Update: WISE have issued a refund but I take back my recommendation of them. Their fees lately have made them significantly worse than any normal bank. Disappointing. kzfaq.info/love/3_iSRqqZ7DTVlBNd9lv8jAjoin

I'm sorry this happened to you but I'm also glad it wasn't worse. I grew up in Colombia and learned from a very young age to NEVER get a taxi from the street or anywhere that wasn't an official taxi stand. People would get kidnapped by unauthorized drivers and either held for ransom or taken to multiple ATMs and forced to withdraw tons of money, we called it "paseo millonario". A friend of mine was also scammed in a similar way to what you're describing in a train station in Prague. The driver actually made them (unknowingly) pay in some other Eastern European currency and was able to get a few thousand dollars out of them, so your concern and insistence to see how they were charging you was actually very smart

I was once mugged at knifepoint in a taxi in Namibia by the driver and two fellow passengers, so the whole time you were telling the story my heart was in my throat. It could have been so, sooo much worse. And yes, I also feel stupid in hindsight for getting into a taxi that already had two passengers in it, but at that time and in that context it seemed like a perfectly logical thing to do. I'm so glad you made it out safely. I assume your son wasn't with you on this taxi ride???

LOL I finally got around to watching this 😂 We definitely got our wires crossed about Uber in the airport. What I _meant_ was that there's only a specific spot they're allowed to pick you up. I think I made it sound more serious than it was, and ended up making it more serious than it should have been 😞 Thanks for the Tim Tams though! - Ben

dfns did NOT shock natives this time 😔 im glad you're safe that's such a scary situation to be in

this happened in your first hour?! honestly that checks out, i visited family there years ago n there was definitely some shady going on n the amount of hustlers tryna bypass regulations is so painfully familiar. well ig it’s a trip you’ll never forget at least

Excellent story telling, looking forward to more videos about the trip!

I love the way you explained the story unedited and added some personal anecdotes. Thanks for sharing. You're probably going to get a few hate comments for it but it is what it is. It's a valuable lesson for anyone interested in international travel.

We went to Cancun recently, and the taxi situation is ridiculous. We were nearly scammed for perhaps about $70 US , but the hotel helped us (we had paid for a service that tried to back out at the last minute for our return ride to the airport). Thankfully the hotel started calling and yelling at them to deliver the service. If we had been in an airbnb or similar, we would have been in a hard spot, perhaps even missing our flights and incurring all that cost. I will say that all the car services, taxi or other, were very expensive in Mexico (Cancun region), all of them, not just scammers. And I have traveled to Mexico and knew the scams are rampant, people are looking for an easy way to earn money and the ease of crime adds to the issue. We often travel to Africa, and in various areas / countries the transport scamming is rampant too. I can see that countries with less than ideal employment, or terrible salary situations (some don't get checks often from their employers, I know of some places where people work even a government job for 6 months without income! But they have no other options so hold out hope for the money to show.).... So the scams exist because people are desperate. And then some scammers see such success that they start a mini-crime ring, and buy expensive SUV's.. Yeah, be on high alert in undeveloped / struggling countries, certainly. Try to confirm with airport employees, the challenge is knowing they are an employee. Not knowing the language makes us easy targets, so learn languages well especially all transportation words phrases, money words, phrases, ear drills to know what you are hearing, all airport vocabulary, etc. This is far more important than hotel or restaurant vocabulary.

I’m really glad it wasn’t worse, I would have been petrified. What a way to start off your time in another country!

Ha, the same thing happened to me, but not in Mexico. (I used taxis in a lot in Mexico City with no problems.) My experience was in Guangzhou, China. First time in China - this was back in the 80s - not understanding a word of Chinese, and the guy who was to meet me at the railway station didn't turn up. After about 20 nervous minutes, a man approached and asked "You want taxi?" Of course I said "Yes." I showed him the address and we did agree on a fare - $100 HK, or about $20 Australian. And I paid in cash. Of course it wasn't a taxi but a broken-down delivery van, and I shared my seat with a stack of second-hand computer parts - but we did reach my hotel. My friend told me that I had been ripped off - the real taxi fare was much less - but frankly I didn't mind. The same trip in Sydney would have cost more. We both got off lightly, I reckon! 🤣

I’m glad you’re fine! Yes it was a scam but thankfully not the most pricey one. I would never use a taxi elsewhere. I really don’t like getting in a taxi in my home town. Together with friends might be okay but I’m too scared to get in own on my own.

Fun fact: the Americans took the symbol of their currency from their southern neighbors. If I recall correctly, $ is P and S from Peso smashed together.

Oh wow! Sorry that happened to you but I'm glad it wasn't worse. I got scammed with something similar in NY. They led us away from the taxi rank to a car in a separate car park.

Such situations are really crazy, those minutes must have felt like hours 😱

Thanks for sharing that

Only two minutes in but I had to say you are not alone. I have never taken an Uber as I don't trust them , and, the one time I tried to get a taxi I waited over 40minutes and they never showed up so I've also never taken a taxi lol edit: okay, finished video and looking forward to more stories :D

I'm mexican american and thank you for sharing your experience in mexico because I plan to go to mexico more often and usually when I go since I'm thee more travlled of the group people look to me for info and guidance (eventhough I don't feel like I'm necessarily good at guiding people) Yeah your story had red flags but i probably would have made the same mistake

Damn, good storytelling

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You can still save some more lives. Firstly, this story was so well-told, it was very engaging. Apart from that, from what I know, the credit card terminal must be registered by its provider. So it means that the card provider who guarantees the security has got the data of the scammer. So it means you could accuse them by their provider. Maybe it will save someone.

I’m very sorry that you had to go through an experience like this. If Uber isn’t allowed in the Mexico City airport, my guess is that just like other cities in Mexico, the Taxi syndicates managed to lobby them out because the competition harmed them. In Mexico City the airport taxis have a yellow airplane on them. In general, I only use Uber. Hopefully something pleasant eventually happened on your trip :( Usually the USD sign has two strikes and the Mexican pesos sign has one, but sometimes different fonts don’t play nice with that and variations can exist.

Damn, hope the rest of the trip was better!

I'm very sorry for what happened to you here in Mexico, please if you need to move from some place, take an uber, not a taxi, as you said, not only for scam, if not you can be kidnapped too. I'm very very sorry for this, I hope you get a better experience staying here. A big fan of you and I started to watch yor video for learning swedish.

I havent been to Mexicos City’s airport in a couple of years but as I remember the uber app wont even let you select the pick up point inside airport grounds, dropp off its ok. theres a booth for the airports taxi service that of course has a premium (probably way less than 1200 MXN lol) but never had a problem with them and you get a quote upfront. ALWAYS agree on price first

Never accept help from anybody in a mexican airport or any tourist area... yeap that was definetly a scam, taxis are sketchy asf here in Mexico, is better if you rent a car, use the metro, uber or ask someone you know for a ride to your hotel or whatever

Damn it, I thought I had been sneaky about it.

I think I've commented on your Mexico trip already. Originally from Boston, I've been living in Tucson which is 70 miles from the Mexican border for over 10 years and I've never once gone to Mexico since moving here. I did go once prior to moving here when I visited my friend who acted as a guide for a day trip to go shopping at the border town. But that was it. Too many horror stories. Now you just added to that list. I was thinking since you were going to the capital it would probably be ok but... yeah.. it's Mexico. BTW the Mexican border guys at Nogales (the border town) just waved us through without even asking for documentation. I've thought about why this is - no other country I ever visited was anything like that. But this is the only third world country I ever set foot in. Getting back into the US was a lot more like you would expect. I mean, I look American, English is obviously my native language, but they still looked at my documents and asked me questions etc. Certainly Americans visit Mexico every day but I know I'm not the only one that is hesitant about going south of the border because of what I occasionally read in the news: drug cartels pretty much run the country etc. Depending who you ask, some people say Mexico is totally safe if you know what you're doing, and then there's my coworker/friend who's half Mexican and his distant relative I think is one of the drug cartel lords for a certain area, speaks perfect Spanish, and is even more afraid of going to Mexico than I am.

19:53 I lose count on how many times I haven't been sure if we're talking about pesos or dollars (and from which country), it's just nonsense, it's longer but I guess it'll be clearer to use the USD, EUR, ARS, etc codes

My wife and I got scammed on our first trip to Mexico but the hotel we stayed at made things right. We wouldn’t have been out too much money though.

"Hahaha the scammer clown got scammed himself" I can already hear him.

It could have been much worse, I'm glad it was only a few dollars they got from you. I'm going to Mexico in November, so hopefully I won't fall for the same scam. I am curious though, if it was 1200 dollars, what would you have done about it after you already paid?

Glad it wasn't worse. Since Wise refunded you, joke's on them, the taxi was free! Funnily enough, the one time someone tried to scam me while I was overseas happened when I was in London. I just got out of my hotel, walking down the street somewhere near Hyde Park, when an Audi hatchback pulled up next to me. The driver, a middle-aged man in a suit, asked "Do you speak Italian?" in the most ridiculous accent (he almost sounded like Mario from the video games). I said, no, sorry. And he asked where I was from, I said I'm from the Philippines. He said, oh, do you speak Spanish? I said unfortunately, no. And then he made some small talk about "oh yeah, my friends from the Philippines [name drops random names] we're old and they speak Spanish, but you're a young guy so that's why you're English speaking". He said he was an Armani executive who was there for the weekend attending an event. He said, we're amici right, and suddenly handed me a couple of suits he had in the car, and I can have it. I was like, oh crap, this is a scam. But what kind of scam... do these suits have drug packets sewn into them or something and he's going to ask me to give it to his Philippine friends?! Mind you, during this time there were massive drug trafficking crackdowns all over Southeast Asia, so I didn't want to be arrested when I got home. He then gave me a story, said just had spent a little bit too much money in the casino because he got drunk, and maybe I can give him some money for gas to drive back home to Italy. Like, 100 pounds? We're amici right? I breathed a bit of a sigh of relief, said sorry, I don't have money. 50? I said nah, I don't even have 20 (which I literally didn't at that moment). I handed him back the suits, and his smile turned into a scowl and he drove away saying "ok, have a nice day lol". Turns out it was just the usual luxury goods scam, which is apparently prevalent in many cities with high-end fashion tourism (e.g. New York, Paris). And the jackets were knockoffs being passed off as original ones. Unfortunately for the guy, not only was I rather paranoid, but he targeted the worst dressed man in London that day lol.

Telling you “No Uber at Mexico City Airport” is the real scam here. Just saying.

I wish I could monetize paying too much or a taxi journey...I would be rich right now! At least you are alive to tell the tale...

They even have periodic announcements at Arrivals at the San Francisco airport that tell you not to take rides from anyone except at the taxi stand. It may be the case that Uber/Lyft are banned at SFO also. That was at least the case at one point, if not still the case today. This seems like something Ben should have been very clear about with you. It HAS to be a very, very, very common scam and is also run at every train station in Outer Scamistan.

Bro you should have gotten a ref link from Wise! I signed up with them after hearing about them through this video lol

Hey btw for this situation te quiero should be what you use. Lo quiero is used if youre not speaking directly to that thing/person.

You should watch Kurt Caz ...saludos

What do you do when you think you've been kidnapped? Text 911 to the police? haha.

I've had the "use the scenic route" happen to me in the US. Lol. Most of my taxi experiences have been legit though.

The most basic scam would be to drive off with your luggage when you got out of the car

wow dude. I've neen robbed in the streets of a large city in Colombia but nothing like this. Kidnap is a whole different level of scary. You dealt with it well after the initial error. edit: you were also very lucky! increíble. just reached the end. 😂🎉

0:45 welcome to Latin America my man!

Didn’t I tell you for the last vlog that actual traveling was less likely to provide laughter? ;-) But you did get to give us all a really good language lesson in this video! …yeah, all that stuff that happened was totally not your fault!

ok

They're smarter than you. That's the first thing to understand in many contexts. A thief is always much, much, much smarter than you. (I'm talking of someone who's a thief by profession, not someone who comes on hard times and has a slip). Most of the time the thief is uneducated. "Dumb". Didn't even make it through high school. Or so it might feel - subliminally or something, not as a matter of thought-out prejudice/ a conscious mistake. This is the best way anyone has ever explained this situation to me, so I'm just passing it on. Never forget that he's much smarter than you. This is the first thing to note, on the path toward not being taken for a fool. And if that doesn't work out, then the path to not feeling a complete fool after you're taken for one. Think about it. 24 hours a day (if you include dreams) these guys are thinking of ways to steal from other people. They've tried and failed a few times already, so they know what works, and how. You got had by experts. They could tell by experience that you were distracted, tired, ready to accept "help", to begin with. Und so weiter. I'm glad it didn't work out worse (as it would've, I think, if you hadn't cottoned on to them). Tomorrow they'll be picking up someone else at the airport in the early hours of the morning. That person might not be alert enough to survive this. (Or to avoid being scammed if I'm not being alarmist - about things that do actually happen.)

I’m assuming you’re still working on Spanish…? It wasn’t just for the trip, Right?

Go Dodgers!!!!! I just noticed your shirt. Grumble grumble grumble >:(

Think you're being too hard on yourself, I've done dumber stuff as a tourist. The taxi scam at the airport is pretty worldwide because it works -- you're tired, don't know the area and just trying to find a bed quickly.

WTF $69 for a taxi? That's cheap!

Sorry this happened to you, but also when you say they were black do you mean dark skinned or african because Mexicans aren't black they can be dark but they dont look african

Why didn’t you just do it with a credit card then back charge

So you speak Spanish but you don’t know about taxi cartels?

Sa ütlesid, et sinu kaart on Eestist. You said that your card is from Estonia (^_^)