The Beijing Tea Scam

I guess it was bound the happen eventually. All around the world people have tried and we've always been wise to it, but our first day in Beijing we were finally scammed. Bad. By three friendly Chinese ladies, too. Let's start from the beginning. We had just finished visiting the Forbidden City and were standing just outside the gates alongside Tiananmen Square. As we were taking some pictures in front of the famous Mao Zedang portrait, three Chinese started chatting with us. Where are you from? First time to China? That sort of thing. Happens a lot. Eventually the mentioned that they were just about to go get some tea before a flag-lowering ceremony in a couple hours in the square, and wanted to know if we'd like to join them. This happens fairly often, and normally we just make up an excuse and politely refuse. Maybe we're cautious, maybe we're anti-social. This time, we couldn't really think of a good excuse. It was cold, hot tea sounded good. The ladies were nice. Many Chinese will literally pay you to practise their english on you, so it didn't seem out of the ordinary at all. So, we agreed to tea. We set off to find a place and the ladies were busy firing off questions and chatting us up. No warning bells whatsoever.

scammer's hunting grounds

We wondered around for a bit, and almost passed a place that said "Tea/Coffee" outside. One of the ladies stuck her head in the door to see if it was open. At first we thought it wasn't and were going to keep looking, but finally someone did come out and showed us to a room. They presented us a menu that listed the types of tea and quoted "39 RMB/per person/per person" which was not only expensive (about $6), but also didn't make a whole lot of sense. Reluctantly we agreed that this was okay, since we were enjoying the conversation and it was just that cold outside. We settled in and had a good time chatting it up with our new friends. They were from somewhere in the north and were having a ladies holiday in the capital, while their husbands were home working. We chatted about everything from Jackie Chan to a secret Chinese boiled-Coke and ginger sore throat remedy. They were really nice ladies. Still no warning bells.

the most expensive tea and snacks ever

Everyone ordered a different tea and they came out and did a little ceremony for each one. It was fairly interesting - some teas they made you smell and one of them they poured a little bit over a small "tea Buddha" figurine before serving it to us. I still can't decide if this was a total croque or legit tea-ceremony rituals. For each tea they gave all of us a small shot glass-size taster. We made it through our 5 teas and decided to have one more since 6 is a lucky number in China, or something like that. Everything was going good, of course, until the bill came. Originally we had a tiny little girl serving our tea, but for the bill they brought in the stern manager, who showed us a calculator reading "302." At first I thought this was the total bill, which should have been about what we were expecting. Slowly we realized, with horror, that this is what EACH of us owed. Our heads were spinning. What is going on? How much is that? We did the math - almost $50 each. Over $90 for tea?!? Wait, that can't be right. I kept looking at our Chinese friends and they were just counting out their money. They were billing us $6 for each tea we tried, plus essentially $15 for a "private room fee", as well as for each of the two bowls of bar snacks they had brought for us, as well as a 10% service fee on top of all that. We just couldn't believe it. We didn't even have that much money on us, but they kindly informed us they took credit cards. Nowhere in China takes credit cards. That should have been yet another clue that we were getting scammed, but still we just couldn't see it. We were just so confused and shocked. We paid up and got out of there as fast as possible, fuming. Still with no good excuse, we simply told the Chinese ladies we couldn't go to the flag ceremony and parted ways. At this point we're fuming, confused...what the heck just happened? Then we got back to our hostel, got on Google, and looked on in horror as we read the hundreds of accounts of the Beijing Tea Scam. Account after account of the exact same story as ours. How had we not heard about this?

if in Beijing, don't go here!

After reading people's postings on their Tea Scam experience, many of which went back and got their money back, we went to bed determined to do the same. First thing the next morning we headed back by the tea shop to take some "surveillance" pics and get the address to show the cops. The little girl that had served our tea saw us and asked us if we needed help. It started cordial enough, but eventually I got into her a little bit and told her I was going to the cops if she didn't give me my money back. She immediately offered half the money, but wouldn't go past giving 400 of our 600 back. We were determined to get 500 back, as even though 100 RMB ($15) is a lot for tea, it is about what we had agreed to pay. So, we went and found a policeman to help us. He hardly spoke a word of english, but when he heard "teahouse" he made a slight grin, nodded his head and said "I know, I know." Eventually we ended up in the back of a Beijing policecar with two cops who spoke no english at all. They knew the place. The second they walked in the doors with us in tow, the girls at the teahouse turned real friendly again. They immediately offered to refund our credit card and did, but reminded us that "in China, nothing is free." We agreed and paid them 100, which we thought was more than fair and they took happily. Probably shouldn't have given them a cent, but didn't feel right about it even if they had scammed us.

So that was it. We originally weren't going to tell anybody about the whole ordeal and just forget about it. When you try to explain it to someone, you feel like a real idiot for falling for that, but I can't tell you how flawlessly this rouse was pulled off. It was brilliant. From the acting jobs of the 3 Chinese ladies, to the way they almost missed the teahouse, to the confusion of the menu, to the stern manager demanding money just when we were shocked from the bill. To this day I have a hard time believing those three sweet ladies were in on it. How could they? And that brings me to the most depressing thing from the whole ordeal. When traveling, you simply cannot trust anybody you meet on the street. We ran into this in Egypt, South America, Thailand, and now in China. There are lots of people that genuinely love to talk to a foreigner (especially an American) and to practise what little english they may know. But there are also people that pretend to be interested in talking to you but are only looking to scam some money out of you. You can't tell the difference. It truly is a shame. From now on, if people try to talk to us on the streets, we basically say "no thanks" and keep walking, and that really sucks. I hate wondering if anybody we talk to is just trying to scam us. Meeting locals is one of the best parts of traveling, and now we are suspicious of anybody we talk to. Ugghh. It's frustrating. At least we learned a valuable lesson and have a good story to tell. We weren't going to let it dampen our spirits too much though, because we have a lot to see in Beijing!