Last year Riga’s nightclubs – or more specifically its rapidly proliferating strip clubs – became notorious for scamming tourists out of large sums of money. Unwitting punters, often worse for wear by the end of the evening, would be presented with an outlandishly huge bill for drinks and ’services’ such as a brief chat with the women working in the clubs. With bouncers making clear what the results of non-payment would be, many people coughed up – sometimes to the tune of several hundred Euro. Advice from the British Embassy mentioned another scam:
Most visitors enjoy a trouble-free drink in the city centre pubs, but you should exercise caution over some of the nightclubs on offer. There have been reports of people being planted with illegal substances by door staff and then promptly seized by them.
Today the Baltic Times has posted a report quoting Riga police chief Ints Kuzis saying that ‘we have won a very important victory’ in dealing with the scammers.
According to Kuzis the blame lay not with nightclub owners but with employees such as bar staff and people working on the door, presumably acting on their own instincts. By co-operating with the owners, it is claimed, the issue has been tackled:
Actually, we have not received a single application stating that someone was swindled using this service [this year]. Of course there will always be frustrated people, who think they have drunk less than they are charged, but there are no crimes of such kind.
I would like to think that the police chief is right, although the real test will be the summer season when visitors (and particularly the stag parties) arrive en masse. It certainly did the city’s image no good to be associated with this type of crime, and the common claim that the police were not interested in rescuing drunk foreigners also conflicted with the image of a tourist hotspot.
It would also be in the long-term interests of club owners to co-operate rather than deter visitors. I suspect that there may be less compliance, however, from the seedier clubs which spring up almost overnight and often do not stick around for long, since they are likely to have less of a stake in maintaining a good reputation. I would be very interested to hear from readers who have had experience of these scams in any Baltic establishments.
In the meantime, if you do find yourself in trouble of any kind in Latvia then it is recommended that you contact one of the following:
- Your embassy
- The police – tel. 112, or
- The Tourist Helpline – tel. 2203 3000
It is worth remembering that the vast majority of tourists visiting Riga do so without incident.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Steve Tennant // Jun 13, 2007 at 1:48 am
I like the design of your Blog. Good reading.
2 John // Jun 15, 2007 at 9:42 am
Thanks Steve. The design uses the Cutline theme, which I like because it is very clean. I have been adding new features over the last couple of days – including ‘related posts’ and a tag cloud in the sidebar. The idea is that they will give users extra ways to explore the site.
3 mike harris // Aug 25, 2007 at 11:58 pm
the place is still the same , street pimps for clubs ,dailly rip offs in strip clubs and the are all cash in the hand, the police are ignoring it all, and poeple are still getting ripped off in the clubs
4 John // Aug 26, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Thanks for commenting Mike. If you have any first-hand experience which might be interesting or helpful for other readers, please feel free to post it here.
5 mike harris // Aug 27, 2007 at 1:19 pm
i visit riga regular, boris-i love too rip off the brits is still in the old town with his harlets, these girls are sexy and well spoken in english. the sole aim is too get you into boris!s strip club too fleece you,, they are on 50% of the rip,, boris drives a bently, and hid spiders all wear high fashion clothes, from us as we pay for there life-style by going too there clubs, so dont think you got lucky, when olga the harlet smiles at you,and says like too come for a drink, you get nothing but sexy smiles and waste alot of money, dont pay anywhere in the bars by visa, someare not vat registered and you will pay a wopping35% more,i9f you can afford too pay , olga and sveta-we rob the brits,12 quid for a drink,THEN I WILL SAY NO MOREdont even think about not paying or EGOR,AND THE MEN IN BLACK
6 mike harris // Aug 27, 2007 at 1:22 pm
WILL ARRIVE AND YOU WILLEND UP IN HOSPITAL
7 Christian // Jan 5, 2008 at 11:57 pm
I was just in Riga and the same thing happened to me. I am a teacher in Estonia and I was travelling with a colleague and we’d been out drinking. While walking home we met, what seemed to be, two nice girls who looked, well normal, not like rip-off ladies. Being a homosexual I had little interest in them apart from them being friendly and asking us where we were going. Our reply of “home” gave rise to, “you should both come to a bar with us if you want, we’re going there now.” After chatting a little while about pretty banal things, like being teachers, our impressions of Riga, we went with them. In the bar it took us a few minutes to notice all the foreign looking men sitting with fairly pretty women who were coming and going and then the pole and then the dancer and then a whopping 76LV (1400EEK, 140USD, 70GB). We refused to pay, in fact, couldn’t. THey tried every card we had and lo and behold, our “ruse” as poor Estonian teachers certainly was no ruse and we are actually quite poor. “egor, and the men in black” came to the door where we were showing them our teacher’s cards, exclaiming our lack of afiliation with british tourists, even referencing our lack of semantic understanding of what “stag weekend” actually means. Finally, as my friend was arguing with the bouncer who spoke no English, I leveled with the female bartender and the girls who lured us there. “Listen honey, we did not want to come here, I am a homosexual teacher who has no interest in watching a pole dance nor buying fancy drinks for fancy ladies nor going to jail. You see that we don’t have enough money, you have inspected our wallets. We are nice people who do not deserve this.” She looked at the earnestness in my eyes perhaps and she told the bouncer to let us go. On our way out we got a swift kick in the ass and told the bouncer that he was an asshole, but we left with some pretty wretched feelings for the whole situation. Those girls aren’t bad people necessarily. They are doing a job. Albeit, a pretty dirty job, but Riga’s problems run deep and the average Rigan can barely afford to live there at all so it’s hard to harbor hatred towards them. One problem is that these clubs exist in the first place, but I’m afraid that the problem runs even deeper than that and lies in the loftier, less tangible realm of an ongoing class dilemma that sees wealthier western tourists invading poorer parts of the world and people there figuring out a way to stay afloat as prices are driven up by the arrival of the aforementioned foreigner. What to do about it? I have no idea.
Thanks for hosting this column. I feel better already. Don’t remember the name of the place because we were running for our skinny lives away from the jaba the hut-esque bouncer.
Cheers
8 Eddie // Mar 12, 2008 at 8:39 pm
I lived in Riga for 2 years and the ’stag’ thing was just starting and, believe me, the attitude was that the drunk Brits were to be ripped-off.
These people are naturally shy, it’s not in their culture to talk to strangers. So if a pretty woman chats you up on the street, it is not because she fancies you. She’s paid to do that. Your motto should be ‘Don’t talk to anyone who talks to you first’.
9 ripped off in riga // Apr 30, 2008 at 1:47 pm
It’s 2008 april, and coming back from Riga i was lucky to escape after being drugged and put into a car. Jumping at the traffic light’s cause it didn’t feel right. the police are just as corrupt as the rest of them, one bouncer was actually a cop by day and a scam artist at night. My friends had cards cloned, special police fines - i.e. extortion, they hate the brit’s across in Riga and we were not made welcome anywhere. stay out the clubs, especially the strip clubs as police and bouncers come out the woodwork, and your likely to get robbed or drugged or both. the embassy doesn’t care because they warned you, the police don’t care cause there helping run it. Nice city, generally nice people. oh p.s. do not use a credit card anywhere.
10 Be careful in Riga or you will be ripped of // Jul 22, 2008 at 7:29 pm
[Note: This comment has been edited to remove the name of the establishment in question, but the warning is still relevant. Riga’s strip clubs are getting a very bad name for these sorts of events.]
So the reason for going to Riga was the Metallica Concert, Jul 20, 2008. And everything was really good, until the last night. We were visiting a couple of clubs and then headed through old town. This guy standing on the street trying to get people to this strip club “XXXX” or “XXXX” (had two names?) We thought we check it out.
I had heard about these scams they are doing and thought I’d stay sharp and see how they are doing it. But later we would realize it wasn’t a good idea. They told us, 10 lats (approx 15€)(25$) for three drinks and the show. We thought it wasn’t that bad so we payed the money. Our last 10 lats.
We watched the show, which lasted for ~1min. And got our drinks one by one. I looked at the drinks list which was a list of drinks you could buy for “the lady”, Lady Drinks. Prices from 30 lats up to 170 lats. My friend talked to a girl who wasn’t working there, (that’s what she said). So I went down to the bar, my friend still talking to the other “non-working” stripper. Then they served me a shot of Rigas Melnais Balzams, some kind of national drink, as my last drink and then tried to talk me into buying a drink for the lady. Without saying yes she started and I asked how much. She said a slurry 3… something, so I asked again, how much? Then I heard her saying 30 lats… sorry.. 30 lats? Yes. No way I’m buying that!
So I left the girls and went to check on my friend. There he was still talking to the “not-working-here -girl”. And I asked him if they had tried the same on him. He was pretty drunk and told me not to disturb him. The girl had a drink for sure but didn’t know if he bought that. I could see he thought the girl was really interested in him. Then the girl dragged him to the bar so I told him we had to leave. Now the problems started. He had to pay for the so called “Lady Drink”. He hadn’t realized he couldn’t give 1 of his 3 free drinks to the lady. So now they wanted to charge him 35 lats (50€)(80$) for the drink. Suddenly a bouncer had appeared at the door. No money left and no credit card with us there was a problem, and even If we had had the money we wouldn’t have payed for a thing like that. So after 30min of blah. blahs. I told my friend I could get his credit card from the hotel if he wanted to. We decided to do that.
So I walked away. Away from Old Town. On my way I saw two police men sitting on a bench, for a second I thought talking to them maybe would help. But I skipped the thought and headed for our hotel, Reval Hotel Latvija, and get the card.
Suddenly I get a call from my friend who said he escaped and was running, and lost his shoes. I told him I will come and help him so i ran out of the hotel and like 200m from the hotel I see 2 big guys having my friend on the ground, lift him up and drags him in the direction of Old Town. I kept the distance and followed them.
I stopped a latvian man on the street asking him for help. He tells me he walked past when my friend escaped. My friend had taken the fire extinguisher and sprayed the bouncer with that.
As we pass the place where the police men were sitting, they were still sitting there as of nothing would have happened. I hurry with the latvian guy back to the club. Outside the club there is white foam from the extinguisher all over and the police arrives.
I were allowed to go inside to see my friend. He is pretty beaten up. The police tell him to pay for the drink so I hand over his card and they charge him 35 lats. The police didn’t think there was anything illegal in charging 35 lats for a drink he didn’t order. So they take my friend to the police car and tells me to go home. They will be taking him to the station. The time is somewhere around 6 in the morning and there’s nothing I can do so I go to the hotel and wait. I text him a message on the phone to call me immediately when he knows anything.
Five 4 hours later he calls and tells me he’s out, and got a 200 lats (470$) fine. He missed the bus and took the plane back home. Finally everything was okay, and he was pretty okay.
We were quite lucky not to be in hospital that night.
I think maybe it is best to hand over your credit card immediately if they tell you to…
Watch out for these suspicious bars and remember the police didn’t help us here. It was also foolishly done of my friend to start spraying with the extinguisher but maybe this story will help some people not being ripped-off i Riga, Latvia. Good Luck!
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