Destinations › Tunisia › Tunis › Scams
Tunis, Tunisia
14 reported scam patterns travellers run into in Tunis, what they look like, and how to sidestep them.
Guides and drivers delivering visitors to carpet and handicraft showrooms that pay them per head, often at the end of a walk offered as a favour rather than a sale.
Men presenting as plain-clothes police asking to inspect documents or currency, and levying an on-the-spot cash fine.
Reader overlays on standalone cash machines around the medina and the main avenue, and cards taken out of sight to be processed at shop and restaurant counters.
'The meter is broken' at the airport and outside the medina, with fixed fares quoted in euros at several times the metered rate.
Machine-made carpets sold as hand-knotted Kairouan work, with 'government certification' that does not exist, sometimes with shipping arranged and never fulfilled.
The medina diversion: a stranger reports that the souk or a monument is closed today and offers a viewpoint or a workshop, which is a carpet or leather shop with a prolonged hard sell.
Bills in the tourist-area bars carrying rounds and covers that were not ordered, with the total defended rather than itemised.
Camel and quad operators at coastal excursions raising the agreed price before returning to the start point.
Bag and phone theft in the crowded medina alleys and on the TGM line.
Undisclosed cover charges and unordered bread and olives billed as items in tourist-area restaurants.
Small items and henna applied unrequested in the medina, with payment demanded once begun.
Shortchanging on foreign-currency payments, and unlicensed changers applying an undisclosed commission.
Self-appointed guides attaching themselves in the medina and at Carthage, demanding payment on completion.
Collectors with laminated documentation working the medina gates and the café terraces on the main avenue.
