This video is closed-captioned. USA TOURIST SCAMS AND TRICKS THAT
YOU SHOULDN'T FALL FOR The United States is one of the
most popular tourist destinations in the world, and for a good reason: most tourist destinations
are relatively safe. There's something to do in every type of environment the USA has to offer.
Do you enjoy water activities? There are plenty of rivers, beaches, and even hot springs!
Do you like mountain sports? The Rockies will challenge even the most daring adventurers.
Maybe the big city lights are calling your name. Las Vegas has the excitement you need!
Unfortunately, a few scams target tourists from abroad, just like in any tourist
destination. Here are a few situations to avoid so your visit goes smoothly.
Tired from a long day of adventure, you might come back to your hotel room and find a flyer
has been passed under your door advertising some delicious-looking pizza! You're not in
the mood to fumble through a phone book, and the coupons they offer seem to be a great deal anyway.
You go ahead and call the number on the flyer and order a couple of pizzas. An hour passes,
and you start to realize something's wrong. Finally, you might get an alert that your credit
card is maxed out and there are suspicious charges that recently occurred. You have fallen victim to
the pizza scam. There was never a pizza company. Scammers simply printed out a spoof flyer that had
their phone number on it, and when you gave them your credit card info for payment,
they stole it. Don't bother calling them back; they will have blocked your number or used a
burner phone, which they have now destroyed. This is another one that is relatively easy to
avoid if you know what to look for. A quick google search of nearby pizza joints will tell you right
away that the company on the flyer is fake. You might even find reports from other people warning
you about the scam if you search the fake pizza company's name. This has happened to many people,
but you can easily fall victim to a long day in a new place if you aren't aware of it.
A good rule of thumb for avoiding these scams is to be wary of anyone coming to you with offers of
discounts, free goods, or questions about your personal information. You can always tell someone
that you will call back in a few minutes and research what they are saying on your own.
That way, if it is a good offer and not a scam at all, you'll be free to continue the purchase
with confidence and safety. These days, every legitimate business will understand your desire
to double-check before giving your information. If they seem impatient or too insistent,
red flags should be going up in your mind because chances are it's a scam!
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Next on our list is the 3 Cup or Shell Game Scam; you will find that one in big cities
like New York, Las Vegas, Chicago; even though this is one of the oldest scams in the book,
people still fall for it all the time. It looks like a straightforward game, but it's all rigged.
How it works is someone on the street will demonstrate a little "game." They will have
three shells or cups on a table or the pavement with a ball hidden under one of them. The scammer
will quickly shuffle the cups or shells and ask you to guess under which one is the hiding ball.
You'll get to double your initial money bet back if you guess correctly.
The slick scammer uses sleight of hand to remove sutil the ball so that you never have a chance
of winning unless the scammer wants you to so he can milk you like a cow and take all your
money once he senses the greed in you. There will also be people working with them in the crowd,
mostly 6-10 of them who will pretend to play and win and make the game look easy.
They will cheer for you engage with you to make it as authentic as possible.
Technology is great when it works properly, but it can cause much harm when people take advantage
of it. One scam involves a piece of hardware installed on any outdoor card reader (skimmer),
such as an ATM or gas pump, that will steal your credit card info as well as any buttons you
press on the keypad will be logged. Americans and tourists have been tricked for millions this way,
and that money isn't always easy to get back. You're often looking at a matter of months or
years of hard work to get back to normal if it's even possible in the first place. Needless to say,
this scam could seriously ruin your vacation in a matter of minutes when someone maxes out
your credit cards or steals your identity. The primary way to avoid this one is to visually
check the atm and gas pump card readers to see if extra equipment has been installed. Credit card
companies tend to be more proactive at addressing fraud issues than banks, so it's best not to use
a debit card at a gas pump in the first place. If something like this does happen, be sure to
notify your bank immediately so they can put a hold on any cards that have been compromised.
The following scam is incredibly crafty because you won't ever see the scammer,
and you might not even know anything has happened. That's because all it takes for you to fall into
their trap is an unsecured wifi connection - the very type most hotels offer when you connect
to their guest wifi. Hackers can use several tactics to try and get any information they can
off of your phone or laptop. One is to create a wifi hotspot with a similar name
to the hotel guest wifi. People trying to connect to the hotel's wifi can easily mistake the spoofed
name for the actual hotel network, and before you know it, your device is connected to a trap laid
by unscrupulous scammers. A second way hotel wifi can betray your personal space is that a
savvy enough hacker gains access to your laptop or phone through the actual hotel guest wifi network.
This is less common and, much of the time, a fruitless endeavor for the hacker - they are
mostly just going to see what internet site you're looking at - but still an invasion of privacy.
The best way by far to avoid these situations is to use your phone's network connection to
set up a hotspot for your other devices. That way, you're not connected to a network that
is so easily compromised. Protecting your devices with good passwords will also help,
along with having a firewall set up. If you're knowledgeable about technology, setting up a
Virtual Private Network or VPN will create an extra barrier for your internet devices.
Hotels are a pot of gold for scammers since they can be sure to find tourists from abroad
that may not be familiar with how things generally work in the US. This next scam involves someone
calling your room under the guise of a hotel employee at the front desk. They need to verify
your billing information to keep your room so that your room service can continue delivering goods.
Depending on the scammer's intentions, the following few questions could mean compromising
your credit card, personal information, and even your identity. By the time you realize something
isn't right, you're staring down a set of charges you never authorized. The rest of your vacation
will now be spent trying to recover from the scam so that you can continue your life in peace.
Luckily, avoiding this one is pretty simple. If anyone calls you at any time asking for personal
information, just tell them you'll have to call back. After you hang up, verify with the hotel
front desk in person if there's a problem with your card. They'll understand entirely that you're
trying to protect your information and be happy to go over any issues with you there in person.
They may even be able to see what phone number the scammer was using and take precautions
against future attempts, so you might just be saving someone else's vacation!
Remember, the hotel depends greatly on ensuring the technological safety of their guests because
they can land themselves in hot water for any damages if they have been negligent.
Phone calls are so 2015. Let's face it, we hardly answer anymore because of how many scams there
are out there. Seriously, there's no way to cover all of them because new ones are invented daily.
They do all share one main thing in common - Someone you didn't call is on the other end
asking for your information. Most of the time, they claim to be with a well-known company like
Microsoft, AT&T, or Amazon, and they are informing you of some kind of refund,
extra charges, or potential virus that you'll need to fix over the phone. By the way, they'll
need to verify some information before they can help you get rid of that mistake on your account.
Answer enough of these questions, and before you know it, they're telling you to go to the nearest
place you can fill out a money order. Sometimes, they will even be so bold as to act like they're
with the IRS or FBI! This way, they can threaten you with prosecution, court costs, and jail time,
so you will tell them what they need to know. If someone calls you pretending to be from a
specific company and starts asking for personal information like your address and date of birth,
tell them you'd love to solve any problems, but you have to call back later.
Then, contact the company they claim to be from using an official phone number
and ask if there are issues with your account. If they say no,
be sure to report the scammer to them so they are aware of the situation. The FBI and IRS won't just
call you if you're in trouble. They will send you official documentation in the mail as well, and
you can also contact them on their websites to ask if there are any issues with your identity.
We hope you find these tips useful, and if you have any questions or tips to add,
make sure to leave a comment below. Let us know in the comments below this
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