Photo of scam warning sign in Shanghai

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This sign in Shanghai warns against scams where tour guides approach you on the street. We were approached by somebody near the Yu Gardens bazaar trying to pull off the tea ceremony scam, where they try to make friends with you and then get you to go with them for a tea ceremony. At the end, you're landed with a huge bill. This scam was mentioned in our guidebook and is widely documented on the internet, so I was surprised that the approach we had followed the script we'd seen almost exactly. I would have thought they would have changed it a bit. The approach started with them asking us to take their photo and then they were extremely persistent in talking, even after we'd said goodbye a couple of times. Once it became clear they were running the tea scam, we told them we don't drink tea and walked away.

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