Every now and again people approach me and ask me for directions. I don't really know why this is, well okay, I know they're asking (because they don't know where to go), but I don't know why they ask me, rather than, for example, a woman walking a dog or a business man.Anyway, it was for this reason that I wasn't particularly surprised when a guy wandered up to me and started saying something in Hungarian - I just replied "sorry, I don't speak Hungarian", to which he said, almost under his breath, "Hey man, do you want an iPhone 4?" while showing me this little box he was carrying. As much as I like Apple products, I didn't want an iPhone 4, and even though I'm sure he was offering it for a very reasonable price, I certainly wasn't going to buy one on the street, from a guy who was whispering to me and constantly looking around as if the police were about to jump out and arrest him.
I thought maybe this was a one-off, that it didn't happen all that often - how naïve. They're everywhere. In the past week I've been offered an iPhone 4 everyday by different guys on the street, and I've come to recognise their type. They're in their 20's, on their own, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but they aren't the tell-tale signs - the real way to recognise them is by how they walk. They don't walk as if they have anywhere to go, instead they drift slowly up and down streets, trying to make eye-contact and ask anyone who'll listen. I seriously doubt whether any of their products actually work, or whether there's anything even in the box. A colleague told me an amusing story about how her father had proudly returned home with digital camera from one of these guys, claiming he'd found a real bargain - the camera turned out to be an empty shell, and there were no actual parts inside it. I think it's safe to assume that an iPhone 4 would probably be a similar story.
By the time you come to Budapest they'll probably be selling iPhone 5s or whatever the latest wonder gadget is, but at least now you know. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.
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ReplyDeleteiPhone Screen
Beware of these people, they most certainly try to scam you with either a non-working slab of plastic that looks like a phone, or a cheap knockoff, or in the worst case a genuine but stolen piece that will have the cops on you in a few days.
ReplyDeleteAs for their opening question: they have to know for sure that you are not a local, since if you were one, you would have much more chance of successfully raising a case with the local police. So they need to open with a question that helps them tell a tourist from a local, and one that doesn't look suspicious for either one. Another possibility is that if you indeed have an iPhone, you'd take it out to look for directions, at which point they will take it from you and try to pass it on to the next guy/gal.