Two Cons You Want to Watch Out For By Patrick Chong At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Unfortunately travel insurance is vital in today’s world filled with con artists, and gone are the days when you can innocently go on holiday as an ignorant tourist. As soon as you appear vulnerable, crafty conmen can wrangle all sorts of things out of you, or even worse, rob you - and your holiday could be completely ruined if you haven’t purchased travel insurance.

Cheap travel insurance is becoming essential when travelling, as you need to be able deal with the worst case scenario, be it a missed flight or a mugging. Luckily, many of the scams going around are well publicised, and travellers are becoming weary of old con tricks.

The ‘Tourist Police’

While it may seem obvious not to trust a stranger who approaches you in plain clothes claiming to be the tourist police, when you’re in a foreign country and you’re not very fluent in the local language it’s not too difficult to become confused and make yourself vulnerable to cons, scams and theft. One of the latest tricks is for conmen to approach innocent tourists who appear to be lost, reading a map, or involved in some other fairly oblivious activity, claiming to be the tourist police. These so-called tourist police then ask the unsuspecting travellers to open their bags so that they can be searched. Of course, on opening the bag, the conmen grab wallets, cameras and other valuable possessions, and they do it with ease as the bags are willingly opened to them. And once all the valuables have been stolen, the travellers can only hope their holiday insurance covers them.

Italy is known for this sort of conning, and young girls are often the target of the crime. The incidents don’t seem to get very out of hand, and often the tourists become suspicious before they allow their bags to be searched. But for those unlucky few who fall for the act, some cheap travel insurance is sure to come in handy.

The String Men

Paris is a beautiful city to visit, and every year throngs of holidaymakers happily visit the most romantic city in the world. From the Champs Élysées to the Eiffel Tower, this beautiful city offers a host of famous tourist attractions. One such attraction is Montmatre, famous for the beautiful white-domed Basilica de Sacré Cœur which is perched at the top of this well-known hill. And while tourists are admiring the view and the architecture, the furthest thing from their minds is wondering whether or not their travel insurance covers being mugged with a ball of string!

But their holiday insurance may turn out to be useful, for lurking in the area below this beautiful hilltop are groups of con artists, who have perfected a peculiar trick of robbing tourists using string. As you walk down the hill towards the main road, first just one conman waving a dangling piece of string will approach you. This appears to be very curious, so most people will stop to find out what the man is trying to do. But the second you stop (or even slow down), the man will begin tying the string around your hands, and before you know it, 5 other string men will have surrounded you. The first step is to ask you for 50 euros. Of course, there is nothing to pay for, and people naturally refuse. But in all the confusion of trying to break free from the string and figure what on earth all these men are doing tying bits of string around you, your bag is emptied of all its valuable possessions. And with everything gone, you only have your travel insurance to turn to.

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