Italian tourist authorities are apparently going apoplectic about a couple of Japanese visitors who were charged €600 (£500) for a fairly average meal in a Rome eaterie. OK, it was a fairly expensive restaurant but the meal of pasta, a dessert and a bottle of chardonnay should have cost no more than €100 for the two of them – not only was the bill a bit over the top, the tip the restaurant added was €115! The tourists, probably not wishing to cause a scene, left the restaurant and went to the police and the whole affair kicked off. In the aftermath, the restaurant had its licence removed so a justice of sorts was done.
The article went on to say that the unwary traveler to Rome is ‘ripped-off’ as soon as they reach the airport with unlicensed taxi drivers conning tourists by charging €100 for the trip to the city centre, whereas the licensed drivers only charge €40. An ice cream at the Colloseum costs the princely sum of €6!
This happened to me years ago in Rome (the taxi bit that is) and you wonder why the authorities, if they know it’s happening, allow it to continue. Of course, you tend to get ripped off everywhere you go these days although I cannot think of one instance of it happening when I’ve been in the States.
Only a few weeks ago I was charged €28 (about £25) for four drinks in Nice, two of which were cokes. The scam was quite a clever one. I asked for a large white wine and when he listed the wines available, I chose an average one. When the bill came, I noticed that he’d charged me €16 for a large glass of Chablis, when I’d chosen Chardonnay. Had I complained, all he would have said was that he’d misheard me. I could have pressed the point but it’s their loss, I’ll never go there again but hey, we were tourists to them. They probably never expected to see us again anyway!
I was also the centre of a huge rip-off in Portugal quite a few years back. BT had booked a conference on the coast and we went to a rather up-market restaurant whose speciality was fish. The waiters came out flourishing huge plates of fruit de mer with large lobsters featuring prominently – this was the starter. Despite my reservations at the cost of £36 per person (just for the starter), the majority of the 30 or so people ordered it. Of course, when it came, there was plenty of crab but not a bit of lobster in sight. I discussed this with my director (he had asked me to pay the bill) but as we were hosting several senior American directors he asked me not to make a fuss and so we let it go. This was some 16 years ago and the bill eventually came out to some £3,500, about a £1,000 of which was the starter.
A few years later, I was the guest of Visa in exactly the same resort. As I was known to have visited said resort before they asked if I knew of a particular restaurant. Yup – it was the same one and they’d booked for 40 people! I told the organizers my story and off we went to the rip-off joint. I took the greatest pleasure in cancelling the booking and telling them why but they were probably still full on that particular night and probably ripped off even more unsuspecting souls.
Of course down here on the Côte d’azur, every non-French person expects to be ripped off if you call in a builder, plumber, electrician etc etc etc. It’s estimated that prices for jobs are inflated by anything up to 40% and as there seems to be a bit of a cartel operating, (i.e. every tradesman quoting to a non-French adds up to 40% extra) you always get a high price so the choice you have is what high price shall I choose!
The problem is that no matter who quotes you a price, you just assume you’re being ripped off which is a sad way to live life. The secret is to find friends of Guy and Kitty whose fathers are tradesmen and then become VERY friendly with them. C’est la vie.
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