From taxi rip-offs to overpriced beer, scams still abound in Prague says German film crew

Once the border between Czech Republic and Germany reopened, the Germany TV show Achtung Abzocke, or “Beware of Scam,” returned to Prague after four years. The show travels to different hot spots to deliberately look for fraud and common scams to map out what Germans should look out for when traveling. In addition to scams, the show tells tourists about alternatives when they travel, like how to avoid flying in the time of coronavirus.

On their 2020 visit, the crew focused on taxi drivers in the capital city and exchanging money.

At one exchange office, the staff found fake money among their Czech crowns.

The camera crew also focused on taxis in the capital city. When the crew was here in 2016, they filmed one particular taxi driver that scammed tourists by using an app on his phone to simulate a taxi meter.

“Most of the drivers were nice and charged us less than the maximum price set by the city,” Horvath said. “However, the two drivers did not turn on the taximeters at all.”

The crew found one taxi driver that wanted to charge double the maximum amount of crowns allowed by a meter, and another that charged 29 Euros, or 780 crowns, for a trip from the main train station to Old Town Square, just 3.5 kilometers away. He had a card with printed prices on it instead of a meter.

The show still recommends Prague as a destination for German tourists but warns them to keep an eye out.

“There are still a lot of small scams that have happened to us in Prague,” Horvath said. “But the city can simply get rid of them, or at least draw the attention of visitors to them.”