Avoiding travel rip-offs - Rusty Compass travel blog

Avoiding travel rip-offs

| 27 May 2010
, 1 Comment
27 May 2010

Recently we looked at some of the great rip-offs that travellers encounter on the road. We discovered some of the most egregious are legal and perpetrated by phone companies and banks from home. In this piece, we look at some ways of getting around those rip-offs.

The greatest legal rip-off in travel may be phone and data “roaming” charges levied by your beloved telco. But there is hope.

Skype’s peer to peer (computer to computer) service is a well established way for international friends to keep in touch for free. And travellers are getting that message too. But now, new Skype compatible devices like the iPod Touch, the iPhone and other smartphones combined with ever more ubiquitous free Wifi services (depending on the country you’re travelling in), provide some very effective ways around the great roaming ripoff.

I’ve been a Skype user for many years now. In the last two I’ve also been using some of their paid products that expand the Skype network beyond the computer to the normal phone network. Together with my recently purchased iPod Touch, it forms an excellent travel communications package that can save hundreds even thousands of dollars while you’re on the road. Load Skype onto your iPod Touch and you can talk to family and friends online for free. 

But there’s a catch. To get good value out of Skype when you travel, you need to be in a destination where Wifi is almost everywhere - like Vietnam and Cambodia. Free Wifi is a standard feature of hotels, restaurants and bars in this part of the world. Ironically, it is far less available in developed but less tourist friendly destinations like Australia.

cyclo,Hanoi,Hanoi Streets,Old Quarter Hanoi,People,Vietnam
Photo: Mark BowyerCheck your telco and your bank as carefully as you negotiate with your cyclo driver and all you'll return home happier all round.
If Wifi is reliably available in your travel destinations, go the next step and get yourself a Skypeout number. For around US$50 per year, you get a “local” number in the country of your choice (that will normally be your home country) and free calls to any landline in that same country - no matter where you are - all using Skype software on your computer or smartphone (or both). 


During my recent travels in Vietnam and Cambodia, I gave the family in Australia my Australian Skype number. This allowed them to call me at local rates and leave a message when I wasn’t online. When I went online in my hotel cafe, I could receive the messages and return the calls to an Australian landline for free. Of course I could also make calls using the conventional Skype peer to peer service. Calls to mobiles or other international numbers are charged at prices discounted at more than 90% from the “roaming” fees charged by Australian phone operators. All up a very good deal.

And there’s another benefit too. Skype allows you to take control of your incoming calls meaning your holiday is not constantly interrupted. You can choose when you want to spend time making and receiving calls rather than having the phone going off as you climb around temple ruins or through markets. You can leave your mobile phone for the emergencies or turn it off altogether.

Just as important, smartphones and iPod Touch devices allow you to connect to Skype without the hassle of lugging your laptop everywhere.

Check out the Skype products at www.skype.com

If you have an Iphone or a similar smartphone, don’t be tempted to use roaming data services. You may end up with a bill in the thousands for a normal day of surfing. Once again, if Wifi is widely available, then use your Wifi connection for all your data transactions. 

Free Wifi is fast becoming an essential piece of traveller infrastructure. It’s fascinating how quickly the Cambodian and Vietnamese tourism industries have worked this out, and how slowly the message is sinking in around Australia.

Our piece on travel rip-offs also looked at bank and credit card charges. Unfortunately, in this case, there is no Skype like solution. But there are some simple ways to minimise the costs of handling your money when you travel.

In Vietnam Laos and Cambodia, you will very frequently be charged 3% by the vendor to use your Mastercard or Visacard. Amex and Diners may be refused or charged even more. And these charges are before you are hit up by the credit card companies themselves.

But even more important than noting these costs, is keeping your credit card payments in order while you travel. Pay as much of your balance as you can and never miss a payment deadline. If you do, you may start attracting interest charges on all purchases from the time you make them rather than after the usual 40 - 55 days. I recently missed a payment by a couple days and ended up with hundreds of dollars of bills above the late fee penalty. Be warned.

A debit card is a worthwhile option since it relieves of you of a payment process - funds are deducted directly from your bank account. It simply requires that you keep an eye on your account balance and make sure you never exceed it. Being relieved of a payment process has a downside too though. It means you are less likely to carefully check your bill. And not carefully reviewing your bills can be be very costly as credit card fraud and unethical practices by vendors become ever more common.

Then there is the question of the ATM. These are also very widely available throughout Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. I tend to rely on ATMs. I love the convenience and the fact that you have a sense of your expenditure as you go. Yes there are charges but they seem less onerous than those applying to credit cards. 

There are plenty of hazards to deal with and ripoffs to avoid when you travel. Managing some of the legal ripoffs as we’ve suggested here will put some more cash in your pockets as you go into negotiations with tailors, taxis and cyclo drivers. Keep it all in perspective though. Even the most audacious travel scam - apart from straight out fraud or theft - is likely to pale alongside schemes concocted by your phone company or your bank.

Mark Bowyer
Mark Bowyer is the founder and publisher of Rusty Compass.
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1 comment so far

I recently returned from Europe. I flew to Paris and was charged $50.00 for a second bag. That was no problem. "However", when I left Brussels via Bruxelles Air, I was charged 150Euros which was $201.00 US!!!! The man at the baggage section told me I could go and try to get this reduced. Well, I did and they said no. I returned to the man. He'd already put my bag through. Then he asked if "I needed anything from the bags"? Well, I was flying to Milan with a 12 hour lay-over. "Of course" I needed my shaving kit. But it was too late. The main carrier was American Airlines. I would not be able to get my bags in Milan. When I got to J.F.K, my baggage wasn't at the Customs check! I went on to Baltimore, and "of course" my bags weren't there. I was told they would probably arrive the next day: Thursday. Well, the first suitcase arrived on Saturday. The next, on Sunday. And more fuel for the fire: My good leather jacket, 3 shirts and a pair of pants were also missing with some papers that can't be replaced. I send American Airlines a letter (certified) and haven't heard back from them as of yet. This was my 25th time to Europe, and no-doubt, my last. I asked American about "being robbed without a gun". That's what this is. Someone should have been standing at J.F.K. with my bags and waiting for me at that outrageous charge!

  • Tim
  • Ho Chi Minh City
  • Saturday, 04 December 2010 05:41