Comments on: Conned By An Entire Community?

By: Preston

Preston — Sat, 30 Sep 2017 20:26:27 +0000

Wow, I had the nearly the exact same experience in September 2013 and likely, there are many more whom have as well. I’ve linked pictures below and you can see, it is definitely the same tent village, right next to the Boudhanath stupa. These guys likely were bringing in lots of money. I can’t remember their names but they got us for about US$120.

Are these the same guys? https://www.flickr.com/photos/62193096@N07/23563510308/in/dateposted-public/

The only major difference was the ‘Indian’ we bought the box from was led into the room as a ‘blind man’. He stumbled around a bit and acted extremely frail. We bought the box for them and walked away with some of the same confusing/complex feelings. Wondering if we’d been scammed, but how could the entire village be in on it? I for some reason felt extremely guilty.

Weeks later, on the way to the airport, I walked past the same ‘blind man’ huddled over the exact same shoebox (the one in your pictures!). Only this time he looked me in the eye and asked if I would like a shoe shine. He obviously didn’t recognize me. I was so angry about that for such a long time. However, once I let go of that anger I realized how amazingly clever, elaborate, and manipulative the scam is.

We did not encounter the man in yellow. What is your opinion of him now? Do you think he could have possibly been the only person in the village trying to keep you from being ripped off? That would explain why others in the community were harassing him to leave. By calling out the ‘cheat man’ he was threatening what was likely one of the only lucrative sources of income for the community.

By: Jamie Mitchell

Jamie Mitchell — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 17:49:50 +0000

Hahaha my gosh, the same thing just happened to us in Kathmandu.. But a “sunny” instead of a Robbie. We got a full city tour then taken to his home to see his wife and kids. His wife cooked us some dahl baht then he mentioned that he would love a shoebox to be able to earn money and wondered if we could buy him it. He didn’t know how much it costs but an Indian in the shanty town was selling one. I went with him to see it and the guy wanted 46,000 rupees about 400 eur for it. I didn’t think it was worth half of that. The guy said to buy that night as someone else wanted it. I said I need to consult with my girlfriend and transfer money if going ahead. We went to his home and I told him if it is a scam then it would be bad karma for him. He said OK. I said I need to sleep on it. We bought him 1000 rupees of food, but we had a lovely day and saw things that we would not have seen otherwise so felt that was a good exchange. Typed in shoe box scam in Google and straight away found your site among many others. I don’t think that I will be buying the shoebox for him. The family lived in absolute poverty so I have no bad feeling towards him. We will probably be back to his shack to give them some nappies and rice, but somehow he was asking for almost as much as I would earn in half a month.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 07:29:06 +0000

Just experienced a similar occurrence here in KTM. Somebody’s shoe box got stolen on his way from India to Nepal. This seems to be a common story in order to be different than all the other beggars. You’ll find a few descriptions of this on the internet. This doesn’t change the fact that someone who asks for help in the streets certainly lives a very low standard life. So I guess I’ll give this man a bag of (opened) rice or a few rupia, if only for the good story he told.

Safe travels always,
Thomas