Tagalog Version (Click Here)
Before I travel to any new country, I always check for common scams and crimes that my family and I should watch out for. From taxis with overcharging meters, pickpockets, and overpriced bar scams, criminals use all sorts of ploys to grab some quick cash from unsuspecting victims. For this article, I’ll tell you about one time some people tried to scam me when I was way younger.
Looking back at it. there were so many things wrong with their attempt that I don’t know if they ever fooled anyone with it. It was still a very interesting experience, however, so I wanted to share it with you all.
The time some people tried to scam me…
I was a young and innocent college freshman when it happened, and I remember because I was still carrying that big green plastic duffel bag that I first used college. I was a sheltered scholar boy less than a year out of high school back then so although I knew there were scammers out there, I never thought any of them would try to target me. After all, I was just some poor financial aid scholar, not some rich tourist or businessman.
Anyway, I remember that on the day it happened, I got out of class very early on that hot and dry summer afternoon. I was already at the last section of my commute home, and I only needed to walk a few minutes to get to my home. It was around 1pm at that time so although I was walking along a busy highway near a mall, there weren’t a lot of people around.
Midway through crossing a concrete bridge on the way to my house, an old man wearing a baseball cap, a t-shirt, and denim shorts started walking alongside me and said…
“Hey, did you see the foreigner who dropped that gold ring?”
That was the start of the clumsiest scam attempt I have ever experienced.
[Read more…]
