Conmen in Budapest
1 Comment I was walking, on my way to the castle quarter, down a side street a bit south of the Parliament building in Budapest. Some guy– we shall call him Randy since he looked like Randy Quaid– stopped me and asked if I knew where X- street was. I didn’t, but I did point on the map to where we were just to be helpful. He kept on saying “X-?” What is with this guy? “No, I don’t know what you’re saying, but this is where we are.”
And as I was just about to give up and walk on, some guy comes up saying, “Police, controller.” He quickly flashed his badge and said, “ID, Passport.” Randy shows Mr. Plain Clothes Policeman his ID, and I’m thinking shit, “Why is trouble always finding me today?” (I had a rough day). I obviously had a good guess to what was going on, and my blood started pumping with adrenaline. I thought, “Hmmm. This might be interesting, let’s play it out because I’m not 100% sure about the situation.” I took a calculated risk– partly unthinking, which was probably a bad thing– and handed over my ID. I keep my IDs separate from any cash (or valuables) I carry, so there was no opportunity for a grab and dash. Not that they would’ve gotten anything anyways since I’m not in the habit of carrying around $1500 in cash on my body anyways.
Mr. 1.6 meter tall, and fat, guy takes a look at the ID, and hands it back. I guess there wasn’t any demand for a skinny Asian guy’s ID in Hungary.
“You two together?”
“Nope”, Randy and I reply.
Mr. Police Officer turns to me and says, “You in big trouble. Cocaine, drugs, money fake.”
Hahahahahahahaha. Was that the best they could do?
“No.” I just turned and walked away across the street. The closest person I saw was a block away and I was partly concerned that the con would turn into a full on mugging (two on one), so I was prepared to run or fight. Regardless, that was that and I went off to finish sightseeing. I think I got even more tired after even more walking.
And on reflecting about the situation, I figured that I had two problems:
- I probably made a mistake by showing my ID in the first place, just because it’s kind of a pain to get IDs reissued;
- I must have, in general, hit some sort of travelling fatigue wall because I probably radiated the tired-zoned-out-tourist vibe. I had mentioned this fact before to some friends, but I didn’t come to a full realization until this experience. The fact I had been walking for 4 hours straight, with zero break, when this happened probably didn’t help my rational thought.
I didn’t know about this lost with map trick to stop tourists, and I also learned a valuable lesson: Always beware of the shill.
[Side note: Berlin's streets have lots of Three-card Monte scams. Germany's 18% unemployment rate must be making things tough for people. I counted six different groups (three shills, of mixed gender, partnered up with one dealer) all up and down one main street.]
Good thing you still had some sort of Red Flag goin off in your head. They probably were scoping you out for a while.
Comment by NickNick — July 13, 2006 @ 7:11 am