Warning: Cheated in China AGAIN HELP!!!!!!

[ask_weasal]

I don't know if you guys know this but there is a trend going around now that if a Chinese dude buys a car that is foriegn in order not to pay the tax he gathers a foriegner passport for a couple of days and in exchange the foriegner is supposed to get like 7,000-10,000 yuan. Don't fall for it. I did and I got screwed big time. The middle man was supposed to be a good friend of mine from America who lives in Shenyang. Two weeks later I got my passport back with the seaming ripped from the middle and taped back together again. It is altered and tattered and I don't know what to do. What I think they did is got what they wanted and decided not to give me my cut. Chinese business men huh? Can't be trusted. But I am so stupid for being so naive, but I needed that money; the school I'm working for pays me 3000 yuan a month. It's next to nothing!!! I want to retaliate and I want to get them in trouble for what they did to me. I don't want them using my information to get what they want. Any suggestions fellow foriegners? I hate being cheated over here. Everyday my opinion of China just drops like 5 points. Where are the honest people(including foriegners)? HELP!!!!!!!!

regards,

Randall Fields

[roddy]

Any suggestions fellow foriegners?

I find it hard to believe that anyone would be this daft, but that's nothing new. Go and tell the consulate now (there's a US consulate in Shenyang, yes?).

How did they alter it? Draw a moustache on your photograph?

[imron]

Yeah this scheme's doing the rounds where I live at the moment too, and if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

What I find slightly ironic is that you ask where all the honest people are, yet do so after personally taking part in a scheme with dubious honesty/legality surrounding it. After all, if the scheme had worked out, it's unlikely you would have been complaining about the dishonesty of it. So I guess the answer to your question is, they, like you are just out there chasing the money (sorry for the brutal honesty there).

Anyway, I don't imagine the police will be of much help in this matter, but perhaps you can report what happened to your embassy, and perhaps even get your previous passport cancelled and reissued with a new one. All of which is a pain, but at least doing so may prompt the embassy to issue a warning to people travelling to/working in China not to get involved in this sort of scheme.

[geraldc]

I wouldn't report it to the Chinese authorities as basically you've helped someone commit tax evasion, and you're more likely to get in trouble than they are.

I would go to the embassy and get a new passport though, you're probably better off reporting that your current passport went missing and then reappeared in its current state, rather than explaining how you basically hired it out for 2 weeks and then got ripped off.

You haven't lost any money, so just chalk it up to experience and move on.

[gougou]

Whenever I have to hand over my passport in a hotel, I start praying; I'd never dream of giving it to somebody for two weeks to use as they see fit

Is your friend from America American? If so, why didn't he use his own passport? There should have been plenty of alarm bells!

Chinese business men huh? Can't be trusted.

While that is true for every country, I also am much more wary with Chinese people then I would be with Germans (for example). But contrary to you, I don't hold it against them. If I get screwed, I believe I have nobody to blame but myself, for being too naive.

Consider it a valuable experience: it will teach you to become less naive, yet more cunning.

[imron]

you're probably better off reporting that your current passport went missing and then reappeared in its current state,

If you're going to say your passport went missing, I imagine it might be better to leave out the whole reappearing part. Just leave it as missing. Otherwise it might prompt them to look more closely into the reason it disappeared. If you say it's missing, it's not like they're going to come and check your apartment for it.

[got_no_jaffas]

you have to put it down to a learning experience. it usually happens when we are desperate, either for money or for other pleasures. i just read a huge thread on another forum about singaporeans getting conned in china which saved my ass a few times, and singaporeans are not naive to this kind of activity.

sometimes you take risks & it works out fine, sometimes you get burnt. you're not alone.

[gougou]

i just read a huge thread on another forum about singaporeans getting conned in china which saved my ass a few times

Do you still have the link? Maybe you could save some other people's asses too.

[aeon]

You got cheated because you could be, and more to the point deserved to be. You loaned someone your passport in order to make a quick illegal buck. Then you didn't get paid. Boo hoo...

Who're you going to complain to? No-one. What you did was illegal, so you have no legal way to get your money. Short of hiring a bunch of goons and going over there to beat it out of them, you are out of luck. PT Barnum was sooo right, and the same thing would happen in any country... Come back and ask for sympathy when you actually deserve it!

In the meantime, report your passport stolen. Get the old one cancelled and destroy it and try and be a bit more honest yourself next time.

[mlomker]

You work for only 3k/month? I wonder what kind of gig that is. I've seen a couple of the Beijing universities offer numbers that laughable but I didn't think anybody actually took the jobs (who wasn't wealthy and just there for the experience). 5-6k jobs seem plentiful all over the country as long as you're qualified.

[got_no_jaffas]

i do still have the link but i will not post it here as it comes from a rather dubious chinese forum & i think it would degrade the common decency of this forum! hahaha!!

gougou - will pm it to you

[libertango]

I appreciate the fact that you are informing people of the scam.

[wushijiao]

If your passport is old and worn out, I think you can apply to get a new passport for free at any American consulate. I'm 99% sure about that, but give them a call to find out.

[roddy]

I'm sorry, but if this is actually happening and your passport is in as bad a state as you make it sound then

a) You need to inform the consulate so they know what's happening, they will liase with the local police, and if deemed necessary they'll send out a travel advisory. You are not the only one this will happen to.

B) IF your passport actually looks 'tampered' with, that's possibly the kind of thing immigration officials are going to pick up on and you need to get a new passport. Again, consulate. I don't even want to think about what happens to someone who turns up at US immigration with a dodgy looking US passport.

If you want to save yourself some richly-deserved embarassment then yeah, tell them it went 'missing' or that they borrowed it for some other, legitimate, purpose.

Roddy

PS. I very rarely say this, but you should also just give up and go home. You're not enjoying yourself.

[necroflux]

I don't know that you can quite tell him that he's not enjoying himself, but he's obviously ill-equipped to live in China based on his post.. I thought I might be lacking in "street smarts", but to fall for something like this in a completely foreign country is just ridiculous, let alone coming to a forum afterwards to ask how he can get even. And to call these guys "chinese business men"? Clueless.

[ask_weasal]

To answer some questions. First of all my friend is on a student visa. They needed a Z visa. Second of all this guy from America is American and I knew him for 4 years prior and so I trusted him because he was one of the few people that I hang out with in China AND America. It wasn't him who actually screwed me over it was the person he gave it to who did that. My former friend speaks perfect Chinese so most situations he knows what he was doing. Before he actually help me land a good job. The reason why I am so pissed is because my former friend is not lifting a finger to do anything about it. It's like he's choosing guanxi over his friend. I want to get them back.

regards,

ran ran

[ask_weasal]

And AEON F**K U!

I hate people who talk shit over the net.

Don't be a heckler

be a help if not shut the F**K up.

ran-ran

[ask_weasal]

Excuse me sorry for that outburst but some of you obviously are a bit immature. Without knowing the whole story some of you are quick to judge someone like any of you haven't had bad luck. Why am I making 3000 yuan a month because I used to make 10'000 a month working at two schools until one greedy school informed the other that I was working for two schools at the same time so POOF!!!!! a 7000 yuan job is lost because one school couldn't handle me working for another school even though they only give me six hours a week. 2005 was a very bad year for me. Everyone has these in their lives I think. So necroflux or whatever your name is don't talk about me like I am in the third person. You can at least give me that respect. Have I ever insulted you or Aeon? No so don't do that to me. This is a constructive website if you are going to talk stupid like that then lets deconstruct this website by being assholes together, because I won't stop until you stop.

Bottom line

Show Respect...I'm a lot less clueless than you think

[necroflux]

I was a bit of a prick, and I apologize for addressing you as a third person. But I think with the last three posts pretty much serve to reiterate your level of maturity.

And AEON F**K U!

I hate people who talk shit over the net.

Don't be a heckler

be a help if not shut the F**K up.

ran-ran

My advice is that you got burned, let it go. Obviously this guy isn't a friend so after perhaps asking him to compensate you for your loss (unlikely as that may be) I wouldn't ever talk to him again.

[gougou]

sorry for that outburst

If you truly are sorry, you can use the edit function to undo that outburst.

In the meantime, I agree that aeon's post was not constructive. So instead of trashing Randall for something he can't change anymore, we maybe can return to giving him advise what to do about his passport and help prevent things like this happening in the future. (BTW, third person because I'm not adressing you, Randall, on this one, as I think was the case with necroflux as well; he seemed to be replying to roddy)