Scams and Rip-offs
Staying safe in Shanghai
For a city of its size, Shanghai is remarkably safe. You can walk around at night with your phone in hand or take the metro alone without any real risk of violent crime, and since nearly all payments have gone mobile, street theft has become rarer still. The dangers that remain are of a different kind: well-organized tricks designed to separate visitors from their money.
Almost all of them rely on a friendly stranger steering you into a venue — a massage shop, tea house, girl bar or KTV — where intimidating staff later present an absurd bill and walk you to an ATM. Every one of these setups can be avoided with a single rule:
"Never follow anyone who approaches you on the street and wants to bring you somewhere. No man, no girl, no student."
Legitimate businesses do not recruit customers this way; only the rip-off scene works with street touts. If you do not follow a tout, you will not get ripped off.
The tea house scam
The classic Nanjing Road version: charming "students" who would love to practise their English invite you to a tea ceremony, an art exhibition or a karaoke bar. Before you realize it, a bill arrives for hundreds of dollars' worth of tea, artwork or drinks nobody ordered — and the staff make sure it gets paid. The girls rarely work alone; helpers nearby make sure nobody warns you. If you genuinely want a drink with someone you just met, insist on choosing the venue yourself and pick one with English-speaking staff.
Street touts
Anyone offering to guide you to a girls bar, a club, a new KTV or a "special massage" will deliver you to a heavily overpriced service — an hour in such a place is routinely billed at 500 to 1,000 USD — and potentially far worse trouble. Simply ignore them and keep walking.
Pickpockets
Around bars and clubs, be wary of women who offer a massage or try to hand you flowers: while one hand shows you the flower, the other is in your pocket, and when two or three work together it is impossible to track all the hands. Make it very clear you do not want to be touched — a firm reaction and they will back off immediately.
Hotel massage calls
Flyers under the door and calls to your room offering in-room massage promise a low price, then deliver a poor massage that turns into aggressive upselling of heavily overpriced extras — often by a girl far less attractive than advertised. You are much better off booking through a reputable source or picking someone up in a bar yourself.
WeChat approaches
Attractive strangers who add you on WeChat out of nowhere and invite you to a specific club, spa or bar are almost always bait for the venue scam described above. Be suspicious of freshly created accounts with an empty Moments feed. If you want to meet somebody you only know online, you pick the place.
Fake escort pictures
If you contact a random escort agency found online, trust neither the pictures nor the quoted price. Very often a different — older and less attractive — girl shows up than the one you booked, and sending her away triggers a haggle over an ever-growing "taxi fee". Check independent reviews before booking with anyone. The pictures on this site are real; a girl caught sending a stand-in is removed.
Girl bar bill padding
In girls bars, drinks you never ordered have a way of appearing on the bill: your drink silently becomes a double, or ladies join your table and drink at your expense. Keep an eye on the running bill throughout the evening and check it carefully before paying, so the most expensive orange juice of your life does not come as a surprise.
Paying in advance
If you meet a freelancer in a bar and agree on a price for the whole night, be careful with paying everything up front — a well-known move is to collect the money early and disappear shortly afterwards. Paying half first is a reasonable compromise. It is a delicate balance: a genuine girl may be offended by open distrust, but the more professional she seems, the more careful you should be with prepayment.