The Beijing Tea Room Scam
This scam is so subtle and elegant that you are still not sure you have been scammed as you walk home, and your brain buzzes with trying to figure out everything that has just gone on. Only when you type in the above dreaded words ‘the Beijing tea room scam’ can you be confident in knowing you are one of thousands of people who daily get scammed by this. There are posts with thousands of replies to this topic, some of these people even got scammed twice in one day! So please bear this in mind before heading to Asia…
It goes something like this;
- We approached Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden Palace quite late in the afternoon, about 4.30 and just exited to go view these attractions. We were in a positive mood, and were having a fantastic day reminiscing about our trans Siberian train ride
- When two of the sweetest and innocent girls you could ever imagine past us and said ‘Hello, where are you from?’ in perfect English. Nothing wrong in talking to these people we thought, we walked up to them and answered ‘England’. We were then enthralled in a 10 minute conversation about how they were teachers and taught English to their 3rd grade pupils. Their English was excellent and no words or phrases threw them. They were also so geeky and honest looking, little doubt entered our minds that they were lying about anything they said.
- We explained that we wanted to quickly visit Tiananmen Square and then we were going to get something to eat. ‘Ah, Tiananmen Square is closed now’ they explained, which it was but ‘we can show you a good restaurant if you want? You can eat together with us if you want?’. ‘OK’ we replied. I thought that even if I did have to pick up the tab I would not mind as these girls would take us to an authentic and cheap Chinese restaurant with fantastic food and conversation, and by then we had a real cultural interest in these girls as they were teaching us everything about China that we did not know, and that was a lot.
- So off we trumped. One girl started to talk to each of us, firing thousands of questions about our family, home and our jobs. We fired questions back testing them that they were not lying and that they were really teachers. I asked many questions about her school and pupils and each answer came back totally believable. They took us through attractive parks and whizzed us through maze like streets. We understand now that they asked us a lot of questions so (1) we would be confused and not remember the way and (2) they wanted to assess what our money situation was like.
- We walked for quite a way, we past a few restaurants and I said ‘ What about this one?’. ‘No good’, was the reply. We past one ‘tea house’ and the Chinese girl spoke to a large bouncer type man before walking off. We now believe that this ‘tea house’ was so full of other tourists that there was no room for us so that had to take us to their reserve place. I think that we were fortunate this happened as this initial ‘tea house’ looked a better set up.
- Anyway after another 10 minute walk we past another building, which supposedly was a ‘tea house’ and the girls said ‘Do you want a tea before we go eat? And warm up a little?’ It was freezing cold so we agreed. We entered and the woman greeted us before seating us in a separate business room and bought over the menu.
- The menu looked quite expensive, with pots of tea starting from around 100 yian. About £10. But a cup was 20 yian, still expensive. Having looked at the menu we thought we had it wrong and that these local teachers would not bring us to such an expensive tea house. We had a lot of faith in these girls for some reason. After all of us ordered our tea, the Chinese girl also asked if we wanted some ‘bar snacks’. ‘OK’ we said as we were starving by now!
- So it continued for about 2 hours, with more teas coming and the manageress bringing us chocolates and nuts for bar snacks, we talked and talked about everything and learned a lot from the girls. But by the end of encounter the girls looked like they were getting tired of us and the answers and questions became more lethargic. They both went to the toilet a few times…
- Then the bill came, the total was 460 yian. About £46, for some pots of tea and snacks! Just to put this into context a cup of tea normally costs about £0.20, I was drinking pints of beer for £0.30 and our whole meal the night before came to about £3.
- The girls looked shocked and started arguing with the manageress. Apologising and looking saddened for bringing us to such an expensive place. Going through the bill and looking at each charge, she said that the bill was correct.
- ‘Oh, OK’ I said as now I knew something was wrong. ‘So how are we going to split the bill?’ Suddenly they did not understand English, and looked puzzled at me. I did not mind paying for a reasonable priced meal but nearly £50 for a pot of tea and some bar snacks! So I put 200 yian on the table and looked at them. No response, just an awkward silence from everyone. I finally put another 100 yian on the table, still nothing and then another 100 yian. They could all see that we were not pleased about paying this much, so the girls put the other 60 yian to help us out. At the time you think that (1) it is Chinese custom for the guests to pay (which it is) and (2) that these poor Chinese teachers cannot afford such a large and unexpected bill.
- We left and said our goodbyes to the girls. We did not want to eat with them by now as we were fearful how much that bill would come to and we had just spent a relatively large amount of money on them.
- We walked home and our brains were whirling with what just happened. Did the girls take us accidentally to a very expensive tea room? Has the tea room manageress just ripped us off or was that the correct price? Surely the girls and the tea house cannot be in it together, as that would just be too intricate? Surely people would not go to such efforts to get £46 out of you, as they did spend nearly 3 hours with us in total?
- But that is exactly what happened; the whole event was planned from the beginning, and the girls would take a cut from the tea house. We only believed it ourselves when we searched for it on Google and found thousands of people posting the same thing.
- Where as we were only taken for £40 in the end (we read people being charged anywhere from $50 – $6,000 as the scam becomes more intricate and they involve a proper tea tasting ceremony to the bill) it was not the money that we minded about. One of the things we wanted to gain from this trip was to trust and talk to as many local people as possible. But this event totally eradicates trusting anybody and makes you retreat into your thick shell like exterior where you refuse to talk or trust anyone.
- The following day we returned to see Tiananmen Square (it was a square with nothing on it and certainly nothing about it past tragedies) and saw many other Chinese girls talking to westerners. We also noticed that standing close by were security who quickly clocked that we were watching the events unfold, and made it clear that they were watching us in turn. They must get a lot of trouble from grieved westerners! We were going to warn the western men, but luckily they walked off and did not go with girls.
- As we walked out, other innocent looking ‘students’ approached us with calls of ‘Hello friend, where are you from?’ But we were too experienced by then.