In Reply to: Warning-Rip-Off: I just read about.. posted by fantomelover on Monday, 3. January 2005 at 20:18 Bali Time:
We had a similar situation happened to my sister & me on our first shopping trip in Bali.
As soon as we left our hotel, a balinese lady gave us her business card, which had a listing of they beauty services she provided (ie nails, etc) & their price. She did not hassle us & we were able to move along.
However, another woman across the street must have saw this & she crossed the street, grabbed my sister & started taking her down to her shop down one of the lanes, saying "I'll do your nails good". She started doing our nails & then asked for the business card we got off the other woman and, being a bit naive, we happily gave it to her, not taking in the prices on the card.
All was well, they were chatting happily with us, until they finished & demaned 500,000 rp.....EACH!!! At this stage, we did not know what to do, especially when her husband came into the shop at that exact moment! We ended up paying 500,000rp for the two of us. It was not until later that day we realised how ripped off we were!! By the end of that first day, we were both thinking "what are we doing here" & did not want to go out shopping again! Luckily, we were over it by the next day & with advice about bartering printed off from the BTF, we became quite good at it by the end of the trip.
The lesson to be learnt from this experience......BARTER, BARTER, BARTER! Do not agree to have anything done until you have agreed on a price. If you still think they are ripping you off, just walk away. Either they will chase you down the road to barter some more, or you can just go to the next shop.
Needless to say, we did not see this woman again for about a week....she must have thought that all her christmases had come at once when she got our money!! LOL
Sorry to go on a bit with my story, but I just wanted to say that one bad experience shouldn't sum up your thoughts about Bali. We loved the place & are planning to go back in August with a couple more people. You just have to learn from your mistakes & move on!
Bec