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With the amount of shame emanating from the pictured women's body language, you'd think the cop was busting a Shenzhen whorehouse. But no-- this is Nanjing Lu East, and the scam is overpriced tea.
But don't go reporting your local Starbucks to authorities, yet. This morning at 12:30AM police raided Taihe Teahouse based on a report from three French tourists who racked up a 7,455 yuan ($920) bill in one short hour. The Frenchmen allege that, while strolling the Bund, a group of 5 Chinese women approached them, struck up a conversation, and brought them to the teahouse. As it turns out, the five women were part of a ring of conspirators who lure hapless, lust-struck foreign men to teahouses full of giggling ladies before hitting the laowais with an astronomical bill and demanding they pay up. The duped trio say, when they refused to pay, a teahouse manager threatened them.
Authorities report that the teahouse owner, a man by the name of Wang, employs 20 people and owns two teahouses. Perplexingly, they announced this morning that the second teahouse, Yaoyuan, would be raided later tonight. We hope that went well for them. Surely Mr. Wang was kind enough to keep the lights on and WELCOME mat out.
Shanghai Daily: Teahouse closed down for ripping off foreigners
Picture from Shanghai Daily
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Kudos to the French guys for having the guts to not pay and to call the cops. I just saw this on the news. This woman at the restaurant tried to claim she had never seen the guys before and they were making everything up, then the guys pulled out their video camera and showed the police this video they had taken of her pouring tea for them!
That's great to hear. Two different couples tried pulling the same thing when I was in 人民广场. The story is that they are from out of town and would like to attend a "Tea Ceremony" (what is this Japan?), and if they would like me to join them. I would play along with them, but ultimately turn them down.
I'm sorry but you have to be a moron to fall for that.
I had this tried on me in Beijing and simply stood up and walked out -- I mean, not following a bunch of girls in, in the hope of some slap and tickle (i.e. these French guys should have seen it coming), but just vastly over-priced tea.
Btw - what's a 'laowei', Maureen?
#4, Laowai means foreigners.
I think the Frenchies got upset because $7455 yuan did not include an all night fuck fest.
I know a girl who bought art from a proverbial Beijing Art Student. She seemed really pleased about the purchase, I let it ride. But the scams do work.
@ guest #5 - LAOWAI means it - not LAOWEI.
This shows again the ridiculous amount naivity of Europeans (probably also Americans and Japanese) when dealing with China and the Chinese.
Why are these foreigners so stupid? We have a free press and unrestricted reporting in Europe. But what is this press-freedom used for? Infotainment, "fark" as in fark.com
In China it is the communist controlled press that keeps people stupid. In Europe we have infotainment, in the U.S. we have fark.
These Shanghai scam artist are well-documented across a wide spectrum of travel information pertaining to visiting this city. Any traveler who has not done their homework and falls for this shit deserves to get bilked.
Seriously, as rude as it may sound, NEVER accept anything in China without asking how much it is first. Even if you feel like someone is offerring you a gift or something complimentary that you wouldn't pay for in the West, ASK! Otherwise, you're getting a 10,000 RMB bill.
http://wiki.wubi.org/ShanghaiEgyptianBar
So it took the police....... 5 years to close down this scam? The teashop owner was obviously behind on his monthly bribes.
This happend to me for two days ago also. Two girls show me the way -to nearest bar- try to rip me of 3400Y for a beer and some wiskey. I really wanted a beer , not sex..hehe. I payed normal price for MY drinks, then i go, OK, i have been here only for 3 days,someone should put up signs-beware of girls- ( i have the girls on pictures-for police maybe.)
This happened to me last Sept/October as well. There seem to be more of them involved in this scheme (at least 2 or 3 groups of 2-4 people). They stroll around People's Park with a nice chitchat and take you to a small place not far, where they do the tea ceremony. I've still got the pics to prove it...
Felt totally stupid afterwards heh.. Wonder if the cops got these people too?