We're on our way home with multiple flights and layovers to keep us busy for 36 hours. While in Bali, we were able to use our layover time to see the city of Kuta. After requesting that we be dropped off in Kuta Center to shop around the local market for cool wood and stone carvings, our driver left us off at the mall. We didn't think Polo made wood carvings and not at all where we wanted to be.
Before leaving, we got stopped by a friendly man trying to give us pulltabs. He said it was free and all we had to do is see if we won. Of course our curiousity got the better of us and we pulled. Awesome! Trevor won a shitty t-shirt. With some excitement, the gentleman started to explain the winning t-shirt until out of the corner of his eye he noticed that Rebecca had three matching stars. His excitement grew exponentially. Shaking our hands, he explained that Rebecca won $1000 USD or a luxury 7 day/5 person vacation and that he gets a $50 commision for giving away the one winning ticket!!!! We couldn't help but be astounded, what do we need to do to claim the money??? He said a free taxi would take us to the hotel where his boss would hand over the prize. After much discussion about the time we had left and the time it would take to finalize the winnings, we got in the cab.
On the way it dawned on us, there were two other options Rebecca could have won, and it's not a choice, but another pull tab. Huh. Once we got to the hotel, we would have to sit through a 90 minute sales pitch to find out which of the "winnings" were actually ours. We left the hotel right as we arrived. Turns out, if we would have stayed, we would have won $250 worth of worthless coupons. Stupid Americans. At least we were able to lie our way into a free ride back to Kuta and only waste an hour of our time.
Looking back, our initial scammer could not have done a better job at convincing us. His quick pull-in with the t-shirt win, hammering it home with his excitement, we were sold on the spot. The trip could not end without us getting scammed at least once.
1 comment:
Ah yes, yes you were scammed or balified as you said. good thinking and reacting to get your free taxi ride back, you scammed them! i remember a card game that i watched and 'figured out'. so when he asked me to play i said sure, turns out i was set up and i promptly lost my $20. oh well, could have been more.
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