 | Playa del Carmen Warnings or Dangers | Tips 1 - 10 of 31 |  |
Popular Warnings or Dangers | Miscellaneous Warnings or Dangers Tips | All Tips (31)  | |  |  | Protect Your Credit Cards | Tip Rating:   |  |  | |  |
Playa Del Carmen and Cozumel are especially notorious for fraud, copying, and the theft of credit cards. There are hundreds of credit card fraud stories on the Net about these two places.
Beware of waiters or hotel attendants "double swiping" cards, even at reputable places. Also be cautious of fake ATM machines, plain white machines that look innocent enough but don't actually dispense cash, they read "out of service" once you swipe your card. (I got taken in by one of these.)
Use cash for transactions whenever possible! In Playa, use the ScotiaBank across from the bus station, but cover your PIN number when you type it in and take a look around the machine for any hidden cameras that may have been added by thieves. If you must use your card, never let it out of your sight, go with the waiter or worker and watch everything they do. This is a huge problem in this area of Quintana Roo. When you get home, check your statement often (online or over the phone) to make sure nobody's currently using your numbers. Leave a Comment
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| | | | TAKE CARE WITH MONEYEXCHANGERS | Tip Rating: | | | | |
All around the city you can find small Money Exchange Offices, but be careful if you use them! If you have american dollars it seems like most of them have almost a standard rate, and it might be the same for other frequently used curriences like euro, sterling pound etc. But you should know the exchangerate before going there, and if they don't give you a good rate you should go somewhere else.
One night my ATM card stopped working, all banks were closed and we had to pay for our hotel plus food. We only had norwegian money and many of them didn't exchange it. Also it were getting so late so most of them started closing down. Finally we found someone that could change our money, but I thought we got much less than we should. Since we had just gotten from Belize I thought maybe it was just me that was mixing up the currencies. Anyway I went straight to the hotel to check if it was correct. Then we found out we had just gotten half of what we should have, instead of getting 50 USD we only got about 25 USD. We went straight back to ask if this was correct, and of course they admitted no mistake. There was really not so much we could do, we should have known the exchange rate before we agreed to change the money, but unfortunately we didn't. Luckily the ATM card started working again so we didn't have to use the exchange offices again. Leave a Comment
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Be sure to look for the stamp .925 or .950 on the silver. It is especially good if there is the stamp Mexico or Mex with the numbers. There are a lot of fake silver vendors (usually they are walking along the beach). It is better to buy silver in a store than from a person walking on the beach. Although I did find a shop in Playa del Carmen that was selling fake silver to tourists, but most of the time the silver in shops is safer. Leave a Comment
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Take care when you buy phonecards, not all of them are useful. Be sure to check if your phonecard can be used at publicphones, many of them can not. We found out that the cards from TelCel where the best, as they have phoneboxes many places in the city. Leave a Comment
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Literally everyone that provides you a service expects a tip from the bus guide coming from the airport to the bell boy to the tour guides to the snorkel trip operators and they are not shy about asking for them or telling you that tips are a big part of their income.
I think that it is true that tips are a large part of the salary for people in the service industry in Mexico so I gave them freely when I thought the service was good which was almost all of the time. Leave a Comment
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Beware of the time share salesmen. A lot of them have storefronts set up like travel agencies. When they mention that they will give you free tickets to whatever activity you are interested in, run as fast as you can!
I've never been sucked into one but I understand that they can last for hours and they are very high pressure. But some people, especially if they have a lot of time for vacation, actually plan on going on these while on vacation if they are down there for a couple of weeks to make a little extra money or get free excursions, just make sure you know what you are getting into.
Our resort this time, the Reef Playacar, even had one inside the resort, set up as a concierege, the minute she mentioned Royal Haciendas and said something about free tickets we politely excused ourselves and booked our excursion with the representative from Best Day Tours that Expedia uses. Leave a Comment
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Maybe it was the season....every niight at sundown, if we were on the beach, we were practically devoured by Mosquitos. the worst were at an Open air restaurant at Tank-Ha. which is a GREAT place to be during the day.
Take your own repellant! The citronella just didn't seem to cut it and by the time we got to one of the small drug stores that was all we were able to find. If you have time to shop in the H..UGE supermarket it Playa..Chederaui I'm sure you can get anything, but be prepared and pack some from home. I'm still itchy!! Leave a Comment
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on January 28, 2005
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