A Scam I Can’t Believe I Fell For

I thought I was fully prepared for all the scams Europe had to offer. I did tons of research and kept my guard up for any red flags.

Unfortunately, I fell for the most obvious one.

If you read my post, “10 Unexpected Things That Surprised Me In Rome,” you would’ve read the shortened version of the scam I fell for.

Here’s the full story.

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It was our third day in Rome when we wanted to tour the Vatican Museum. The only problem was that we didn’t have entry tickets. We walked closer to the entrance of the Vatican Museum when we realized the line was so long, it quite literally wrapped around the entire country.

And this was April, not even peak season.

We really wanted to visit the museum, but really didn’t want to stand in the line. After going back and forth with our decision, a man approached us. He asked us if we needed tickets and said he could help us skip the line.

He was in regular clothes. No type of company logo, no identification. All he had was a brochure to point to proof that there was a way to “skip the line”.

We took the bait…

From there, we followed him as he speed-walked about a half a mile to an alley with a small tour shop. (Why we weren’t sketched out is beyond me. Maybe the alleys in Italy are just that stunning).

There was already a long line out the door, but he yelled, “These are my clients! Excuse me!” And pushed himself to the front of the line to talk to someone inside. He came out about 15 minutes later to tell us they couldn’t help us and we had to go to another place.

So we followed him again.

This time, we were greeted by lovely staff, but out of nowhere, they started yelling at each other in Italian. Our scammer was yelling and pointing at the staff and arguing with them. We didn’t know what was going on, but we could sense he was the aggressor in the situation. They eventually signaled him to leave, so we followed him out.

Once again, we followed him another half mile to a third spot.

This time, it didn’t really look like a tour agency, though they had brochures displayed on the walls. Again, he negotiated in Italian while we waited for an update. He tells us there are no more tours for today, but we can buy tickets for tomorrow and the lowest rate he can give us is $180 total.

At this point, we were too far in. We said yes, picked a time slot, then bought the tickets. Once the transaction goes through, he tells us, “Come back tomorrow to pick up your tickets.”

Sir. WHAT!?

I asked for a receipt, which he gave me, and reassured me he’d be there tomorrow to give us our tickets.

We arrived the next day and he was in office to give us our tickets. (Thank goodness.)

We skipped the longest line I’d ever seen and were grouped with a couple of others to start the tour. While waiting, we chatted with others and told them about our experience getting the tickets. They told us casually,”we bought ours on Trip Advisor”. Me and my husband looked at each other dumbfounded. We asked, “for how much?” He said. $40 each.

All we could do at that point was laugh.

This was the stupidest scam anyone could fall for, but I’m glad that, if any, this is the one that got me.

Until next time…