What's up Tangerineys! Coming at you live from Morelia, Michoacán. But today we
are talking about our time in Playa del Carmen, Cancun, Cozumel, Tulum, and all the
many many many scams we faced while there.
At the time that we flew into
Cancun, we had been traveling through Mexico for almost a year, and been to
many cities in Mexico. So we had a pretty good idea of what things should cost,
What to look out for, kind of like some of the scams that are out there. But even
still, we were gotten a few times. And we don't want that to happen to other
people. We want people who go to these beautiful beach cities to have an
enjoyable time, keep their hard-earned money, and just make memories in Mexico.
And these scams are not going to stop if we don't shed light on it, so that's what
we're here to do. In this video, we're going to go over every single scam that
we personally experienced, and at the end of the video, we're going to share some
steps that you can take to personally avoid the scams if you're going to these
places. In our Playa del Carmen, Tulum, and Cozumel videos, we mentioned some of these scams, and we got
quite a few comments saying how cheap we were and didn't we expect there were
gonna be higher prices? Absolutely, in tourist towns, the prices are going to be
much higher than in smaller Mexican towns like Morelia, for instance, is a
place with very affordable prices but it's not about that. It's about being
looked at like we're a walking checkbook, being constantly scammed,
being given gringo prices, and people hoping that you'll fall into these
tourist traps. And that's not okay. So if you're vacationing in one of these
Riviera Maya destinations, in all likelihood you're probably going to be
flying into the Cancun Airport. When you come out of the arrivals section there,
you are going to be mobbed with people trying to sell you stuff, especially
overpriced taxis from the airport. This is one scam that we fell for and this is
how it all went down. We were on our way to Tulum from Cancun and we were told
that the best way to get there is to take the ADO bus, or in Spanish, that's
pronounced Ah-Day-Oh.
We didn't know, quite know the price, but then someone came up
to us with a laminated price sheet, it looked official.
She was saying, hey a cab to
Tulum is 1,600 pesos. I'm like "Okay, how much is the ADO bus?" So she pulls up
her price sheet and it says four hundred pesos a person. Well, the real price of an
ADO bus to Tulum is 252 pesos a person. So this lady is
a scam artist. She has a fake price sheet. With the prices that she had listed on
this sheet, it really made it seem like it wouldn't be that much more to pay for
this overpriced cab for the convenience factor of it. But, in reality, the prices
were just wrong and we fell for it. We ended up negotiating a little and got
that for 1,400 pesos, but the whole cab situation did not end there. So we paid
our 1,400 pesos to this cab company. Jordan was repeatedly asking for receipt
but it somehow conveniently slipped through the cracks and we never got one.
Once we got in the inside of the cab, however, we all noticed that the door
handles were broken. We couldn't get out. All three of them. All three of our
passengers. Everything. It was very very unsettling!
And shortly after that, the cab driver
asked where our receipt was. Well, we didn't have one. He freaked out, bolted
from the car, and ran back to get our receipt. We started feeling like
"There's something weird going on." I don't know if they were trying to scam him, if this was
a scam for us? Like they were trying to make us pay fourteen hundred pesos again?
We don't really know. And there was another thing that was pretty weird
about this situation. When we were getting into this taxi, there were like
three or four people ushering us in and saying "Just remember, a tip isn't
included, tip isn't included in the price." Which we thought was strange at
the time, especially considering we've been told time and time again by
Mexicans that it's not customary or expected to give a tip for a cab driver.
And then the cab driver went on to say yeah one to two hundred dollar, US dollar,
tip is about right. And we thought he was joking. But then he said it later
on in the ride and were like "This guy is serious? He thinks 200 US?" Anyway, makes me
mad to this day. But then, we arrived in Tulum. Based on the way the rest of the
situation went, we decided "Let's just give him a 10% tip because we don't want
any problems." So after we gave him more than 10% tip, we gave him 150 pesos on a
1,400 peso cab ride, he freaked out.
Maddie: Thanks a lot.
Taxi driver: It's lacking (the tip)
Jordan: No, it's more than 10%
Taxi driver: No, it's 20%
Jordan: No
Taxi driver: Yes, give me 100 more.
Taxi driver: Because it's so far.
No, no, no. I already paid 1,400 pesos.
Give me 50 pesos more.
No, no friend.
Super rude, this guy was a huge jerk!
So if you're flying into Cancun,
What's your best option? Well, if you're staying in Cancun, arrange for your
hotel to pick you up at the airport before you get there. Someone will be
there holding a sign waiting for you, and then you'll avoid all of this, altogether.
But, if you're going to Playa, Tulum, Mérida, or any other city in that general
vicinity, your best option is going to be to take the ADO bus. If for some reason
you can't or don't want to take our advice about not taking a cab from the
airport. Make sure to get your receipt, make sure to negotiate the price so you get
the lowest price you possibly can. Since they're gouging you in the first place.
And don't let them take advantage of you, don't let them push you around, and make
you think that you have to give them a tip. You do not. We have tons more coming
up for you guys, so stick around. Diving right into it now! So in this trip, we did
not experience any tourist traps or scams in Tulum. That might be because we
weren't staying on the beach and we were staying in town. All of the scams started
when we got to Playa del Carmen and then Cozumel. The things that we're gonna talk
about coming up, we probably wouldn't even need to mention them if they were
isolated incidents. But because they happened over and over and over again, with
different restaurants, in different parts of Playa del Carmen, and in Cozumel,
It's not an accident, it's a systemic problem! So one of the first things we
dealt with was ordering food at a restaurant.
It included guacamole but I'm allergic to onions, so I ordered plain avocado
instead of the guacamole. Well, they charged us for extra avocado even though
it was a substitution. They tried to say that they gave us extra and that wasn't
the case. It took a while of arguing with them before they actually took it off of
the bill, which is kind of ridiculous. If you ever make a substitution in
Mexico, it's never at an extra charge! (Unless it's specified on the menu or they let you know.)
So when we first got to Playa del Carmen
we realized that these prices are quite a bit higher than what we're used to
paying. So we were, naturally, looking for drink specials. We wanted a margarita.
So we're walking down Fifth Avenue and there's quite a few places that
advertise 2 for 1 drinks. We went to a few of these
places during our trip, and every time, without fail, the drinks had almost no
alcohol, if any whatsoever. oh and then the crazy part is they said that they
included two ounces in each of these drinks.
Oh yeah, and I know that I feel something if I
have two ounces. And I had two, two ounce drinks, or supposedly. And I felt nothing.
Nothing at all. Yes this is borderline tourist trap / scam.
Don't fall for those two-for-one promotions.
Okay, so we need to clarify a
little bit on this one, because in Mexico, a lot of people feel like they have to
order bottles of water or else they're gonna be served tap water.
No restaurant is going to serve their customers tap water unless they want to
make them all sick, so you don't need to worry about that. What you should
order, if you do not want a bottle of water, is agua de garrafón, which
is out of the big jugs of water. We did a whole video on this, we'll link it above.
Well, in this case, we went to a restaurant we ordered vasos de agua
De garrafón. And he brought out bottles of water, which they sometimes do
thinking that tourists just want a bottle of water to be safe. That's
understandable, we said no thank you, we would like the vasos de agua
de garrafón, and he swapped them out for glasses of water. Well, the problem came
when we got the bill and we were charged 40 pesos each for four glasses of water.
They made up some lame excuse.
She's like "how many waters?"
She's like 4. Which type of water?
Because we have like a big canister. Garrafón. Yeah, garrafón.
And he pointed that way.
That's why she charged because he made a mistake.
He's fairly new. He put all of these waters. For glasses of water, you don't put 1,2,3,4 glasses of water..
But there was only one server servicing our table, it was all written by hand, it
was not an accident. If you order water, it's free. You should not be charged.
Don't fall for it. Unless you're ordering bottles of water, which is a different
story. And if you are charged for a glass of water, contest it. Contest the bill.
The next item on the
list is a tourist trap / scam, but this is also illegal in Mexico. Restaurants are
not allowed to do this, it's against law.
And that is adding a tip to the bill. Something that
some restaurants in Playa del Carmen will do is, they'll have a line, it looks
like it's just tax. But it will say propina or servicio. For us, they
added a ten percent thing, and it said "servicio." There was no indication that
this was a tip or that it was optional. We paid cash and then they brought us
change minus the tip that they had already included, which is also illegal. If this
ever happens to you, if there's ever a line that says servicio or propina,
don't leave more than that. And you're not even required to leave that. Yeah,
you're not required to leave that. Don't leave more than that. In this case, it was
ten percent. We probably would have tipped more than ten percent if they
didn't do this. But nope, that's all they're getting from us. And just like
the situation with the taxis, we've also been told time and time again by
Mexicans that tip, it's a much different tipping culture than in the US. In the
US, pretty much even if you get terrible service, you shouldn't leave
less than like ten or fifteen percent. Here in Mexico, that's not the case. We've
been told so many times that if it's bad service, or if something went wrong, or
something like that, you are not obligated to leave a tip. You can leave
nothing and that's okay because that's the point of tipping. You're tipping the
person for their service, their good service. And ten percent is standard in
Mexico. 10% is standard in Mexico. Don't let anyone in playa or anywhere else
that it's 20 percent or 25 or 15. 10% is standard all throughout Mexico. If there
is one exception, we've been told that at especially nice, classy, fancy restaurants,
sometimes it's expected to leave a little bit more. This next thing, we
realize that this is something that could be an accident. I used to be a
server and a bartender so I understand sometimes things accidentally get added
to the bill. Multiple servers are helping the same table, accidents happen. But
because this happened at so many restaurants, we know it's not an accident.
This is something that they just hope they'll get away with so that you'll
have to pay more and then tip more. But in the few circumstances, one in
particular, there was nobody else in this restaurant.
No one. No accidents could
have happened here. But there were like a dozen servers just standing around and
doing weird things in the restaurant. It took them a really really long time to
bring out the check after they were all huddled around it doing who-knows-what?
And then a Tecate ended up on the bill.
And it's not that much, so your
average tourist might be like "Oh Tecate, that must be a spice or like extra ice"
Or heck, who even knows. But it's kind of ridiculous that this happens. Always
be sure to look at your check. Make sure you know exactly what's on there so you
don't run into problems where you're paying more for stuff that you didn't
receive. And if something does come on there, once again, contest it. Contest, contest, contest! [Laughter]
Alrighty, we're not quite done yet, but if you're enjoying the information in this video,
please give it a thumbs up and if you haven't already, subscribe to our Channel.
And don't forget to GONG THAT BELL! So you get notified the next time we put
out a new video and now back to the list!
Another trick that we experienced quite
often during this trip was ordering something on the menu and then seeing a
different price show up on the check. And now, a lot of places will say "Oh, well
that's an old menu, those are old prices."
Well, I'm sorry, but that's illegal in
Mexico. They're not allowed to do that. They have to list the actual price that
they are going to charge you, taxes included. That's something to watch out
for. Something that we would do to avoid getting scammed in this way, is
either take a picture of the menu, memorize the price that we were supposed
to be charged, or ask them to leave a menu, so that when we got the check, we could
double-check and look what it said on the menu and what was listed on the
check. One more thing was, we went to this restaurant, once again advertising
two-for-one margaritas. Two-for-one House margaritas. Well, we took a look at their
menu, and we couldn't find the house margarita on the menu. Only their
specialty margaritas. And those were listed as a 125
pesos. Well, we ordered the two-for-one house
margaritas, which are obviously going to be cheaper than the specialty margaritas,
Right? The bill came, and it was a hundred and fifty pesos for watered-down,
terrible flavor, no tequila, house margaritas. Yes, so once again they get
you in with a two-for-one special and then they screw you over.
Avoid every place advertising these two-for-ones. I would like to mention that
there are some places that advertise drink specials which didn't end up to be
terrible. Like we went to Lido Beach Club and they had a sixty? Was it sixty pesos? Yeah.
Drink of the day. And those were always great drinks with the appropriate amount
of alcohol. Nothing, no scams there. So I think it might just be these two-for-one
deals that you have to look out for. But drink specials on like one drink, that
might be okay, or maybe Lido Beach Club, you guys rock! And you're the only
ones who don't scam people. And there were a few gems we found during
our trip. And we're going to list all those down in the description below.
Alright, so how can you avoid getting scammed, falling into tourist traps, or
getting taken advantage of? Well, starting at the airport, just say "No
gracias" to anyone who wants to sell you something. And please make one of those
to the taxi drivers that are trying to gouge you. You might think "Oh, well I'll
just use Uber." Well, at the time we were there, in the entire state of Quintana
Roo, there is no Uber operating whatsoever. If
you open an app, they say we're out of service.
Next thing is - pay attention to the prices on the menu and don't let them
tell you that you have to pay a different price. It is illegal. Just say
no. Just say no. [Laughter]
Contest the bill and stand your ground. Don't let them push you around.
And what do you do if you feel like you've tried sticking
up for yourself, you feel like you're getting screwed, maybe they're
overcharging you for something, or something just isn't adding up. Something
that Mexicans have told us to do, again time and time again, is threaten PROFECO.
This is a user, or consumer rights agency that businesses are pretty
terrified of, especially if they're doing something wrong! They can get huge fines
And even be shut down, and it happens all the time! So if you feel like you're
being pushed around, as a last resort you can tell them that you're going to
contact PROFECO, and you will see their attitude completely change! We have
never personally contacted PROFECO for any issues that we've had. Even in times
where we've gotten severely screwed over, or something bad has happened. However,
thank you to our Tangerineys, our subscribers, who have taken the
initiative to do that for us. Because, as foreigners, sometimes we feel like we
don't have rights or it's hard for us to stick up for ourselves, especially with
the language barrier. So that means a lot to us. It's a group effort to stop these
things from happening. So on that note, if you feel like you got good information
out of this, or somebody else might, share it with your friends. Share it on Twitter,
on Facebook, in your WhatsApp groups. Because we want this information to be
out there so that other people don't get taken advantage of in the ways that we
have. And so this behavior stops. This is not the behavior of Mexicans in general.
This is not a representation of Mexico and that's partially what infuriates us
the most. Please give this video a thumbs up if you liked it. We hope this helps
you in any of your future travels to Mexico,
Specifically those areas. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel to see more
videos that we're putting out about our travels! Currently, we are in Mexico. And
one last thing...
GONG THAT BELL!
So you get notified when we put out our new videos
And we'll see you there!