To me - it doesn't really matter where you are - you just gotta keep your wits and be sensible.

Yes, there IS quite a lot crime in China - but there's crime all over the world.

Common sense precautions when you're in ANY strange/new place should suffice - minimal cash, no bling, respectful, sober, avoid dark alleys/street, don't follow strangers - no matter how good whatever they're offering seems to be, try to be with a group, lock up your valuabels in the hotel safe, look in the peephole before opening you door etc

And if you do get unlucky and do get in trouble - dont be a hero - just give them what they want - it ain't worth your life.

BTW -crime DOES increase in China towards CNY - as lots of people are desperately trying to get $$$ to go home with.

SEAJ

depends on which city you go.  and if you are a gweilo, the chance of being cheated is higher than a chinese.

I think just bear in mind to use atm card rather than bring money to outside. it is the saftest

Please stop flooding with silly remarks ...
In China its worse if you get robbed with your ATM card !
They bring you to the machine and take all your worth !
so please do not mislead others with your silly comments !!!

China is pretty safe. I have been there a many times on business.
But just take precautions as everyone says.
use cash, don't use ATM.
be more aware at night time and don't sneak into dark alleyways.
Be aware of pickpockets.
Avoid trouble - I mean, if its an argument over 100rmb extra, just pay and get out. Its not worth it.
You're a foreigner and are at a disadvantage. But luckily your money is your advantage, so you can use it (wisely) to get out of tough spots.

There are so many foreigners in china too. Many living there too. They stick out like a sore thumb but have no troubles.

if you are a white guy, most likely you wont get beat up, murdered or hurt physically.

however, it is 100% guaranteed that you will be hustled or overcharged for stuff. KTVs / bar girls will surprise you with ripoff prices, pimps will try to con u, street vendors will quote u higher prices, etc.

there is also a 10% chance that you could get robbed with a knife or pickpocketed.

[ Last edited by  xiaodidi at 20-1-2010 05:36 ]

You were there for 3 days, that is just a sampling.  I was in Foshan, Shunde, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Panyu areas for over 6 months once and I saw shit, a lot of shit.  From wannabe triads to military to police joining forces to scam.  Stuff from straight up robbery, to drugging someone and even some sort of hypnosis that makes you vulnerable to taking the person to the ATM and/or bank and emptying your account.  If we start a thread on China scary stories, I have easily over 2 dozen that I have witnessed.

[ Last edited by  sexpert at 20-1-2010 21:39 ]

You know - you are very correct - that there IS a lot of crime etc in China - and it does many times - gets to one's own doorsteps as China is just so overcrowded everywhere.

Everybody's living cheek to jowl in China and it don't take much for crime to happen next to you - but PER CAPITA though, I'd think that the crime rate is not much higher than elsewhere. Not sure of course!

On the other hand, I'd personally like to hear your Scary China Stories and would be a very avid reader if you'd start such a thread.  It'd certainly be a lot of use to readers here - to assist them to avoid some of the crime/scams etc you will be writing about.

Thank you before hand.

SEAJ

Are we talking the "Svengali" style of hypnotist or the knife in your back style  hypnotist?

This is the last thing I remember before my account was cleaned out.

SZ is a different planet compared to HK.
I had my pocket picked (at least the back pocket of my racksack) N times where n > 6.
Caught the bastards twice.  Saw them in action as a gang of 2,3 and in the worst case 5.
The scary thing is the bystanders just watch because there is sod all you can even if you catch them!

Here is what I do.  No ATM cards;  No credit cards or just one credit card that has no ATM function.

Have a travel money belt that you can hide inside your clothes and have in it some money
and more importantly a photocopy of your ID card/travel document.

Carry two wallets. two mobile phones; one normal and one cheap.  

The duplicate wallet/phone is for when you are robbed you hand over the cheap phone/wallet with little money.
(Fortunately, fingers crossed, so far I have never been robbed in SZ)

On a brighter note SZ is likely to be the worst city (crime wise) in  entire China; for example I feel safer in Zhuhai.
I have been told  Beijing and Shanghai are a lot safer.

As with prices the usual saying is that there are 3 sets of prices.  One for the local; one for the non local who speaks mandarin and the rip-off price for the non local who does not speak the language!

BTW - near the CNY thieves are super active but you can also see more KO walking the street.

I posted these videos links before on another thread but it looks like nobody read them.

Do you recognize any of these bastards at Shenzhen on the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmjdc46-rWs

Another video from China.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=668bqiB662o&feature=related

Since brother Froddo decided to put up a nice hypnosis pic, I will talk about 3 hypnosis/drug induced robberies in "dai lerng" ShunDe in Foshan when I was there 3 years ago.  One was actually a family friend.  This was his story while I was there it happened to him.  He is the owner of one of many denim factories in the area.  Like everyone else there, he is unscrupulous and cheated many of the factory girls out of pay, board, food etc...  

Drives a very nice car and was going to get some drinks for the upper management.  Some girl started to chat him up, then another girl started to chat him up too before he knew it he said he was in a cloud.  Not knowing where he was, just following and listening to their voices as they led him to his bank.  Next thing you know he was taking about 60k RMB out of his bank account.  Did the appropriate paperwork, listened to the women speak to him and gave them the money when they left the bank.  They sat him down at an herbal tea shop, ordered him something and left.  He sat there drinking the same drink for an hour until the owner startled him awake.  It took him a few hours before he absorbed what actually happened.  He remembered the whole thing but he was powerless against it.  Two other well off men in the same exact areas were robbed the same exact way, a witness saw one of the women blow some sort of smoke into the faces of their victims before they left. This was documented in the area and has happened to well over 30 people at the time.  It was done by "outsiders" meaning non-Cantonese speakers, possibly drifters from the north.

Another one was in a small hotel in Guangzhou.  This happened to my friend's brother while he was there.  It was a 3 star hotel I think.  He got the "natural" phone call in the middle of the night asking if he needed company.  Looks at the window and there she is waving at him, a gorgeous young thing.  She comes up, at the very cheap price of 300 R M B for an overnighter.  She says she is going to go shower first and leaves her purse on the bed and takes her phone.  Next thing you know, these military guys knocks on the door demanding him to open the door.  Goes straight after the purse and asks where the girl is while the other one has a gun to his head. Looks at the ID, guess what?  She is 15... so they say, they said that they would let it slide if he could put up 20000RMB as a fine.  It was the middle of the night, so what did they do?  Took him to an ATM, maxed that out, then took him to their "friend's" bar/restaurant and made up the rest of the 20k in trumped up credit card charges.  They took him right back to his hotel where he spent the rest of the night crying to himself.

I'll tell of others when I have the time and energy to write.

Next time I will tell you guys about an aunt from America who was robbed on the road on a tour bus.

In consolation, at least the hypnosis thing won't work on the non-mandarin speaking bros.  But I think that hypnosis thing is cool, I can only imagine its power in a club filled with hotties.  

Whaddya mean it don't work on non-mandarin speaking bros - it worked on me.

OH!! You mean Sexpert's hypno and not Froddo's!

Seriously - i do appreciate sexpert relaying to me (Us?) these types of crime.  Just as we all are not that familiar with a lot of things china - we certainly are NOT familiar with all the scams that is de-riguer in China.

The other day, a friend of mine got an "urgent" text message - suppopssedly from me - that said -
"Urgent, emergency"
"Bank name and accout number"
"RMB 500"
"SEAJ"

Luckily she phoned me right away - but can you imagine how many Moms, Dad,s sons, daughters, BF, GF etc got this same message and probably did lose RMB 500?  And how in the world did they get MY name .... and was able to send the message to somebody I do know?  Did they hack my/her telephone set?

SEAJ

This is another very common scheme in China as well.  I have not witnessed this first hand but saw it on a television program about a very smart businessman who supposedly received a text from his son.

Another unique China practice is that checks are basically NOT used at all.

This being the case, it is quite common for people to just deposit cash into another person's bank account - and they've got ATM's that specifically does this.  

It's actually quite neat - all you do is go up to a "deposit" ATM, punch in an account number and the screen comes up with the account's name. If the name is confirmed, you deposit your cash into a box that opens up, closes, counts the cash, comes up with amount on the screen, you press Ok and your receipt comes out.

The only thing that bothers me about this is that anybody can walk up to an ATM, punch in ANY account number - and know the account holder's name.  

And I believe that Nigerian scammers only needs this information to somehow clean our your account! So.....

SEAJ

You left yourself open SP so I had to have some fun. We digress from "hypnosis" to drugging  Maybe you should have been clearer that the two were combined, it read as if they were separate.

Of course drugging happens, anywhere in the world. Victims have ended up a dead, some in HK too... These people aren't doctors they can OD people, and the risk is higher if the punter is drunk.

We even had one of our distinguished Australian Prime Ministers found clue less wondering back into his hotel in Memphis sans pants and wallet, (but not admitting to anything else).

Watching your drink is extremely important, pretty easy with regards a girl in your room, etc., but there are some places, even in Sydney, where some bar staff may be involved in the "Mickey finn". Drug rape is not uncommon in Australia, and it's not just girls, this also happens to a significant number of young men too, and it's often associated with robbery.

What???  Which Premier was(is) this?  When?

Really?

What's the "story?"

Thanks

SEAJ

The Nigerian scammers need more than just your account name and number. Every time you write a cheque you are giving out this info. They need the PW(s), or more info like; DOB, mothers maiden name, billing address, etc., if they are to access your account for any significant amount of money ... sort of like ID theft.

The scams want you to send them your account info under the promise they will forward funds. Without the password/pins they cannot access your money. The "Nigerian" scams ask you to to send money to their accounts for the admin costs of moving that $20M+ to you account. IMO only the greedy fall for this type of scam and it's their karma, like "in my (our families) role in Nigeria, I've just ripped off US$20M from the people, and I will give you commission to help me launder this out to the west" ....

A fool and his money are soon parted if he provides his pass codes, and most banks now require at least two levels of pass code, and some generate unique codes for each large transaction. Other techniques are used such as you will be contacted by bank computer voice generated call to your designated phone and asked to confirm the transaction and then supplied with unique key that must be typed in to effect the T/F.

Some scams are linked with money laundering and pass themselves off as offering you a job ... they will actually send you funds you then on forward to other accounts and you keep a generous commission. The amounts are low, in OZ all amounts AUD$10k plus are subject of auto advice to the authorities computers systems. These are short lived enterprises, they send some small amount to test your "honesty", then the victims are usually busted within weeks and the patsy is left holding the can. We have several cases before the courts in AUS but the; .... how should I phrase this ... I'll use your "shoe shine boys" terminology, never really know who they are dealing with so cannot give any real evidence other then the tax haven accounts where the money went, ... and was subsequently emptied.

Malcolm Fraser .... his wife Tammy was not impressed.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal ... his_trousers_affair