China is a low-crime country, but a small number of well-rehearsed street scams still run in tourist districts. Every one of them depends on the same thing: you being polite and off-guard. Here's the playbook.
The reason these scams work
All of them exploit the same two things: your politeness, and your uncertainty about what's normal. A friendly stranger approaches, the interaction is charming, and the demand for money arrives after you're socially committed. Once you know the scripts, they stop working entirely — which is the whole point of this article.
The tea ceremony scam
The most common one in Beijing and Shanghai, and the most expensive. A well-dressed young person — often a woman claiming to be a student practising English, sometimes with a companion — strikes up a conversation near a tourist sight, suggests a tea ceremony or an art exhibition, and walks you to a nearby teahouse or gallery. You drink tea, look at paintings, and are then presented with a bill for several hundred dollars.
| Where | The script | The shutdown |
|---|
| Wangfujing, Houhai and the Forbidden City approaches (Beijing); the Bund, Nanjing Road and Yu Garden (Shanghai) | "Excuse me, are you a tourist? I'm a student, may I practise my English? There's a wonderful tea ceremony nearby…" | "No thank you." Keep walking. Do not apologise, do not explain. A genuine student will not recruit you off a street corner. |
| Also seen at West Lake, the Terracotta Army and outside major museums. | "My friend has an art exhibition — you must come, it's free!" | Same. Free means free until the invoice appears. |
The rule that defeats all of these: never follow a stranger who approaches you to a second location. Not for tea, not for art, not for a "local market you'd never find". No exceptions, no matter how pleasant they are.
Taxi and rickshaw overcharging
The classic version is a driver who agrees a fare and then demands ten times that on arrival, sometimes with the support of a companion who appears at the destination. It happens most around hutong districts, tourist streets and rail stations.
- The fix: use the meter. If a driver won't use the meter, get out before you move.
- Better: use a ride-hailing app, where the fare is fixed in advance and the route is tracked.
- Best on a private trip: your car and driver, arranged by us, waiting at a known place at a known time.
- The rickshaw version: agree a price in writing — type the number on your phone and show it — or decline entirely.
The "closed today" line
A friendly person near a major attraction tells you it's closed today — a holiday, a government event, a private tour — and offers to take you somewhere better. It isn't closed, and the alternative is a shop or an unofficial tour that pays them a commission.
Check opening hours yourself, and remember that on a private itinerary your guide is standing at the gate and would know.
The ticket queue fake-out
At busy sights, someone offers to skip the queue — a "fast pass", a "guide's ticket", a "friend who works here". You pay a premium for a ticket you could have bought at the window for a fraction.
- Buy at the official window, or book online through the official channel.
- On a private trip, entrance tickets are bundled — there is no ticket window in your day at all.
The wallet and gambling cons
Someone "finds" a dropped wallet and wants to share the contents with you; or you're invited to a card game or a "cultural" gambling experience. Both escalate into a demand for money, and both are well-documented.
Walk away immediately and don't touch anything they're holding.
Shopping commissions and the "factory visit")
This one is institutional rather than street. Cheap tours include "a visit to a silk factory", "a jade workshop" or "a tea plantation" — which are retail outlets that pay the operator a commission. The product is usually genuine, and usually much more expensive than the same object elsewhere.
- If a tour's price seems impossibly low, this is where the money comes from.
- Buy tea where locals buy tea, silk where locals buy silk, and ask your guide where they shop.
- We don't include commission outlets on any itinerary, and we'll tell you if a shop is a commission stop.
Foreign exchange and "no change")
Informal money changers offering great rates are handling counterfeit notes. Use banks, ATMs, or the payment apps. Separately, some taxi drivers claim to have no change — carrying small notes solves this, though mobile payment has made it largely a non-issue.
Digital fraud, which is now more common than street fraud
- Fake public Wi-Fi harvesting passwords. Use your own mobile data or a reputable VPN-free connection.
- Phishing messages claiming to be from your hotel or airline. Never enter card details from a link in a message.
- Fake hotel listings on third-party platforms. Book through channels you can verify, or through us.
- Card skimming at small vendors. Use mobile payment where possible.
The four rules that stop almost everything
- Don't follow strangers. Anyone who approaches you with an invitation is selling something. This single rule defeats most of the list.
- Fix the price before the service. Typed on a phone if language is an issue.
- Buy official, or let someone official buy for you. Tickets, taxis, guides, hotels.
- Have a local number to call. The moment a scammer realises you have a guide and a driver on speed dial, the conversation ends.
How a private trip changes the odds
None of these scams target travellers with a guide and a car. There is no tea ceremony to walk into when your afternoon is already planned, no taxi to argue with when a driver is waiting at the exit, and no ticket window to be intercepted at when your entrance is pre-booked.
That is not the main reason to travel privately. But it is a genuine, if unglamorous, benefit — and it's why travellers who've been scammed once tend to come back with a guide.
Protecting your phone and your money
Modern fraud has largely moved off the street, and it targets your phone rather than your wallet. A few habits remove almost all of it.
- Set a passcode and biometric lock. Most phone theft in China is opportunistic — a phone on a café table, not an armed robbery.
- Don't use open public Wi-Fi for anything involving a password or a card. Hotel Wi-Fi on a registered network is fine.
- Never enter card details from a link in a message, however convincing. Airlines, hotels and banks are impersonated constantly.
- Keep your passport separate from your phone. Losing one is a disaster; losing both is a crisis.
- Screenshot your key bookings. Works without signal, which is when you'll most need it.
- Use the hotel safe, and carry only what you need for the day.
What to do if you have been scammed
- Stop paying, immediately. The second demand is always larger than the first. Every escalation depends on you continuing the conversation.
- Leave the premises. You are not obliged to stay and argue. Walk out.
- Call your trip designer or hotel. On a private trip there's a named person who can come, translate, and in many cases recover the situation.
- Call your card issuer if a card was involved and dispute the transaction.
- Report it to the police (call 110) if money was taken by force or threat. Ask your guide or hotel to help with the report.
- Write it down while it's fresh. Names, location, time, what was said, what was paid.
The political reality of reporting
Chinese police will take a report seriously, particularly from a foreign visitor, and tourist districts have a strong record of caring about this because it affects the local industry. Language is the barrier, not willingness — which is precisely when having a guide is worth more than their fee.
Why these scams are almost entirely absent on a guided trip
It's worth being explicit about the mechanism rather than just asserting it. Every scam in this article requires one of three things: an unoccupied traveller with a free afternoon, a driver whose price is negotiable, or a person standing in a public place waiting for someone to approach them.
- No free afternoons. Your time is planned, so there is no gap for an invitation to fill.
- No negotiable drivers. The car is arranged, insured and known to us. There is no fare to argue about.
- No waiting at ticket windows. Entrances are pre-booked, so the fake fast-pass salesman has nobody to talk to.
- A known face in the street. Guides in China are licensed and registered. Their reputation depends on your trip going well.
This isn't the main reason to travel privately, and we wouldn't sell it that way. But travellers who've had a tea-ceremony afternoon tend to come back with a guide, and it's usually money well spent.
Frequently asked
Is the tea ceremony scam still happening in China?
Yes, particularly around Wangfujing and Houhai in Beijing and the Bund and Nanjing Road in Shanghai. The pattern is a friendly stranger inviting you to a tea ceremony or art exhibition, followed by a very large bill. Decline any invitation from someone who approaches you first.
Are taxis in China safe?
Licensed taxis are generally fine, and metered fares are cheap. The risk is unlicensed drivers quoting a price instead of using the meter. Use the meter, or a ride-hailing app, or a car arranged by your travel agency.
Do I need to worry about pickpockets in China?
Petty theft exists in crowds, as in any large city, and it is less common than in most European capitals. Keep your phone out of a back pocket on packed metro lines and use the hotel safe for your passport.
How do I avoid shopping commission stops on a tour?
Avoid unusually cheap tours — the commission is how they're funded. Ask directly whether the itinerary includes retail stops. We don't include them on any of our trips, and we'll tell you which shops are commission outlets if you ask.
Is it safe to use public Wi-Fi in China?
Treat public Wi-Fi anywhere in the world with caution; fake hotspots harvesting passwords are a real thing. Use your own mobile data where you can, and never enter card details from a link someone sent you.