March 2010


amazing- I got taken in with exactly the same scam today. everyone- please just watch out

From Blog: The Beijing Tea Scam

Date: 26th December 2009

same story here!!!!
I think telling my story will work to dissipate my emotions. I cannnot tell how fun I have had reading these stories. I have to say I was scammed today too!!!! I had already know about this going on in Shanghai but I turned them down there... today while I was visiting Tienanmen two girls approached me, one of them was "japanese" so my scam radar was turned off. Anyway, they both lured me to a Tea House, which I thought it was OK because it was cold. After tasting 10 different teas (all very nice, won't complain about it, not about the ceremony... my hostess was quite hot by the way) they wanted to charge me 1270 RMB... are you f**** crazy? tea is not that expensive even in the US, I said. They asked me first to pay half and after that one third... I got only 85 RMB with me fortunately so I gave them to them... US$10 seemed reasonable for the fun but still, all the way to the hostel I felt so stupid and naive. After reading some stories I feel a bit better and actually laughing about it...

From Blog: The Beijing Tea Scam

Date: 17th December 2009


I was in Beijing just last weekend and the exact same thing happened to two of my friends in the exact same part of the city! My two girl friends and I went shopping at Silk Street and my two guy friends decided to hop on the subway and then got off to look around Tiananmen Square. I got sick of shopping and so I went to go find my guy friends. Then they told me about the scam. It literally cost them all of the money they had left for the entire trip, and this all happened within twelve hours of getting off the train from Xi'an to Beijing! So any westerner, especially any English-speaking westerners, should never go to tea with random Chinese girls they've just met, ESPECIALLY around the Tiananmen Square area.

From Blog: The Beijing Tea Scam