Watch Out for this Scam in Bratislava
Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, is a beautiful city tucked into a bend of the Danube between Budapest and Vienna. With a compact Old Town and most historical sites easily accessible on foot, it’s the perfect long weekend getaway.
As with all idyllic escapades however, there are prospective trip-ruiners to watch out for. My fellow travelers and I fell victim to one such misadventure over Easter weekend, on the day of our departure.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present The Tram Scam.
The tram in Bratislava (Photo: Tomas via Unsplash)
The trials of obtaining a tram ticket in Bratislava
Bratislava’s yellow ticket machines are rather opaque to the uninitiated. A series of silver buttons alongside instructions in tiny script – with slivers of not especially helpful English – they bewildered our group of four New Yorkers.
The public transit ticket machine in Bratislava - good luck with this! (via: Slovakia Garant)
The following is what your options SHOULD be:
15 minutes (0.70€) – No transfers are allowed, and once you board the bus or tram you cannot change to another one with the same ticket.
30 minutes (0.90€) - Transfers are allowed, and the same rules apply as above re: changing to another bus or tram.
60 minutes (1.20€) - Transfers are allowed, and on the weekend, tickets are valid for 90 minutes.
24-hours (3.50€), 72-hours ticket (8.00€), or 168-hours (11.40€) – Transfers are allowed. This is a safer choice for tourists expecting to use public transport more frequently. It permits as much travel as you like, by all forms of transport, within the time window selected.
Tourists visiting for a couple of days may also want to consider the Multiday Tourist Ticket for unlimited numbers of routes, including night buses. Prices vary according to zone usage – more details here.
Once you crack the machines, you’re still at their technological mercy. In our case, we indicated three times our choice: four one-ride tickets, at full price – then tapped the button to pay by card. On the third attempt the card reader beeped and the transaction was successful (according to my bank). But the tickets never printed.
That’s when we made our big gamble and decided to get on the train without tickets. We were only going a few stops to the train station, and figured the odds of getting stopped by someone checking were low.
If you (wisely) don’t do this however – MAKE SURE you validate your tickets the moment you get on the tram. We later heard and read many stories about travelers getting fined for not validating their tickets, or even validating them “too slowly”.
Intimidation on the tram
We hadn’t even made it to the next stop before two official-seeming men approached us with card readers and what we assumed were ticket-scanners. They asked for our tickets, we explained the situation – that we’d tried to purchase them, and the machine didn’t work properly. They said there are instructions everywhere in English, we should have read them. And/or that we could have purchased tickets with a card after boarding the train – and we saw this was correct. (We hadn’t known about or yet noticed the points of sale in the tram car.)
The on board payment machines we dearly wish we’d noticed. (via: imhd.sk)
The penalty for not having a ticket, they told us, was 80€ per person. If we refused to pay, they would call the police, and then the fine would be 110€ per person.
We were shocked and angry (and once police were mentioned, scared). We tried to apologize, tried to argue, and asked repeatedly for the men to allow us to purchase tickets on the tram – the machine was within arm’s reach. We also offered to get off immediately at the next stop.
They refused, and long story short we coughed up the 80€ apiece – paying with our credit cards.
What to do if you find yourself without proper ticketing
We licked our wounds in a coffee shop afterwards and told our server about what had just happened. He told us we’d been victims of a scam.
He was partially correct. The city’s public transit website lays out the penalties for “disobeying the fare conditions of Bratislava’s municipal transport system”, aka being unable to show a valid ticket. The passenger is supposed to have to pay the price of a full fare 30-minute ticket (1.10€ plus 80€ for traveling without a valid ticket). The fine for not paying additional fares for luggage, animals, or bicycles is 5€.
What the fare is for luggage – which we of course had – is unclear. But we were “only” charged 80€ and none of the other penalties noted above.
I reached out to Bratislava Tourist Information for comment, and they confirmed that 80€ was the correct fine for our inadvertent misdeed. “However, they should have taken into account that the machines were not in operation.” They also advised me to reach out to Dopravný podnik Bratislava (DPB), the city public transport company, “about the behavior of the ticket inspectors and their threats. It must be correct, and no threats can be used to intimidate travelers.” (At the time of writing, DPB has not yet responded. Officially, they have 30 days to do so. More than that amount of time has passed.)
The 110€ fine the “inspectors” threatened us with if police were called, in other words, was an illegal intimidation tactic if not an outright scam. Fines for not having a valid ticket are supposed to be raised to 110€ if not paid within 10 working days of issue. Not if you can’t or don’t or won’t pay it on the spot, as we were told.
We started poking around the internet and saw that traveler message boards were full of tales along the lines of our experience. We also read scary accounts of travelers being locked onto buses and not allowed off until/unless they paid. Sometimes people were asked to hand over their passports.
Our experience was unpleasant, but it could’ve been a lot worse.
What to do in the face of The Tram Scam
If you’re unfortunate enough to encounter this scenario, a few tips:
DO NOT, under any circumstances, give anyone your passport. There is no reason anyone should need this to assess whether you are properly ticketed, or to administer a fine.
If you must pay, use a credit card rather than cash. That way you can immediately dispute the transaction and/or let your bank know what happened.
Depart the vehicle as soon as you can.
My personal advice? Don’t let our one negative experience at the very end of an otherwise wonderful trip put you off. Bratislava is lovely and well worth a visit. Given its small size and walkability though, stick to getting around on foot.
