It’s a cycle that has gone on for a long time: Chinese tourists get caught up in scams as they pursue cheaper and cheaper deals, resulting in a lasting distrust between tourists and travel organizers.

The Shenzhen bureau for culture, sports and tourism received 1,208 complaints from 1,415 tourists last year. More than 100 of these complaints were in regards to packaged tours to Hong Kong and Macau, two-thirds of which were directed at fake travel agencies. According to the bureau, these fake travel agencies attracted consumers with unreasonably low priced tour packages, and then forced tourists to spend money at certain retail locations, even threatening tourists if they didn’t comply.

With tourism officials trying to reform the industry and raise awareness of scams on Consumer Rights Day, which was yesterday, more and more tourists seem to complain about poor treatment when traveling with the country or to the two Special Administrative Regions. In fact, according to a recent tourism study, 86 percent of complaints are about domestic travel. “We found that forced shopping has become a major reason (for complaints), which has caused many conflicts and led to distrust between agencies and tourists,” said vice-director of the tourism research center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Liu Deqian.

Many complained about travel agencies not providing services they advertised, tour guides for not meeting expectations, and for activities suddenly omitted or added to the travel itinerary.

But it doesn’t stop there. Undercutting prices for travel tours only to coerce tourist spending at a later time is a long-held practice that goes way back, and is a particular problem for mainland tour groups in Hong Kong. “The mainland tour agencies charge such a low price that the Hong Kong agencies can’t afford to host tourists,” said Consumer Council chief executive Pamela Chan Wong-shui. “The only thing they can do is to take them to buy more expensive goods so they can earn commissions to offset the cost.”

Travel Industry Council executive director Joseph Tung Yao-chung also added, “It’s not a healthy trend and we keep reporting the situation every month. Tourism boards should educate the public that there’s no way travel to Hong Kong can be this cheap.”

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A number of dead fish have been recently floating on the surface of the water near the flood gates of Lake Liwan Park. While any widespread loss of wildlife is usually cause for concern, some Guangzhou residents are viewing this as a “windfall” and turning it into a profit-making opportunity.

A representative for the park said the lake has been dredged over the past two weeks, something a park worker admits may have to do with the death of the fish. A park security guard said local residents have been coming to the park to collect the dead African carp and sell them for RMB 5 for a large one, and RMB 3 for small one, reports Sina Guangdong.

A reporter personally witnessed a person collecting the dead fish yesterday. However, the person wouldn’t admit to selling the dead carp, instead saying he would feed it to his dog.

Park management has complained that people who collect dead fish don’t listen to warnings and fight with security guards.

Related:

• Beautiful Inner Mongolian Flower Display Ransacked by Visitors
• Free Live Chicken Giveaway Causes Frenzy That Not Even iPhone Can Match

Photos: Sina Cantonese Report

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Tang Wei’s pregnant character arrives in Seattle, USA at the beginning of “Finding Mr Right”.

Expectant mothers in China are hopping onto airplanes in ever larger numbers to give birth abroad, and it’s not set to slow down anytime soon. What is it that lures would-be parents to foreign lands? Clean water? Clean air? Those surely help, but there is one key factor that trumps everything else: the enormous savings associated with being enrolled in a “free” education system.

According to Worldwide magazine, about 600 Chinese mothers went abroad to give birth in 2007, growing to 5,000 in 2010 and over 10,000 in 2012. That doubled again to 20,000 in 2013, and is expected to hit anywhere between 50,000 and 60,000 in 2015, according to the Mother-Child Management Association.

The primary destination for new parents is now the United States after Hong Kong introduced limits on Mainland parents giving birth in the territory. One person told the magazine:

On any given flight going to the USA (from China), there is likely to be five pregnant Chinese women. In any given neighborhood of prosperous cities like Beijing and Shanghai, there is likely to be several expectant mothers going to the US to give birth to their baby.

Aside from access to free primary education, Chinese parents also consider how much money they will save by having their child attend a US school as a “US citizen” instead as a “foreign exchange student”.

Tang Wei in a wedding dress in a scene that isn’t her wedding from “Finding Mr Right”.

A child with US citizenship enrolled in the US education system will save a Chinese parent a total of $600,000, the report said. The savings continue to rack up as the child continues to post-secondary education. If we use public colleges in California as an example, an exchange student will pay $12,000 in annual tuition while a “US citizen” will pay just $2,000. Therefore, the Chinese parent will be able to save $300,000 over four years of college.

Intermediary consultancies advertise by saying a baby with US citizenship is a financial windfall:

Give me RMB 100,000, and I’ll give you a US baby worth RMB 9.8 million

Last year, a romcom featuring Tang Wei called Finding Mr Right (or its Chinese name, Beijing Meets Seattle) featured a Chinese parent having babies abroad and using the private maternity facilities available. Afterwards, intermediary consultancies reported a huge spike in business with clients referencing the movie when they called.

Meanwhile, Seattle has experienced a huge upsurge in Chinese tourists as a result of the film. Tom Norwalk of Visit Seattle, an organization that promotes Seattle tourism, said Finding Mr Right “has captivated a younger generation in China, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect.” Norwalk also said more young Chinese women are visiting Seattle.

Traveling may be expensive, but the investment may pay huge dividends if children are born in America.

Photo: Seattle Globalist, Screen Daily, Yellow Cranes Tower, Wikipedia

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Adding to the number of savvy Chinese that can spot such a scam, Weibo user “Piggy Sister That Doesn’t Want To Grow Up” published pictures that show “a clear and brazen case of the broken vase scam”.

READ: What the Broken Vase Scam Is, and How to Avoid Being Duped

The photographs show a man with an injured leg in the middle of the road outside the Nanjing Red Cross Society Hospital on the morning of September 17. A three-wheeled vehicle idles beside him as pedestrians and cyclists simply pass the fallen man.

When a non-Chinese man wearing dark green clothes comes forward to give help, he is criticized for having fallen for the “broken vase” scam. Of this, the Weibo user said, “The laowai can never understand…”

Many local shop owners said the incident happened after 7am when a non-Chinese man was seen speaking to the victim. Then he left, according to a reporter.

“Reminded Me of My Mother”

The reporter was able to track down the would-be good samaritan, a 30-something expat from the USA named “Sam” (a pseudonym) who is currently working in Nanjing. Sam said seeing the victim reminded him of his own mother, who was recently involved in a traffic accident herself.

However, Sam said he became very doubtful when he saw bystanders gathering to laugh at him. One bystander waved a hand at him and shouted, “No, no, no!”

READ: Guangzhou Drunk Drivers Extorted in Staged Collisions

Sam was not able to communicate with the man, who would only cover his forehead with his left hand and sporadically let out a shrill cry of pain. Sam saw he couldn’t do anything, so left. He said he couldn’t understand why the bystanders were trying to get him to stop.

“Broken Vase” or No “Broken Vase”?

For this to be a “broken vase” scam, the con artist would try to blame the fraud victim (Sam) for the accident and attempt to extort money, which didn’t happen. However, local Nanjing residents were still suspicious because the incident happened just outside of a hospital.

The Yueya Lake police sub-station confirmed the incident was not a “broken vase” scam, but something else entirely.

The story is this: Police from the Yueya Lake sub-station responded to a burglary at 1pm at Zhonghe Bridge after a man fell from a second story apartment. This unidentified man was not confirmed to be a thief, and was taken to Nanjing Red Cross Society Hospital to treat his broken leg.

The police say the unnamed man blamed police for the fall, and wants them to pay his hospital bill. Upon being discharged, the man lay down in the middle of the road as a way to claim his rights.

Related:

• Foreigners Ripped Off After Being Lured Into Shanghai Karaoke Den
• Hong Kong Taxi Scam Targets Drunk Foreigners
• 81 year-old woman knocked down in Guangzhou, bystanders ignore her
• Wolf of Wall Street? These are the Wolves of Shenzhen
• Beware: WeChat (Weixin) random hookup results in scam in Dongguan

Photos: 163.com

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Oh, China. Foreigners and Chinese people alike fall for your many scams and get-rich-quick schemes.

One scam, identified as the “broken vase”, was recently caught on video in Shenzen. Although it can take a number of forms, all it really requires is a staged accident or collision to dupe a motorist into believing that he or she is responsible for causing injury or damage. It can be as simple as crawling under a stopped bus or as brazen as intimidating drunk drivers with a car full of surly men.

A  surveillance video caught one such incident in Shanghai’s Jiuting, Songjiang District. As explained by the Shenzhen Traffic Police, the “broken vase” scam has many participants playing different roles.

Step One: The Instigation - A driver drives very slowly to frustrate the car behind him. Notice how the silver, instigating car is travelling at the same speed as the bicycle (the “broken vase”) to its right.

Step Two: The Overtake - The frustrated motorist driving the black car decides to overtake the instigating car by passing to its right.

Step Three: The Collision - While passing, the black car’s driver is presumably focused to his left. This is when the cyclist purposely collides with the black car.

Step Four: The Fall. The cyclist falls and claims to be injured because the driver decided to overtake the slower vehicle. The driver is unable to defend himself and will (likely) be willing to pay the money asked by the “broken vase”. During the confrontation between the driver and the cyclist, witnesses (who are usually a part of the scam) often show up to help the “broken vase”.

Here’s the entire scam caught in a GIF:

Scams in China depend on simplicity to be effective, but, it should be remembered that there is usually more than one or two people involved. Hopefully, a little knowledge of the trick’s mechanics will prevent further marks from being duped.

Photos: Shenzhen Traffic Police

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The scam works by first picking up an inebriated foreigner with the rear window lowered a few inches. When the passenger arrives at his or her destination, gets out, and closes the door, the rear window will often shatter. The cab driver will then accuse the passenger of slamming the door too hard and breaking the window. In their drunken state, foreigners have been known to provide up to HK$2,000 (US $258) in compensation.

What the cab drivers are actually doing is exploiting a design flaw of these taxi cabs. When the rear window is lowered a few inches, it can hit against the door joint, causing it to shatter upon being closed.

A number of cases have been reported to police. In one case the passenger was forced to provide compensation despite police involvement because no witnesses were at the scene.

As EJ Insight reports, Kwan Yuk-wah, chairman of the Urban Taxi Drivers Association Joint Committee, said the normal charge for repairing a damaged window is HK$300. Kwan added that taxi drivers usually remind passengers not to slam the door if the window is lowered.

No word on if or when the design flaw will be fixed.

Photos: Flickr

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For all the times this last scam has targeted foreigners, someone has finally gotten caught.

Fifteen members of a criminal gang based in Pudong have been arrested by Shanghai police for fleecing foreigners of their money by “luring them into a karaoke honey trap”, reports the Shanghai Daily.

Foreigners were reportedly targeted by the gang, which intimidated them into paying exorbitant fees or be held at the club.

Police were alerted to the diabolical plan by one of the gang’s victims, who had fallen prey to the scam. On April 15, a man of Egyptian nationality had agreed to go back to a local karaoke club in Pudong while taking a nighttime stroll outside his hotel, having been told beautiful ladies would be present.

However, at the club the man was approached by a group of burly men who demanded they be paid RMB 29,000 (US $4,600) for the man’s unspecified amount of time spent at the karaoke club.

However, being that the man was in the middle of taking a nighttime stroll, he was only able to pay with the RMB 11,000 (US $1,800) that he had on him. Unsatisfied, the burly men threw the victim into a car and drove him back to his hotel where they expected to be paid the remainder of the fees.

When stopped at a red light, the victim jumped out of the car and ran to a nearby police car.

On June 13, Shanghai police took 15 suspects into custody, who all confessed to committing seven similar crimes that earned over RMB 200,000.

Photos: timetotalkbeauty

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At approximately 8pm on April 1 on the street across from the Tiyu West Metro Station, Ms Qiu came into contact with the side of a moving motorbike and was knocked down, thereby hurting her foot in the process, reported Nandu.com.

Xiao Wang, a witness at the scene, said a group of bystanders converged around the elderly woman. However, none of them were willing to help the woman up, a situation that would last for ten minutes. During this time, Qiu continued to call out in pain as the driver of the motorbike stood to the side.

After ten minutes elapsed, a female pedestrian in her 30’s that works nearby stopped to offer aid to Qiu. Approximately half an hour after she was hit, an ambulance took Qiu to the hospital where a doctor said she had suffered no serious injuries and released her.

Xiao Wang said she personally had apprehensions about helping the woman. Nobody on the scene was sure about how injured the woman was, and feared being singled out as her “attacker” if they got involved. It wouldn’t be the first time a seemingly injured person play acts to secure compensation from whoever decides to help.

Qiu did not receive immediate aid, nor did she have serious injuries, but she did receive one thing for sure: the driver of the vehicle gave Qiu RMB 1,000 in reimbursement for the accident.

Earlier this year, a Guangzhou woman collapsed in a subway and died when no one came to her aid. The infamous Yueyue story from 2011 made international headlines when 18 pedestrians were recorded walking past the 2 year-old toddler instead of offering aid after she was run over by two different cars. 

Shenzhen has responded to this social issue by enacting a Good Samaritan law in 2011.

Photo credit: 54yuqing.com

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An eight-member ring in Shenzhen was busted by local police for defrauding money from middle-aged women. The swindlers had developed a full-blown, tightly scripted manual to coach each of its members how to successfully swindle a victim’s money in just 11 days.

The eight fraudsters disguised themselves as successful men in several ads in newspaper matchmaking sections. To avoid detection, all the ads were placed in papers outside of Guangdong. By following the manual, each successfully swindled RMB117,000 ($19,300) from the victims within a month, Nanfang Net reported in December last year.

The ringleader under the pseudonym Zhao Jun asked his minions to memorise the manual by heart and had them going through intensive phone training before letting them out for real, the report said.

The 11-day operation manual was packaged with ready-made lines in different scenarios from establishing one’s credibility as a nice and considerate gentleman, to the use of endearment; from playing the family card by bringing out an ailing father to the grand closing of asking the women to wire some money to buy some (believe it or not) flower baskets for the swindler’s fake store opening.

The skit only fell apart when a 42-year-old woman from Jilin Province reported the scam to the local police after she had wired nearly RMB75,000 (about $12,400) to Zhao Jun in different settings. Zhao’s excuses include buying flower baskets for his store opening, birthday gifts for his father, compensation for a victim Zhao knocked over on his way to the airport, and even blackmailing by “a cop” from Shenzhen who claimed that he would arrest Zhao if he did not receive any money.

Here are some of the textbook lines straight from the manual: (warning: the below contents are extremely cheezy.)

Lines for Day 1 to establish yourself as a sensible and nice gentleman: “My wife died in a car accident in 2009 on her way to pick up our daughter. I have since being living in the shadow of her passing. I’ve moved into this big house for half a year, but I felt the room is so empty every night when I come home. I can’t even find a person to talk to. Have you ever felt this way before?”

Lines for Day 5 to establish formal “husband and wife” relationship: “My dear, since I have known you in the last few days, sometimes I felt like I just want to call you my wife, although we are not yet married. But I have already decided that you are my soul mate.” The instruction did not stop here. It went to ask the man to hang up the phone immediately after the last line to “create suspense” and only check his phone the day after.

Lines for Day 11 (the grand finale): “My store officially opened today, many of my relatives and friends came. My sister asked you to send me several flower baskets to congratulate my store opening in the name of my wife, which is in line with our local Guangdong custom, and a gesture to show my father your sincerity, and to present you officially to my friends. My sister just called the florist where she ordered her flowers. You should take a pen and write down the florist’s number. You can wire some money (to the florist) to buy the baskets. I will send you RMB50,000 tomorrow for the money you spent. You don’t want to embarrass your husband in front of your friends, right?”

What happened then? Ms Lin wired RMB 32,682 ($5,400) to the “florist”.

Home page photo credit: Nanfang Net 

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(drawing by Li Yong)

WeChat, also known as Weixin, has been growing like a bad weed in China these days.  The iOS and Android app is now being used by more than 200 million people, and is the pick-up tool of choice for many laowai in China because it facilitates chatting with nearby strangers.

Given how ubiquitous the tool has become, it’s not surprising that a scam has finally surfaced.  Users in Dongguan are being warned after a woman met up with a stranger she had chatted with on the service in April this year. The stranger then threatened her and demanded she hand over her bank card, Southern Metropolis Daily reports.

The woman, who works in a hotel, was invited by a Weixin contact to meet up and have a chat. In the end, she met an accomplice of a criminal surnamed Lu, who comes from Hubei Province and ran a restaurant with another man Jian before it went out of business.

Unable to support themselves, Lu and Jian set up a criminal gang. As part of the arrangement, Lu’s girlfriend and brother used Weixin to meet and then steal from strangers.

Police say there have been six similar cases in Dongguan this year involving rape, theft and blackmail.

Police explained that because Weixin is newer than rival services such as QQ, it is poorly policed. They warned residents to be vigilant when using the service, and not to meet strangers who refused to identify themselves or asked to borrow things.

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