Be careful of these 4 common SCAMS in İstanbul for foreigners, you need to know before travelling

 

The touristic season is starting very fast and very concentrated in turkey these weeks, as tourists or visitors coming to this country be careful of 4 things, that I think Turkish government and Turkish tourism administration should pay attention for first, otherwise the repetition of the country as a touristic destination will be badly harmed and negatively affected.

 

1-      DONT BUY LUXURY PERFUME FROM THE STREET SELLER, IT IS FAKE

The original packaged Luxury brands of perfumes, a young man will approach you having brand new Chanel perfume and start showing it and showing more brand, and creating stories that they got it from duty free by some friends and it is original, don’t buy, don’t even talk to these people, if they insist feel free to call on any policeman you will see around. Those perfumes are fake and in the worst of case bottles filled of water, in the best case some law quality perfume with probably chemicals….

 

2-      STREET SHOES CLEANERS

Probably it happens with you, while you are walking especially around Harbiye in Istanbul, a wooden brush is falling in front of you from a man who is walking in front and had wooden table to clean shoes, you call on him, please your brush fall down, he looks at you with broken English or Russian or Arabic or whatever you need, especially when there is a lady next to you or there is a fair or exhibition in İCC Merkez next to Hilton hotel, he will tell you , you are good guy I will clean your shoes, he insists like there is no way you go without doing it, you say ok, after that they do something like cleaning which they don’t know and they ask you money, you give a hundred they ask five hundreds, you give five hundreds they ask a thousand till almost they get all your cash that day, stay away, even if the brush falls down let it, they throw it intentionally as a part of the scum.

 

3-      İSTIKLAL STREET, BAR AND NIGHT CLUB CALLERS.

 When you walk İstiklal street evening, you will see every 100 mtr someone calling you with a lower voice, depending on the way the read you, sometimes they start innocently, we have a bar here a nice night club, sometimes they say we have ladies from all nationalities for prostitutions… whatever they say, those who are calling on you that way, they take you to the worst and dirtiest bars in the city, where alcohol is mixed, prices are exaggerated and they just rob you, check google recommendations or choose where you want to go yourself.

TAXI SCAMS

As a friend advise, do not use a taxi unless it is very necessary, you will probably fight if you know your rights well, or your will robbed and thrown on the street or in the best case you will be stuck in traffic for 1-2 hours somewhere, the public transportation in Istanbul especially the touristic area is very well organized and connected you can get with it literally everywhere, No you have to use taxi, they don’t have right to ask you to get off after knowing your destination, they have to use the counter, there is no commission supposed to be paid whatsoever, whatever in the counter you pay it.

There are 2 main apps for Taxi, Uber and Bitaksi , Uber where you will have the worst Uber experience you may have anywhere, the drivers negotiate with you the prices on the system or they cancel, sometime they don’t come and they don’t cancel, UBER in Turkey has the worst service ever. Uber doesn’t defend the riders right in anyway it is a complete chaos, Bitaksi is not fantastic but the best among the bads.

 

I live in this city, it has been a while, I love it and I believe it is among the most beautiful cities in the world and a must-see city. Tens of friends of mine and their families came and in most of their stories these the 4 common things, I wanted to share them here with you, hoping that Turkish tourism authority will really pay attention for it and stop it, because they can’t imagine how bad marketing can this be for a city as beautiful as İstanbul