This is a very common street scam as all our con-artists need is a cheap metal ring, gold painted, and a distracted tourist.
It is usually about a ring but it could be any fake valuable item such as a brooch, a bracelet, a pendant etc.
1) How it works
You are enjoying your visit minding your own business when someone calls you from behind. Scammer asks if the item he/she just picked up, or rather pretended to pick up from the street, is yours.
You are supposed to answer no so the scammer can start trying to convince you that the ring is worth a lot. They will say figures ranging from 200$ or € up to 2000.
Without wasting too much time they will try to sell it to you by bargaining and trying to keep the price up as much as possible.
2) What you risk
I have read of victims who managed to pay 10€ instead of 100€ which was the scammer’s initial offer.
“Bene ma non benissimo”, since we are talking about a worthless piece of metal that it probably not even worth 1€.
3) How to avoid it
Ask yourself in which reality a ring expert who finds a 200€ ring on the street chooses to sell it to a stranger for 10-20€.
Now, you may think that it is impossible to fall into such a trick, but it happens very often.
Remember that sudden and inexplicably too good deals, especially those offered by random strangers and friendly faces (locals and not), are almost always scams.
4) Extras And Thoughts
I expressed the value mainly in euros or dollars because I’m European and those are my reference currencies. My point in this article is that you don’t want to pay for junk like it was fine jewelry.