Scammed at The Forbidden City

Well, today we were humbled. We’ve read about different scams in different countries, but we were not educated on the Beijing Tea Scam run by seemingly nice Chinese college English majors eager to practice their English. It is difficult to swallow my pride and admit being taken advantage of, but it happened. We brushed shoulders with three college aged girls at the Forbidden City next to Tiananmen Square. We had friendly conversation and before we knew it we found some nice friends or so we thought. We decided to grab a quick drink with them. The con was so subtle. We ended up going to a tea shop with them where we tried some fantastic teas. We foolishly did not ask to see the prices of the teas (heavily inflated prices). We drank tea and ate snacks and a couple hours later the bill came. It was off the charts expensive. The girls were also shocked by the price and were forced to pay with their so called credit cards, but they were in on the scam. We payed our share which was too much money for “gourmet” tea. The whole thing was a set up and it was good.

Here is another victim’s internet post:
“Update: I don't think this Tea House goes by this name in China, but you can use a simple rule of thumb. If you go to ANY TEA HOUSE make sure the sampling is FREE - this is the normal situation and you are NOT obligated to buy tea, which even in China can be very expensive. In general if you are uncertain of fees.... ASK!

I fell for the Beijing Tea Scam (also common in Shanghai) where you are approached by a person claiming to want to practice English, then subtly lured to a Tea House for a "Tea Ceremony" that is hugely overpriced.

The scam is so good I later found that some savvy travelers had also been duped by this because it preys on the fact that you don't want to insult anybody and generally are unfamiliar enough with the landscape, money, etec. that you just pay the bill. My bill was $85 for a few tea samples. I'm guessing some who fall for this never even realize that they have been scammed - rather just think they paid "a lot" for Tea.

The China Tourism groups and guidebooks are guilty of NOT warning people enough about the fact that generally if you are approached in popular tourism areas by people who can speak English they are usually working some sort of sale or scam. Sadly, the notion that people are looking to practice their English is only true in that that they are improving on these very clever short cons.”

It is difficult to admit what happened, but it is an unfortunate reality of the journey. I usually try to paint myself in a positive light especially when I screw up, but I am trying to become more transparent and honest about the good, bad and embarrassing things in my life. It will be difficult for us to trust nice Chinese people in the future as we will be expecting they may want to take advantage of us. We pray that we will still be able to love people well despite being lied to and robbed. The last photo in the slide show is a picture of our con artist friends. The ringleader is not pictured because her “Buddhist faith” does not allow her to get her picture taken. Interesting!



We plan on spending the next week living and volunteering at an orphanage. We will bring our friend's two daughters who were adopted. We anticipate a fruitful visit where Christ will work in and around each of us. May love overflow and bring glory to Jesus. We may even bring our complementary tea gift to share with others.