What scams should you watch for in Bali?

Bali is a low-crime destination by any international standard, and the overwhelming majority of people you deal with are straight. What exists is a small set of well-practised routines that recur in the same places, and they are easy to avoid once you know what they look like.

The airport and taxi routines

The unsolicited approach. Anyone who walks up to you outside arrivals offering a ride is charging two to three times the fare. Use the official counter, a pre-booked driver, or an app.

The broken meter. A taxi with a meter that is "broken" is a negotiation, not a taxi. Either agree a price before you get in or take another car. Bluebird, the blue metered fleet with its own app, is the reliable operator and has imitators with similar livery and different logos.

The hotel is full or closed. A driver who tells you your accommodation has closed down, and knows a better one, earns a commission at the better one. Phone the property.

The money changer routine

A rate on a board that is noticeably better than everybody else's, in a small shop with no visible licence, a fast count and a distraction during the recount. Notes are slipped back under the counter.

Use authorised changers with a proper shop front, count the money yourself, and do not hand it back once counted.

The scooter damage routine

You return the bike and the shop finds a scratch you did not cause, then quotes a repair. The defence takes one minute: photograph the whole bike, all four sides and the underside of the front panel, before you ride away, with the date visible.

The related version involves the shop keeping your passport so you have no leverage. Never leave a passport as a deposit.

ATM skimming

Historically a real problem here, mostly at free-standing machines outside minimarts. Use ATMs attached to bank branches, cover the keypad, and check your statement during the trip rather than after it.

The card terminal conversion

Not a scam exactly, but it costs more than everything above combined: when the machine asks whether to charge in your home currency, it is offering you a rate 3 to 7 per cent worse than your bank's. Always choose rupiah.

Tickets, tours and boats

Fast boat tickets from unbranded stalls sometimes correspond to a different, worse boat than the one advertised, or to a company with a poor safety record. Book from the operator or through your accommodation, and check the boat's name.

Attraction tickets sold by people outside a site who are not at the official counter. Buy at the gate.

Dive and trek operators advertising prices well below everyone else. In diving and on volcano treks, the cheap operator is cheap because of the thing you cannot see: the gear, the guide ratio, the boat.

Money and bills

The service charge surprise. Many restaurants add 10 per cent tax plus service. It should be on the menu. Check the bottom of the menu before you order, not the bottom of the bill afterwards.

The change shortage. Occasionally you are handed less change with an apology about not having small notes. Carry small notes and it stops being an issue.

Two things that are not scams

The parking fee. A few thousand rupiah collected by someone in a hi-vis vest at a beach or a market is a genuine local arrangement, not a con.

Grab drivers asking you to walk to a main road. That is a local cooperative agreement about pickup territory, not an attempt to overcharge you.

The actual risks, in order

Honestly: the roads first, by a wide margin, then the sea, then alcohol-related incidents, then petty theft from bags on scooters. Everything on this page is a financial annoyance. Those four are the ones that hurt people, and the boring precautions — a helmet, a licence, a look at the flags before you swim, a bag that closes — prevent nearly all of it.