A Little Reputation Would Go A Long Way

While I will never cease to shop at big box stores (Target is my jam!), I also like supporting small businesses. Often Jerry and I prefer to eat at hole-in-the-walls over chains. I enjoy looking for one-of-a-kind gifts at events such as Unique LA. But while traveling, we don’t feel all that inclined to support a certain subset of small businesses, i.e. drivers, shopkeepers, restaurants etc.

It’s not that we don’t want to support them. We do. But we feel uncomfortable in doing so because in many of the countries we’ve been to, the reputation is less than stellar. Examples:

If the driver tells you that the hotel is full/closed/under repair, don’t trust the driver because touts (drivers in India) at the airport copy your name on their placards and cheat, so never trust anyone until you arrive at the hotel.

In that vein, don’t get into a taxi unless you’ve agreed upon a price. Drivers will often take you on a circuitous route and your bill will be doubled or even tripled, or you may even be taken to a strange place and their buddies will rob you.

Bargain hard, upwards of 30%-50% because shopkeepers won’t hesitate to start very high.

Don’t eat at restaurants that don’t list prices on the menu, because you’ll end up with a really high bill.

Speaking of high bills, don’t trust anyone in China that wants to strike up a conversation with you under the pretense of wanting to improve their English. They’ll sweet talk you into going to a tea house, and leave you with a $300 bill.

Ridiculous but not surprising, yes? None of us are born yesterday, we can see through all these tricks. We sympathize with the fact that everyone needs to make a living, and of course tourists are a gold mine that should be tapped into, it would be very unbusiness-like to not take advantage of that. But taking advantage should only go so far. And while there are many honest business folk out there, unfortunate a few bad apples ruins it all.

We would most likely choose the first decent looking taxi company we saw if they were all cut from the same cloth. Unfortunately, I don’t relish the the fact that we’d be at the mercy of the driver at any given time, and we have no choice but to decline rides from numerous taxis and only ride with ones that have a good reputation. So FYI, if you’re in Vietnam, go with the Mai Linh or Taxi Group because they actually use their meters accurately. And be careful, there’s a taxi group out there that mimics the logo of Mai Linh and instead spells it as M Linh. Yep, counterfeit taxis, the nerve of them! Because they have the reputation of ripping us off even a few cents, they lose dollars in potential fares.

To us, it’s not the amount of getting ripped off on, but the principle of it. We’ll spend $5 more in your shop, but if you try to rip us off 50 cents, it makes us feel like spending zero, and instead we’d give our money to someone else more honest, which unfortunately may be a big box store that lists prices.

Speaking of spending money, Jer and I, we hate bargaining. We really have no interest in playing games to see how low we can go. After all, the shopkeeper has to make a living as well! So our tactic has been to just name a price that we think is fair, and to stick to it. We don’t like going back and forth. Ultimately it’s just a matter of pennies or dollars, and to us it doesn’t feel good to achieve some sort of moral victory or whatnot that we saved fifty cents. So be it if the price we think is fair still ends up being more than what it’s worth. This tactic backfired on us once in Hong Kong when we got thrown out of a few stalls in Mongkok for bargaining too low on a cell phone case, but otherwise it’s been working for the most part!

Getting ripped off is just one of the aspects of traveling, and we’re okay with that when things are out of our hands or if the situation calls for it, i.e. that $4 we spent on 600ml bottle of Fanta because it was 100 degrees at Iguazu Falls and we were desperate. And sometimes we’ll just buy that Taj Mahal souvenir for a buck more because it’s our last opportunity or because it saves us time, and because it’s not worth it to haggle over fifty cents. But certainly when we do have opportunity and choice, we’ll make sure to go with our gut, even if it means giving our business to chains over mom and pops. A little reputation goes a long way!