We avoided our first scam today...a shoeshine scam. In Istanbul, there are many men who are mobile shoe shiners. They carry around a stool, a brush, and a basket of shines. They hound you in the tourist places to try and shine your shoes. There's a common scam that they do; they'll be walking past tourists and they will drop their brush and keep walking, acting like they haven't noticed. Naturally, the tourist bends down and picks up the brush and hands it back. The shoe shiner is so grateful and tells the tourist how he just saved his livelihood and his family. As an appreciation for the good deed, the shoe shiner offers a shine. The tourist, feeling like he must accept, plops his feet down for a shine. After the shine, the shoe shiner demands payment, often times 4 or 5 times higher than what it would normally cost. If you don't pay him he'll create a scene.
We had been warned about this scam. Today we were walking through a park and a 50 year old shoe shine man was walking at us. As we were close to him, he casually dropped his brush and waited for us to pick it up. We just pointed at it and walked on. He followed us for a bit and offered a shine, but we just kept walking.
Scam avoided. 20 lira richer. I feel like we've been initiated somewhat.
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