A foreign tourist warned about a new street scam in Paris, related to using a friendship bracelet. Another shared his terrifying experience in a video posted on TikTok.
The essence of the scam scheme: street scammers give gifts, such as friendship bracelets, to tourists to attract the latter’s attention. They do it during the day. Then they start persistently asking for monetary compensation for this gift. Moreover, it can occur as physical pressure on a tourist at the same time by a group of people. The goal of fraudsters is to force the guest of the country to make a purchase, using tactics of a sense of obligation or fear. These cases often occur in tourist areas, where scammers rely on the lack of vigilance of visitors to the city. They ask for both cash and card transfers.
Italian travel blogger Fabrizio Moroni (@fabriziovmoroni) complained in a video that he was a victim of this scam. He was approached outside the Sacre Coeur church in Montmartre, a popular tourist destination, and persistently offered a bracelet as a token of “friendship” before insisting on demanding money for the “gift.” Moroney stressed that scammers can be aggressive and use peer pressure to get tourists to buy these bracelets.
“I was in Montmartre with my girlfriend and we were just going down the stairs and having a good time and then when we went down I didn’t even look around, I was just talking to her. I saw this man coming towards me and he was very scared because he was a huge tall man. He came to me and said, “Take this, take this.” I say, “No thanks, no need.” But he aggressively grabbed my hand. I was in pain. Then he said: “This is a symbol of friendship, it will be insulting if you don’t take it,” the author told the story and added that next to the man there were “six or seven” accomplices who surrounded the young guy, forcing him to buy something that he did not planned
“I had my wallet in my pocket and my phone in the other pocket. It took them one second to take everything from me and just walk away, and there was no one around, no police… Of course, it wasn’t the first time they’d done this. For a moment I had enough strength to push two of them aside and run away. I ran for my life and didn’t look back. Therefore, please be careful if you ever go to Montmartre,” he warned and added that it is better not to go down the central stairs, then there is a chance to avoid a meeting with thugs.
As the victim later noted, a similar story happened to him in Milan, but then he fought back. It was clarified that this is a very common scam. It is used not only in France and Italy, but also throughout Europe, and Paris is not the most dangerous place.