I thought the post on scammers etc was quite interesting. As some posters said they were never approached and others said they were repeatedly approached; can anyone post a %26#39;profile%26#39; that these scammers look for? Obviously they ignore someone wearing a beret and carying a baguette.
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Dont forget the scarf ! LOL
Wear a beret, scarf and carry a baguette !!!
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My husband and I plan to wear scarves, stripes shirts, berets and little slimy mustaches that we will pinch at while exchanging throaty laughs. I hadn%26#39;t thought of the baguette, thanks! I%26#39;m sure we will blend right in...
:)
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Good question.
Its even easier than beret and baguette......
Look like you know where youre going. Carrying an open map/guidebook and peering around you is like running up the victim flag. You dont have to stride it out, but do look purposeful. Walk to the next corner before you check your map (which you have in a handy pocket rather than in your hand) Checking maps at corners is Ok. If youre feeling a bit spooked, keep walking purposefully until you find a Metro and wait until youre inside (and near the ticket window) before doing the map thing.
Naturally Canadians (with the Maple Leaf tattooed on their foreheads and a flag on everything they own) and Australians (with a Wallaby jumper) will always attract %26#39;em......
I managed to wander around Paris in an English Rugby shirt without attracting anything but admiring glances (some of them even from women!) but that is because Im careful about body language. I dont look like I will grasp the first hand reached out to me because Im flustered.
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Agree with the Wizz - I%26#39;m a woman and usually I travel alone to Paris.
The rare moment that I start not liking the situation at hand (e.g. a pushy beggar) I put on my most terrifying and lethal principal-of-the-boarding-school face and then walk at a firm determined pace, head up, not deigning to look at this inferior person at all.
You risk getting sworn at behind your back, but I never experienced anythin worse than that.
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And another thing:
I have had this advice (fortunately never needed it in practice):
If you feel that the person in question (scammer, beggar) starts getting much too close for comfort, then forget absolutely everything about trying to phrase your rejection in French - use the WORST glossary in your own language that you can think of.
Don%26#39;t be afraid to be very loud and to show that you are furious and that you will NOT tolerate this person%26#39;s intrusiveness.
A proper scolding is internationally understood.
I don%26#39;t think that these scammers/beggars are going to be violent but of course there is no knowing to this matter.
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Really I dont think you can do much about being targeted.We were not walking around with flags or other national symbols onand were dressed much like the majority.However walking along the seine when targeted by the woman finding the gold ring we were able to watch whilst she attempted the same scam on at least 20 other couples-and it was always couples.The other feature was that one or other had grey hair.
Apparently the scam did work once-it would appear that the idea is to sell a cheap ring at an inflated price.She tells you it is 18 carat gold.After being successful she then linked up with a man who had been sitting on a seat a little way ahead.Therefore dont get too aggressive as you dont know how many will be around.
As for language when i firmly said we were walking on we got a wonderful spray in a language not english or french but i was in no doubt that she wasnt saying what wonderful people we were.As this happened on a student protest day all this happened within a few feet of literally hundreds of gendarmes.
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I had a similar gold ring scam as Drron, which I mentioned in another post. I was looking at a map, which I seldom do on the street for this reason. But I had found a bench out of the way, where there weren%26#39;t many people around to notice me taking out my map.
However, a man walking by acted like he had found a gold ring (it looked like a man%26#39;s wedding band). He tried to give it to me, and I told him I didn%26#39;t want it. He said it was my good luck, so I reluctantly took the ring and put it on the bench next to me. He turned around and came back a few seconds later, and the sneer on his face not only told me something was wrong, but really alarmed me. He asked something in French about %26quot;petit change%26quot; and I said disgustedly %26quot;Au revoir%26quot; and got up and walked away. I%26#39;m not sure what scam he was going to pull. It didn%26#39;t seem like he was trying to sell me the ring. Maybe he was going to grab my wallet and run?
There were other times when I had my guard up: a man standing too close to me in the Metro station, so I moved away. A man on the metro who leaned forward toward my bag, so I put it on my lap. A man asking me if I needed help when I was just looking at the Metro map like everyone else (he might have been sincere, but you never know). And then there are the woman at all the tourist sites who walk up and ask if you speak English and have some index card with writing on it, asking for money I think.
I%26#39;ve lived in cities for a long time, and I walk a lot, and I agree that if you look purposeful, people are less likely to bother you.
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drron, interesting...couples, I would have thought a woman alone but then said woman alone probably already has her guard up, so avoids anyone suspicious, like GitteK. But the gray hair, too. Purposeful makes sense as I suppose they look for people wandering apparently aimlessly cause a local would be on their way somewhere. But WizardofAus, what difference does reading a map at a corner make versus in the middle of a street? You are still reading a map.
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Gomac
Its because if youre local you may read a map at the corner of a street - work out your next move. Its all about perceptions - if you walk to the corner of a street then read your map it looks like you know where youre going - reading a map in the middle of a street looks like youre lost.
If you are approached (and a lot of time it will be completely innocent - a random act of kindness) listen, but if you do not understand a firm %26quot;non%26quot; and a shake of the head should suffice.
I know I am at an advantage here - I am 6%26#39;4 and a fairly solid 100kg - but it is ALL about body language. Scammers are wolves. They may not be able to say what it is that makes someone look like a target, but they know it when they see it.
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A year or so ago someone on TA posted the proposition that folding maps were the dead give-away. Parisians use maps all the time but they%26#39;re of the l%26#39;indesponsible %26quot;Paris Pratique%26quot; variety, a little book. I have to admit that I always associate the book with locals and folding maps with tourists.
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