Why is the bracelet scam a scam?

Karen I think you should stop comparing your experience in India( which btw was also a scam,, religous my behind,you bought into that line though, LOL ) and the experience in Paris where you are being FORCED as they grab your arm , tie the bracelet on , and it is non removeable.. and then DEMAND money.
Your other comparisions are apples to oranges.

Karen, we were subjected to very rude men grabbing my young teenaged daughter's arm and forcing a bracelet on her, even though we said NO quite loudly and tried walking away. They basically "ambushed" us cutting us of from walking away, and that is with my tall husband and son along. When my husband also joined in and said NO quite loudly and we both told the men to get their hands off our child, they became quite abusive saying we had no right shouting at them! Can you believe the nerve? We refused to take the lousy bracelet or pay them and continued being harrassed until we left the area.

Maybe in India they were more pleasant or something (like in Mexico), so it is not as intimidating or threatening, but those African guys at Sacre Coeur really turned us of from wanting to ever visit that area again.

So, for us we considered it a dirty scam because they were obnoxious, rude, and threatening. They had no right grabbing my child's arm the way they did. She was terrified.

Karen...if you've ever seen the way some people have been hassled after they've decided they don't like the bracelet, and don't want to pay for one, then you'll understand why it's a scam. These people have no desire to make you a nice bracelet....they want your money, and to tie on a cheap piece of string and some beads, then demand an exhorbitant amount of money, is simply a scheme to avoid getting snapped up by the police for pan-handling. It would be like visiting a shoe store, trying on a pair of shoes, deciding you didn't like them, then have someone harangue, and possibly threaten you, if you didn't pay for them anyway.

It’s a scam when you are not given the option to say NO! It’s a scam when you are surrounded and intimidated into parting with a significant amount of money for a piece of junk you don’t want. It’s a scam when you find yourself in a vice-like grip and a demand for money.

They target those who look like they are easy marks.

This is not honest trade, it is demanding money by menace.

It sounds the same as the people in NYC who jump out a red light when you are driving your car and clean your windshield and then put their hand out for money. It is intimidating and I feel obliged to pay. Now I just shake my head "no" if I see something like that about to happen.

Actually, Norm, I would describe it more along the lines of if the shoestore employees came out after you, slipped a pair of shoes on you, then demanded you buy them at a marked-up price.

Thank you - as I said I have not had an experience myself where I felt threatened in any way, indeed the opposite where I realized that I was paying mostly for the "show". I wondered if it was the idea that the bracelet was worthless and you were "forced" into paying for it. Sort of like people who buy a very cheap scarf, purse, etc. and then are suprised to find out that it is indeed a VERY cheap item. I assumed that people who walk by the NYC purse vendors who whisper "Prada, Chanel..." knew that these were not real Prada items. I still have not paid for something I did not want. And even the bracelet vendor in India asked me for more than I gave him but it was still supposed to be a donation and not a sales price so I gave him what I wanted to give and left. I didn't feel badly that I hadn't given more.

It is helpful to remind people to be firm about what they do and don't want - and that they are not being rude by refusing these items.

Karen....I've never seen a street vendor try to force a fake Prada purse on someone, then grab them by the arm and dig in hard, demanding that they pay money for it. As for being firm about not wanting it...yes, that's the way to go about it. But for someone who's new to the whole thing, it's not necessarily as easy as you portray it the first time around. There's no "religious performance" undertaken by these people....it's simply an attempt to intimidate the uninitiated.

I think a "scam" is in the eye of the beholder and can vary with individuals and situations. I think the simplest definition is being forced to do something that you did not want to do. We often buy "art? work" from the street vendors in front of tourist attractions recognizing full well that it is cheap and probably not original. For us we like the memento better than a photo. We have a whole wall of this stuff often in frames costing ten times what we paid for the print. When we look at the prints a whole host of memories come back. So for us, that is not scam, but for someone else might think there are buying the next Picasso it is.

Frank - that is so true about the "art work". I can't believe how much I've paid to frame our little watercolors that cost so very little. But I too like our travel wall and it is the one souvenier that we routinely bring back with us.

Having never experienced the bracelet first hand I was under the impression that once it is tied onto your wrist it is almost impossible to remove.

Grabbing someone who doesn't want to be bothered and tying on a bracelet that can't be removed and then demanding payment - is a scam.

Thanks again for the clarification. I truly have not seen or had personal experienced with this so I was wondering if it was something more than the people who approached us in Milan with bracelets. Yes, I would be very angry if someone grabbed my teenage daughter. Thank you for sharing - I have heard the "warnings" but wondered what the actual experience was.

Buying overpriced artwork to bring back memories is one thing. But the question had to do with the old "bracelet scam," something completely different.

At the risk of beating this topic to death, the guys in front of Sacre Coeur are menacing, plain and simple. They count on tourists to stop and accept the bracelet - even to . tie it on as the tourist simply stops. If the tourists don't pay, others quickly surround to harangue the tourist into paying. It goes quite beyond anything I've seen. I've had to shout "NO!" and push my way through to get up the stairs. They really freak out if you yell because it attracts the police. But you have to.

Doug, that lot did not freak out as we yelled, and the thing is though that we did not stop at any point to for them to get at us. They followed at our first NO and then grabbed my daughter's wrist. It was really very scary to be honest to be surrounded by a menacing group of men.

What a pity the French police/authorities can't have them removed from there. Tourists are protected in many parts of Mexico. Even if they offer you something, very rarely does a vendor ever touch a tourist without their permission.

Maybe Rick can write the authorities in Paris for us :-)

We will be in Paris in late May and I was sorry to learn the bracelet guys are still active in the Monmarte area. We encountered this on a trip two years ago. They are very aggressive and it is best to not even make eye contact. I surely would not worry about being rude to them. The bracelets were not very attractive and I would not accept one even if it was free of charge.

Karen, as others in this thread have noted, it is through the kids that the bracelet scam is often perpetrated. They come at your child with a "would you like a piece of candy?" attitude and before you know it they're quickly tying a bracelet onto your child's wrist. If you try to enquire about the compensation they expect for this service, they are too wrapped up in their "art" to consider this question. Then when they're done, they try to extract 10 euros or something and then you have to bargain just to not be taken advantage of and get out of the deal without a scene taking place. It's easy to state that you should just firmly say no, but these people are very aggressive and the tourists are at a decided disadvantage. It's not a fair competition. Stuff like this can put a real damper on your vacation, especially if you're not a hardcore shover-away of people. This scam, like the "found ring" scam, is not comparable to a Mexican beach vendor trying to (cont'd)

sell silver jewelry. There's an undercurrent of menace that is not at all fun.

We managed to avoid them, and the gypsy women near Notre Dame and Eiffel tower. We got pics of both by pretending to take a pic of each other, with gypsies behind us. Our gypsies were on a lunch/smoke break. Must be union rules. I'm sure it would be a big issue if you obviously took a photo of them. I went up to some tourists that one of them was talking to, and said that they were scammers, and received a lovely dirty look, and some choice words.