Riga Warnings Or Dangers Tips by kit_mc

Strangers asking for notes - Scam?

I'd heard of this happening in other cities but it had never happened to me before.

In the Old Town near the Blackhead's House around 7pm one evening, a guy came up to us speaking in what sounded like Latvian. When we looked blankly at him, he looked relieved and started off in English. He said something to the effect that he only had coins but no-one would take them and did we have a 20 lat note to exchange. Thinking that this was just quite bizarre, I just shrugged my shoulders and said , sorry but no. He simply wandered off and we watched him stroll ahead, interestingly not asking anyone else on his way.

It wasn't even until a few minutes afterward that it occurred to me that I'd read of people trying to palm off dead and useless currency in coins to unsuspecting foreigners who would not recognise whether or not it was actually valid coinage. And I'm guessing that's what he was trying. Ironically this happened on our last evening after a totally uneventful weekend.

Ho hum. No damage done.