Shoe shine Scams in Turkey

1-) * Shoe polisher directly comes to you, sits on his shoeshine box and starts to brush your shoe without any talk or question.

* When you surprised and said what is going on or declare that you don’t want your shoes to be shined and cleaned, He gently says your shoes are quiet dirty and offers to clean your shoes free of charge

*  When he finished to clean your shoes ( Usually takes less than 2 minutes ), he asks for Money in return ( 10 or 20 €)

* If you mentioned that he said he would do that for free of charge , he will contradict and start to argue with you

* Meanwhile his friends ( the other shoeshiners) will come and gather around you which will make you feel obligated to pay.

2-) * Shoe shiner,intentionally will drop his brush while walking by you,

* You naturally will pick up the brush and hand it to him,

* He will be thankfull, kind, smiling and offering you a free shoe polishing in return of your help

* If you accept his offer you will be trapped to his trick,

* When the cleaning and shining is finished he will ask for Money, if you object to pay he will be offensive and threat you either to go police or call his friends which will make you obligated to pay him.

3-)  I can not hundred percent call it as a scam however it is also a way for asking extra Money from shoe shining service

* When you go for a shoe shiner to clean and polish your shoes, he starts to have a conversation with you and arouse a pity for himself by saying that he is in a difficult situation as he or his children caught to a terminal ilnesses

* He can even cry about his situation to make you feel pity for him

* When he finished cleaning, he will ask for extra Money than his service in order to help him to pay for medicines and etc.

****** These scam examples are  the only some incidents occured in the past and only aim to warn people to avoid to be scammed. You mustn’t consider that all the shoe polishers in Turkey are scammers while there are many more honest shoe shiner who only aim to work and earn money to survive. *******