Hustlers of Istanbul: Part 2

The biggest hustler in Istanbul: the government. I might as well put this out there now, while it's still possible in Turkey. Apparently the Man is about to throw some Chinese-style censorship on Internet access in a couple weeks. People have been protesting this in Taksim like it'll change something; walking up Istiklal Street today I saw "Internet should be free!" in sloppy graffiti scrawled on the side of the French Institute.

But let me regale you with tales of byzantine bureaucracy.

I wanted to get a SIM card for my archaic Lao-bought cell phone to help me organize an apartment to stay in while I was taking classes for five weeks. Plus you gotta have a phone if you want to manage all your dates with hot babes.

I found out about all sorts of fun regulations put on mobile phones, presumably ordered by the government. I don't think the telecom companies would make it harder for people to give them money, so I'm just going with the assumption that the Man is behind all this.

You can only use a SIM for two weeks in an unregistered phone before it shuts down. To register a foreign phone you have to wait up to ten days after signing a contract. Neither option was appealing. When I finally found an apartment after running up a moderate Skype bill, my roommate hooked me up with a Turkish phone. Another ten day wait according to TurkCell. Two weeks later, nothing. They still kept my money despite their inability to make a phone work.

In every "undeveloped" country I've been in, making a phone work goes like this: buy a SIM card, put it in, and viola, your phone works. The rationale I've heard here is that this Kafkaesque process is supposed to prevent illegally imported phone use, or some shit like that. No wonder I never got those dates with hot babes.

On a sidenote, most other foreigners I met didn't have phone problems; maybe I just suck.

Here's the real fun story, also related to sadistic import regulations.

My parents shipped me my laptop from the States, which I needed to do my coursework. It was supposed to arrive at my school. Instead, a notice from the shipping company informing me that the laptop was being held ransom by customs was delivered. Measures to combat illegal importation, once again.

The manager and secretary at my school filled me wonderful reports as to how I had to go about getting it back. In a nutshell, they told me I'd have to jump through several very expensive hoops.

I went with Latife, the school's secretary to the shipping company. It was pouring rain all day, and my socks were wet even before the torment began. In a steamy room crowded with other victims, I had to pay $100 just to get some paperwork to bring to the customs office at the airport. After trying to find an easy way out by talking to some office workers and a manager, I paid the fee and off we went to the airport, where I was set to pay more: a few hundred bucks in customs fees because the listed value of the package was over $100. But before I could do that I was supposed to comb the city in search of the tax office to register for a temporary tax number, which would cost another $100 or so, which would then enable me to pay my customs taxes, so I could get some papers to bring to the shipping company and pick up my package after paying another fee for storage.

All in all, I was looking at around $600 or more for a 2 year-old computer whose only worth had nothing to do with the machine itself, but that it contained thousands of pictures, two years of work, and my audio and video libraries. Basically, the fuckers at the customs office were going to get whatever they wanted because if I didn't pay, the government would literally just take it. Sending it back would've been another $200 for the shipping costs, plus the $400ish in customs fees anyway. What a bunch of lowlifes. My choices were to give into extortion, or let my property be stolen in plain sight.

The only redeemable aspect of a corrupt and predatory (the worst of this debacle was due to the fact that I was a foreigner) system like this, is that you can fight fire with fire. Due to an inconceivable stroke of good fortune, Latife's finacee worked in the customs office at the airport.

As soon as we arrived and she explained the situation to him, he started going through my paperwork, tearing off anything stating the declared value of my package, and instructed me to hide the papers as he handed them to me.

After lots of waiting, watching him chat with coworkers in small circles and hushed voices, more forms filled out, a trip back to the shipping company so he could throw some weight around before heading back to the airport for more paperwork, and an altered value on official documents concerning my computer, I paid about 40 Lira in customs taxes.

I still had to pay storage fees at the shipping company, and only after Latife and her fiancee begged and cajoled the managers to let me take it without a tax number, imploring them, saying that I was just a helpless student who had to start classes the next day.

Having what was rightfully mine had never felt so good. Latife and her fiancee were like angels sent to battle for me. I don't know if I ever would have gotten the obsolete hunk of silicon I'm currently writing this on if it wasn't for those two.

The shoe-shine guy made me think I was getting off lucky by paying him for something I didn't ask for or want, and the government bent me over and made me think I was lucky to pay only two-hundred something dollars for my own property.

Don't get me wrong, I've had a great time here in Istanbul, I just wish I didn't have to re-learn some basic lessons: don't trust strangers, over-friendly pedestrians, or the government.

Hustlers of Istanbul: Part 1

There are touts and hawkers and hustlers anywhere there are tourists. Part of travel is recognizing that anything too good to be true almost certainly is a hustle, and the sort of locals that start up conversations with tourists are almost certainly hustlers.

There are things one comes to expect. The taxi driver that charged me 10 Lira for a 5 minute ride in Erzurum is to be expected. Tourist prices at markets are to be anticipated. One can compile a decent list of common scams after a few months in southeast Asia. But you can always count on learning a new one the hard way after enough time goes by.

I was walking down the hill towards the football stadium in Beşıktaş as a shoe shiner was packing up his stuff. As he got up and set off down the sidewalk, a brush fell out of his case. Being the kind man I am, I picked it up and handed it to him. I was rewarded by a smile of disproportionate gratitude which should have been my first warning.

He promptly sat down, and started shining the thin strip of rubber on the toe of my boots.

"That's okay, I'm not interested" He clearly was going to ask for money.
"No problem, no problem. Thank you"
"How much is this?"
"No problem. Money no problem"
"I don't have any money."
"Where you from?"

He proceeded to do a half-ass job on my boot toes and fed me some story about sick kids, extortionate surgery bills, and a cancer-riddled wife, all while saying "Money no problem." He talked as fast as he worked as before I knew it he was asking for his money, 18 Lira, which is about $12. For a shitty toe shine.

The brilliance of this guy, beside the fact that he made me think that he had accidentally dropped the brush in the first place, was that he ran his scam so quickly and well that I almost thought I had gotten off cheap by giving him 5 Lira and telling the broken-hearted look on his face that I knew it was a good price and that was all he was getting.

The correct response would have been to laugh in his face when he asked for money and walk away, but that's not what happened and that's why he's a professional and I'm a sucker. I was half pissed off at myself, and half impressed at how smoothly the whole hustle went.

I was able to avoid all other scams, especially the obvious ones that I got lots of practice at. Walking alone down Istiklal Street on three occasions I was overtaken by solo Turkish guys who nonchalantly started asking me something in Turkish, then looked surprised when I had a stupid "I have no idea what you're saying" look on my face.

"Oh, I thought you were Turkish!" Helen Keller wouldnt've misjudged me so poorly. Or maybe all the blonde-haired, green-eyed , pale-skinned Turks hang out somewhere I've never been.

I was flattered the first time I got this line, since the dude pointed to the mustache I hadn't yet shaved off. But it wasn't convincing when they started chatting me up and eventually steered the conversation to the point where I was invited to a cafe. On none of the occasions did I feel like getting slapped with a several hundred Lira bill for a couple beers, to be paid under the glare of enormous bouncers. Nor did I want to get drugged, robbed, and possibly raped. Maybe if I didn't have class the next morning, I am a sucker for romance, after all.

The same dude even tried it on me twice. The second time, after he asked where I was going, I said I was going the same place I was going when he asked me two days prior.

"Oh, you...uh..." as he pointed at my hair.
"Yeah I shaved and got a haircut." Dumbass. Apparently we sucker Americans all look the same.

My classmate wasn't quite so astute as he was wandering around the side streets looking for my apartment one night. When he saw that he was lost, some hustler convinced Ayoub to take a look at his "bathhouse". He was plunked at a table that was instantly covered in fruit platters, bottles of alcohol, and surrounded by three Russian hookers.

When he tried to leave, they kindly handed him a 450 Lira bill. He hadn't touched any food, drink, or hooker. After he showed them he had no money, and they searched his clothes and pockets, he only got off because the manager was Syrian and Ayoub pleaded his broke-student case to him in Arabic, their common language. He considers himself lucky the dude let him out easily. I do too.

Next to come, part two: The Biggest of Hustlers in Turkey