ME :)

The Parking Scam

The parking scam is quite simple. If you drive a car or rent a car and you need to find a place to park your car in the city or in any city/town in Romania chances are you will find someone on the street standing there directing you to a parking spot.

If you happen to accept their spot that they are directing you to then chances are you are going to have to pay this person some money. If you don’t pay them any money then you will find that once you get back to your car, it has been scratched or damaged.

This is a cunning extortion technique and usually conducted by the male population young and old. One thing to do is not to park where these guys direct you to but attempt to find your own parking spot. If you decide to park where they have instructed you to park, pay up or you will pay for those scratches especially if it’s a rental car.

The Mobile Phone Scam

Why you would by a mobile phone in Romania in the first place? Well if you decide to then do be careful where you buy it from and who you buy it from. Here’s how it works. The seller will show you the phone; he will allow you to play with it and so on making you feel comfortable that it’s genuine.

Once you decide to make the purchase, you give the phone back to him and you get the money ready. Meanwhile, he will switch the phone with a fake one. Inside the fake one, it is filled with sand and it will weigh the same as the original. Once the money and phone is exchanged, both parties will go their own ways. The seller will make a profit while the other buyer upon realizing the phone is fake and filled with sand knows he has been scammed.

The Taxi Meter Scam

This was investigated by a show like A Current Affair/Today Tonight and the undercover investigator caught the taxi driver red handed as he confessed on how he ripped off passengers particularly the tourists. I’ve been told that they’re stamped down on this but I’d be quite skeptical.

The taxi driver had a special button near his steering wheel which upon pressed incremented the meter value by a certain amount (most likely 1 Lei). The taxi driver would cunningly do it at certain intervals so that the passenger doesn’t get alarmed by how fast the fare is rising. By the end of the taxi trip, he would gain a nice sum of extra cash through this technique.

smiles