Aug
6
The Beijing Tea House Scam
Filed Under Scams and Rip Offs
Anyone fancy a cup of tea then?
I would like to warn travellers to Beijing, China about a scam that has hit me twice now personally. In the lead up to the Olympic games in Beijing, the warning may be very useful, especially for solo travellers who are particularly vulnerable. I have travelled in many developing countries such as Russia, Thailand, South Africa, Indonesia etc but never come across anything as subtle as this scam. There is an old saying “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me”. I still don’t know whether to kick myself for letting this happen or be a bit more forgiving to myself because the scam is very subtle and its a trap that is very easy to fall prey to. I consider my self to be an experienced traveller, and yet I have fallen for this trick on two occasions now.
Basically the scam works as follows. Young residents of Beijing - mostly students - patrol the common tourist areas such as Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City looking for solo western travellers. They walk next to you and strike up an interesting conversation, usually about the differences in culture between China and the traveller’s country. After a few minutes they invite you to a nearby tea house to sit down for a traditional Chinese tea-serving ceremony.
After more interesting conversation and several cups of tea, the tea lady who served the brews presents the traveller for a bill. The bill runs into several hundred dollars and sometimes as high as USD$500 . They tell you that you have voluntarily consumed rare and expensive teas during the ceremony and now you must foot the bill.
Your new companion/s who invited you there in the first place are adamant that the bill is legitimate and not particularly pricey. Off course they are in on the scam and stand to receive commissions from the tea house provider. If you encounter this scam, report it to consular staff of your embassy and / or the local police.
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5 Responses to “The Beijing Tea House Scam”
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My friend and I ran into this same scam. Met at Tienanmen Square and then she walked us to a “random” teahouse nearby. Bill came out to be about $375 US.
Such a subtle and devious scam.
Crafty this scam
Got scammed on this one yesterday, thankfully only for 50 pounds, but thats bad enough.
So so subtle and once your in the tea house you know whats taiking place but there is very little you can do to stop it as they are so polite about it.
Gutted, first time I have been caught out after visiting over 50 countries.
Thanks for the warning. I’m heading out there soonish and had no idea that this happens
I have also experienced the art student scam and the tea scam. Both on the same day in january 2009!
We had arrived with my girlfriend to Beijing four days earlier and had not read anything about any scams, so we were very easy victims I think. So, we were walking on Jianguomennei Dajie near the Dongdan Metro station on our way to the Foreign Language Bookstore on Wangfujing Dajie, as two very friendly young girls and one boy came to us and wanted to chat a little because we were foreigners we thought. Of course we were happy to meet some local people, so we gladly had them walking with us towards the bookstore. As we chatted it turned out the three were studying traditional chinese art. They were on the way to their art exibition that was located in the corner of Jianguomennei Dajie and Wangfujing Dajie, which fitted our route perfectly, so they asked us to come and see their work. Of course we went.
We stepped in to a building which seemed like a nice hotel. We took the elevator to a highier floor. (can’t remember which floor). They let us in to a room full of nice traditional chinese paintings. Their teacher was also there, a male little older than the students, but not alot more than 30. All the three students presented their own pieces of art and we were really impressed! After the presentations their teacher showed us some of the techniques the paintings was made with and we were more and more impressed how talented this group of people was.
Now the teacher gently asked us which painting we liked the most. We really couldn’t decide, they were all so nice in their own way. He asked if we wanted to have a painting with us as a souvenir. We said we really couldn’t afford any of these paintings as we were on a thight budget and was travelling all the way to Thailand with train and bus. The teacher, still gently, said that we could work out a nice price for a painting together. We repeated that we don’t have the money, or room in our baggage for that matter, for this kind of things. Now the teacher stardet to sell the paintings a little harder as we started to move towards the door. At the same time one of the students went to the paintings near the door and started to talk about them again and try to sell them. We told them again and again that we are NOT interssested in buying any of these paintings. At this point we knew walking out from the room would have been the right thing to do, but we didn’t want to seem rude. So after about 15 minutes of hard selling and very much bargaining from us, we bought a painting of a Hutong for 200 yuan. The teacher continued to try and sell us other paintings also, but now we were done. We shook hands with all four and left the room and the buildig and felt really confused.
Now we continued to the bookstore and felt quite good about the experience. We had a new painting made by an art student we actually met. The price didn’t seem high either.
After our errends in the bookstore we split up for the rest of the day with my girlfriend.
I went to the Oriental plaza to have a look for some clothes and other stuff. As I was wandering around the plaza, minding my own bussines, up to me comes a friendly young boy, maybe 20-something, and ask if he can practise his english with me. He seemed friendly and I didn’t have any other company at the moment, so of course he could practise his english with me.
As we now walked together he explained that he studies english in the university of Beijing. He was wery interested in everything about me and my country (Finland) and Europe and the EU. He wanted to know everything. I actually enjoyed spending time with him.
After a while he suggested that we should sit down and have a tea somewhere after all this walking around in the plaza. I thought this was a great idea. I really was feeling tired after all the walking.
He said he knew a good place and took me there. It was actually located just beside the Foreign language bookstore, a few stores higher. He took me through a coffee shop to a dark room with a low wooden table and a few low wooden stools. On the table was all these tea articles, small cups and cans and stuff. It was really cosy actually.
Soon a young woman came in and started to talk in chinese about chinese tea and it’s effects on you at the same time as she was preparing the teas. My new friend translated everything she was saying to us. This was really fun I thought!
At this time I started to think about the price of this, but then I thought “this is China. Everrything is cheap in China” so I didn’t ask about the price.
So we tasted ten different sort of teas from these really small cups and during every different tea the woman explained it’s effect to us. A really nice experience I thought.
When all sorts were tasted and I was in a relaxed and a happy mood I asked for the bill. The woman went out from the room to the bar desk to make the bill. When she came back, she gave the bill to me and I was shocked! 1700 yuan! I told her this is a misunderstanding and that I don’t have this kind of money with me. She didn’t of course understand english and my new friend didn’t seem to get what I was saying. I went to the bar desk with the bill and asked the guy behind the desk what the deal is. He said I had to pay. I became really angry and started yelling. Now more and more chinese people came and demanded me to pay. Also my new friend. He said he did only have a few hundred yuan on his bank account. So he paid 500 yuan and said he have to eat noodels for the rest of the month. Now I felt that I didn’t have a choise but to pay the rest of the sum as all these chinese were pressuring me. So I payed.
When we left the building this “friend” still followed me. I was really angry at him and asked why he took me to this place even if he didn’t have the money to pay his own share. He just ignored my questions and my anger. He still just asked his silly questions about Finland and what my family does and things that couldn’t matter less. After a while I told him I want to be alone now. Then we shook hands and he went to another direction and I was boiling angry and walking back to our hostel.
Back in the hostel i met my girlfriend and it turned out that she had had exactly the same experience with a student from Xi’an in a tea house near the Forbidden city. She didn’t have to pay as much as me for the ceremony tho. And she got two bags of tea with her.
Later we went to the internet and found out these two were common scams in Beijing. We really felt like idiots after this day.
Anyway this was a lesson learnt the hard way and we didn’t get scammed for the rest of our journey (we think).
As a Chinese, I’m shamed for such things. But not all of Chinese are so bad. Anyway I still want to say sorry to you.