The Scam Is Always Friendly

You are standing at the edge of a vast square in a foreign capital, trying to make a paper map agree with the palace gates in front of you.

Two students come over. Neat, shy, apologetic. Their English is good and they want it to be better. Would you mind talking for a few minutes?

You do not mind. It turns into the best conversation of the trip.

They ask where you are from. They laugh at your jokes. They know a tea house round the corner, a proper one, nothing like the places in the guidebook. There is a ceremony. You should see it before you fly home.

Upstairs is a small room with no window. A woman in silk pours tea into cups the size of thimbles. Six varieties. A plate of dried fruit. A seventh tea. Nobody mentions a price, and asking would feel crude.

Then the folder arrives. Leather, closed, placed in front of you.

Eighteen hundred dollars.

The students look embarrassed. They offer to split it, and somehow they cannot quite cover their share. A large man is standing by the door. He was not there when you came in.

You pay.

Nobody threatened you out loud. Nobody raised a voice. You paid because the afternoon had been so warm that arguing felt like the rude thing to do.

The tea house scam has run in squares like that one for years, and it keeps working because every part of it is pleasant.

A threat makes you guard your wallet. Kindness gets you to open it.

THE SAME HANDFUL OF SCRIPTS

Street scams abroad run on a short list of scripts. The cities change. The scripts barely do.

There is the helper at the metro ticket machine. You are fighting a screen in a foreign language with a line building behind you, and a man steps in, presses the buttons for you, and watches your PIN go in. A minute later your card is gone too.

There is the man outside the palace in Bangkok who tells you, kindly, that it is closed today for a ceremony. He knows a temple you will like more, and a tuk-tuk driver who will take you for almost nothing. The ride ends at a jewellery shop, a government export scheme that finishes today, and gems shipped straight to your home address, so you cannot get them valued until you are home and the money is gone.

There is the woman by the river in Paris who bends down, picks up a gold ring and asks if it is yours. It is not. She does not want it either. She would let you have it for a little cash, since it is surely worth far more. It is brass. The gold ring scam still finds buyers every summer.

Kind, Never Easy

Each week, one practical piece on reading people, risk and money, written for men who would rather see it coming.

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There is the string bracelet, tied round your wrist on the steps below a famous church before you have said a word, and then the demand to be paid for it.

There is the friendly drink in Istanbul or Budapest. Two locals, a bar they recommend, a round you did not order, and a bill in four figures with a doorman to make sure you settle it.

There is the taxi with the broken meter, and a fare that only gets named once you are moving.

And there is the stain. Somebody points at your shoulder, produces tissues and helps you clean it off, while a second pair of hands goes through your pockets.