Getting Annoyed at Scammers in Milano, Italy
It was the most beautiful time of the year, Christmas season (my own photo)
This
happened years ago when I traveled to Western Europe. My tour guide let me
wandered by myself in Milano downtown. Since it was my first time being there, I
was so mesmerized by everything. All the classic building with beautiful
decoration really wowed me.
Earlier
on the bus, the tour guide told me about young scammers who offer free wristlets.
He said I should never accept them because once I accepted the bracelet, they
would force me to pay for it in a really high price. Or in other definition, I’d
get ripped. He said those scammers aren’t the real Italians. Instead, they’re
immigrants from suburbs. Therefore, they came to Italy to ripped tourists who
still had no idea about that tactic.
The photo was a bit dark because there was no sun shined (my own photo)
When
I got off the bus, of course the first thing I did was taking whole bunch of
photos here and there. It was my first super far trip from my homeland,
Indonesia. Also, it was my first time experiencing winter! Since I was stupid
enough, I wore a very thin layers of clothes and jacket. So as expected, I was
dead freezing. But I wouldn’t let that cold stop me from exploring the downtown
of Milano.
I went
directly to the front of Milan Cathedral, aka the main tourist attraction. While
I was posing for photos, I remember that the tour guide also warned me to never
leave my bag on the floor. He said there were tons of thief who would snatch my
bag in a second. As someone who loved taking photos and hated to wear a bag
while doing so, it was a pretty difficult rule to do.
After
some time snapping some photos, young guy came up to me. With blank expression
he offered me free bracelet. That was the moment when I realized, “oh this is
what the tour guide meant.” Since it was my first time experiencing that, I tried
to be as polite as possible and said “No. Thank you.” I even smiled at him.
Then
I continue my activity, which was taking photos. Again though, he came up to me
but now with his friend. His friend was a girl. They both offer me some free bracelets.
Being polite again I said, “no thank you.”
It
was quite surprising for me because they were very aggressive. I remember one
of the youngsters even tried to directly put the bracelet into my wrist, which
then I directly rejected by pulling my hands out of their reach. As a rookie European
traveler, I thought that was so intense.
I moved
to another side of the front of Milan Cathedral to avoid them. But this time,
again some youngsters came up to me asking me to accept their offer. Why?! Did I
look that easy to be intimidated or that’s just the way they live though. Then
I thought, maybe I should just stop being polite to them, so I just shouted, “NO!!”
However, again, it wasn’t successful and more people keep coming at me offering
their scam. Yo, that was so intense. I was legit surrounded by scammers. I was definitely
too polite earlier which in the end made me look too easy to be intimidated.
I then
thought, well maybe if I just ignore them, they would just shut up. It was somewhat
right. They still came to me, but since I just pretended to not see them and
just being busy taking selfies, they were only standing in front of me holding
the bracelets. It was so annoying to be honest, because imagine you’re nicely
taking photos and some people just literally standing in front of you looking
at you and passive aggressively pushing you to fall into their traps.
After
satisfied with all the photos taken, I went inside the Milan Cathedral. While walking
there, I did see lots of people were offered free bracelets. Usually their
targets were young travelers, especially girls and maybe those who look like
they can be deceived. I even saw some children who accepted the bracelets. I wondered
how much their parents had to pay for the bracelets though.
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