Scams and Tricks, Amsterdam

I am living in the Centre of Amsterdam. My advice about taxi's: Avoid them. In Amsterdam and Schiphol Airport are many problems with tourist and drivers. They will scam you! Don't take a taxi at night. There are so many problems with taxi drivers at night.

Best to travel from Airport Schiphol:
* Take the train. The trainconnection with Amsterdam and any other city in The Netherlands is perfect. Get a ticket at the main hall. You can get this in the yellow/blue machines or are the NS (Nederlandse Spoorwegen) ticket desk. The one-way ticket price is around: 5 or 6 euro. You will be from Schiphol Airport within 20 minutes in Amsterdam. http://www.ns.nl/en/travellers/home

* Take the bus. There special busses that will take you from Schiphol Airport to the Centre of Amsterdam. Ticketprice around 4 euro. http://www.schiphol.nl/Travellers/ToFromSchiphol/PublicTransport/Bus.htm

Best to travel in Amsterdam:
* Tram. With all the trams is everything easy to get where you want to be. Buy an non-personalized OV-Chipcard at the Central Station (GVB Service). Put money on it at you can use it. At the counter you can get instructions how to do that. Single tickets are more expensive.
http://en.gvb.nl/pages/home.aspx
* Bike. Rent a bike. There are many place you can rent a bike. In many cases without any problems. A bike will take you anywhere and easily. Notice Amsterdam traffic rules. Don't bike in the shopping streets. At night: put your bike-lights on.
* Walk. If you like to walk. Walking will get you easily anywhere in the city centre of Amsterdam

When taking a taxi from the airport to the the city be sure its a registered and official taxi.There are a few men about who will walk over to you asking if you want a taxi,he then rings a collegue up who turns up in his own car pretending to be from an official taxi firm.Chances are he is a fake and will charge you a lot more for your journey than an official taxi.Its best to go over to the taxi's that are parked waiting as these will have official license plates and i.d.cards on dashboard.

If you have been a victim of this or suspect anything out of order ring the police.

You cant buy public transport tickets on the street.
You can only buy them at the public transport itself or some offices like at Tickets and Info at Central station, Station Zuid (South) Also possible to buy more day tickets here.
Holland pass you need to give the coupon for public transport at the office you buy this pass.

The scam works like this i have seen 1 person doing it.
He asks tickets from people leaving the tram or picks tickets up from the street.
He sells them to you or go with you and asks a bigger price often then they costs for the service he gave. The person i know he scams is tall is white and has sometimes a coat with nr 88 on the back.

a ticket works when you check in and get a green light and 1 beep. you read a date or goede ries or overstap check out always you read tot ziens
not working red light 2 beeps.

If you dont have a valid ticket it can cost you 37.70 euro

To reconize a Taxi

Taxi on top of the car

Blue license plate Yellow dont use it ( it is possible but just dont use it as it is someone who
waits for new license plate so the change is almost 0%)

a meter were you can see the price visible and near that a pass with ID of the taxi driver.

Think a taxi will be around 40 euro's from Schiphol to Amsterdam

Know taxi company TCA , Meerlanden, schipholtaxi

will put the TCA weblink as you can see some prices there
use the Calculate price & Book online link

Do you have a complain about a taxi
http://www.taxiklacht.nl/pages/taxiklacht/HOME?windowuid=uid1332237739

4 more images

Warning: I fell for this scam and you can too. In the flower market, where a lot of tourist go to buy flowers, it is easy to be ripped off. Especially in the shop at the corner, the scamming is very frequent. The idea is that they offer a bag of say tulips, for which you pay a hefty price, but when you return home and open the bag it contains just a few originals and are basicallt filled with 90% of inexpensive onions etc. For my own part, I discovered the scam and returned to the shop with the evidence but the owner of the shop (see pix) refused even to listen to me. He pretended ignorance and laughed me right in the face when I complained. I feel 110% sure that he knows exactly what is going on and very cynically exploit tourists in this way. I met two girls from Denmark who told me of a similar experience with them, so dont be surprised if you are tricked. How many tourists come back to complain about flowers or seeds, right? So they can continue his scam without almost any risk. So beware of this shop and others. The best option is to open any bag before you buy to check the content. Even if its just a few euros, I hate to be tricked like this. So beware of such cynical scammers. Amsterdam is a lovely city, just a pity with such low-lifes. When I told the owner I would tell others of the story and laughed and said "I dont care. Do what you f@@@king like." I then took his photo and told him I would publisize the scam, and he jusked asked "-Should I smile? Nobody will read your stupid warning, you looser!" I think this attitude is evidence enough.

people who say they are from the police
they say that they think you have false money or drugs
the want to see your wallet and then the steel your money.
special tourists from asia beware.
most of the fake cops are from east europe.
real police see pictures on the website.
phonenumbers
emergency 112
non emergncy 0900-8844

Be very careful when taking taxis on Schiphol airport.
They have a place outside the airport but sometimes there will a taxi driver that will take you to another place to take you from there.

A friend of mine got robbed this way - the driver closes the door so you can't get out and sometime he have another man with him.

Try to Avoid the taxis as much as you can - you can use train/bus instead , it is cheaper !.

This guy comes up and asks for some change 50 cents...as soon as you give them that they ask for more...LIKE YOU OWE IT TO THEM!!! TWice Ive had to tell people to &^%$ off!

This other scam happened the other day...NOW THIS ONE BLEW MY MIND...
I am sitting outside my apartment and this guy just rolls up on a bike and says he lives in the same building...says his roomate is away at work and needs to get the keys from him at work...asks me for 8 euros tram money and swears he'll pay me back in the morning. Being good natured my wife and I give him the money as we had just moved in and didnt know him as a neighbour or whatever...stupid...never seen him again...Amsterdam is more like Amster'scam'...the majority of people are overly nice folk...but this place has a lot of shifty peeps here.

Went into a souvenior store to purchase some gifts for my family. I was alone in the store. I picked out a couple of items and approached the man sitting behind the cash register. He didn't speak much english at all but he motioned to the stairs and told me that I had to pay upstairs. I was skeptical, but I climbed to the second floor. No exit, no cash register. To the third floor - no exit or cash register. Finally I made it to the fourth floor. Again no cash register or exit. I returned to the bottom floor where the guy motioned reluctantly that he'd ring up my purchases.

I allowed my eyes to wander around his store while he fumbled behind the counter. I kept hearing this beeping sound. When I finally looked at the man again, he had this look of concern on his face and was shaking his head in denial. He told me my money was no good. He then took a "Good" 20 Euro note from his cash drawer and I could hear it pass through his machine fine. He took my bill again, and again it beeped. I took my 20 Euro back from him and left my merchandise on the counter.

It wasn't until I got back to my hotel that it occurred to me that the 20 Euro in question came directly from a money exchange at the Richpol International Airport, and surely THEY wouldn't have passed a bogus bill to me.

It was pretty apparent that the man sent me on a wild goose chase up the stairs so he could retrieve his phony bill from its hiding location (I suspect the police may have looked into his business practices before in the past - and he now has a very rock solid hiding place for his bogus bills should the cops ever surprise him unexpectedly). Once he got my money he just palmed it and swapped his bogus bill for it. He made a quick 20 Euros, and didn't lose a bit of stock to the ignorant American Tourist.

If a store employee behaves in this manner drop your goods and walk outta of the store without letting him lay his hands on your money.

People may come up to you acting like offering help, but don't talk to them. If you have any questions, go to the information desk or any hotels.

When I was walking on the street, a guy came up to me and said, "Put your camera in a bag or someone will take it away from you." Then, "Hi, I'm Charles. If you need a direction or have questions, just ask. I will take you there or answer to any questions."
"No, thanks, Charles."

Another guy said, "Ask some questions. I'll answer it for 1 euro!"
"No, thanks."