The problem with scam advice is that it tends to be a list of a hundred local variants, which is unmemorable, and which leaves travellers in a state of low-grade suspicion of every friendly person they meet. That is both unpleasant and self-defeating, because the friendly people are most of why you went.
There are about six underlying patterns. Learn those and the local variants become obvious.
Pattern 1: “It’s closed today”
Someone tells you the thing you were walking towards is shut — a religious holiday, a private ceremony, a lunchtime closure — and offers an alternative, which involves a shop.
It is not closed. Walk to the entrance and check for yourself. This is the single most common scam in the world and it runs in Bangkok, Delhi, Cairo, Marrakesh, Istanbul and everywhere with a famous building and a commission structure.
The tell: a stranger volunteering information about your plans before you asked.
Pattern 2: the meter, the rate and the change
Transport pricing, in three variations.
“The meter is broken.” It is not. Insist, or get out and take another cab. In cities with a fixed-price airport system, use the official rank with a dispatcher.
The wrong exchange rate, offered by a driver or a shop for a currency conversion they are doing for you.
The note swap. You hand over a large note; they show you a small one and say that is what you gave them. Counter: say the value of the note aloud as you hand it over, and where possible hand over the exact amount.
The tell: any pricing conversation that happens after the service rather than before it.
Pattern 3: the gift that isn’t
Something is placed in your hand or on your wrist — a bracelet, a sprig of rosemary, a bird, a hat — and payment is then demanded, often loudly and with an audience.
Do not take the thing. Hands in pockets, keep walking. Once it is on you, the negotiation has already started on their terms.
Variants: the photograph with a costumed character, the “free” henna, the monk with a laminated card.
Pattern 4: the long friendship
The most sophisticated, and the one that costs the most money.
Someone strikes up a genuinely pleasant conversation. Over an hour or a day they are excellent company. Then there is a shop — carpets, gems, silk — where you are under considerable social pressure to buy something at several times its value, because you like them.
The gem scam in particular — being told you can resell the stones at home for a profit — has cost individual travellers tens of thousands of pounds and runs in Bangkok, Jaipur and Colombo.
The tell: any conversation that arrives at a shop. Not every friendly stranger is running this; almost every one who takes you to a shop is.
The response: enjoy the conversation, decline the shop. “I’m not buying anything today” repeated pleasantly is enough.
Pattern 5: distraction
Two or more people. One creates a situation — spilled sauce on your jacket, a dropped wallet, a fight, a map thrust in your face, a baby handed to you — and another takes your bag or your pocket.
The response is physical, not verbal: when something unexpected happens in a crowd, hand on your bag first, then deal with the situation.
Where: train stations, famous squares, metro doors as they close, and anywhere you have just been photographed by a stranger who offered.
Pattern 6: authority
Someone in a uniform or with a badge asks to check your wallet for counterfeit notes, or demands an on-the-spot fine.
Real police rarely need to inspect your cash. Ask to see identification, offer to accompany them to the police station, and do not hand over your wallet or passport.
Variants: fake border officials, fake ticket inspectors, fake tourist police.
The ATM ones
Worth separating because the loss is larger.
Skimmers and cameras. Use machines inside bank branches. Cover the keypad with your other hand, every time.
Dynamic currency conversion, which is not a scam exactly but costs you 3 to 7 per cent — always choose to be charged in the local currency. See the money guide.
The “helpful” stranger at the machine, who is memorising your PIN.
What actually reduces exposure
Book the first night and the airport transfer in advance. Arriving tired and unbooked is when almost everything happens.
Know the approximate cost of a taxi from the airport before you land.
Two cards, kept separately.
Do not carry the passport unless required; a photograph or a copy is enough in most countries.
Drink less than you would at home. By a wide margin the largest single factor in things going wrong.
And the thing worth saying at the end
Most people in every country you will visit are not trying to take anything from you, and a traveller who treats everyone as a potential scammer has a worse trip and is not measurably safer.
The scams above are patterns, not people. Learn the patterns, keep your bag on your front in a crowd, and then be as open as you would want someone to be with you.