Mrbitter mugged in china - Page 4

On November 16 2012 07:14 MrBitter wrote:
Hey guys,

I'm more embarrassed about this whole situation than anything else. Here's the story.

I was out at a bar in a nice part of Shanghai with Rotti. Beautiful place, very nice. We were both having a good time, but as it was getting later, I started wanting to take off. Kev wanted to stay out a little longer, so I just bailed around 11 PM.

Walked to the street, got into a cab (it was parked in a row of other cabs) and started handing driver my hotel card with the address of the place we're staying.

As I'm doing this another guy gets in the car and says something in Chinese to the driver.

This is the point where I should have just gotten out of the car, but I was so "wtf!?" that I just sorta sat there. After like 2 seconds cab driver just starts driving.

We go for 5-10 minutes down some random roads on random ass Shanghai and stop in this kinda shady looking place with literally nobody around. At this point I know I'm in a shitty situation and trying to calculate what to do.

Random dude that got into the cab tells me in broken English to come with him.

This is the second point where I guess I could have just walked away, but I had no idea where I was, and this cab driver was the only other person in sight. If I just walk off, I'd literally be walking the streets of a pretty ghetto part of Shanghai alone and in the dark, and just about all other prospects seemed better, so I'm like "fuck it" and I walk with the guy into some little hole in the wall.

I'm assuming we were in a whore house, as there were naked pictures of girls on the walls, and really nasty looking girls walking around in dirty outfits. Dude from the cab walks me into a room and tells me to wait.

Few minutes later 4 guys walk in. One had really funny hair. Apparently he was the boss.

He starts telling me that I'm in his club and I have to pay him.

This is the point where I know I'm pretty much fucked. He has three other dudes who literally look like they came out of a bad gangster movie. One of them has a taped up hand, the other is all buff and mean looking, and there's a third old looking guy who is introduced as the head of security. (lol?)

Funny hair guy tells me to empty my pockets. I can either comply or try to fight... in these situations I think its always better to just give the dudes what they want than to try and do something stupid. They weren't trying to rape me, just rob me, and it was pretty obvious.

They wanted me to give them 40,000 RMB. I had about 1,000 RMB cash on me and my debit card.

Funny hair guy says something in Chinese to one of the other guys. Dude leaves, and a few minutes later comes back with a credit card machine.

Funny hair guy asks me what the limit on my card is.

I'm like "well fuck."

I tell him $300 US. Because it is. I have a $300 daily withdrawal limit on my checking account. This is very deliberate. I like to play poker, and I'm bad at stopping myself, so I had my bank limit me to $300 per day. lol. Embarrassing but true.

He punches in 5,000 RMB, which is like $800 US and scans my card. Then he tells me to enter my pin.

"Fuck it."

I do.

"Transfer Approved"

Great. Now I've lied to this angry little gangster, and I'm out $800.

He starts to yell at me.

"WHY ARE YOU LYING TO ME"

"Honestly dude, I've got a $300 withdrawal limit."

He punches in 5,000 again.

I enter pin.

Approved.

"double fuck."

Now he makes me write down my pin code and my name. He's pissed that I've lied to him twice. He walks off with my card and is gone for 20 minutes.

Eventually he comes back, and tells me he tried to withdraw 10,000 RMB more from my account, but thankfully it was declined.

He gives me 200 RMB cash for a cab and tells me that I'm going to go with two of his "staff" to an ATM and I'm going to withdraw as much money as I can.

"triple fuck"

I walk out of this shitty little whore house or whatever the fuck it is and get into a cab with these two short little Chinese gangsters. I'm pretty pissed myself at this point, and seriously am considering trying to fight, but I suck it up. I had no idea if they had weapons, and I was pretty sure I didn't have any more money for them to steal.

We drive for like 20 more fucking minutes away from Shanghai to an ATM. We get out, I give my card to one of the gangster dudes, punch in my pin for him, card gets declined.

He tries again.

Declined.

Makes me try once.

Declined.

They walk me back to the cab, put me in and say in perfect english "where is your hotel sir?"

I give the hotel card to the gangster dude, he gives it to my cab driver, and presumably tells him to take me home, and that's where we went.

Once back at the hotel I called the back to see if I could stop payment on the 10,000 RMB transactions they pulled.

Of course there will be a bank investigation.

Haven't called the cops because I don't know wtf I would tell them. I still have no fucking idea where I was, or who stole from me.

In hindsight, they were pretty polite about it.

TLDR: Didn't get out of car when strange Chinese guy got in. Ended up costing me about $1600 US. Hoping for the best.

What I learned: Never travel alone.

China's a beautiful country, and Shanghai's an amazing city.

I do think I'll be spending my evenings at the hotel from now on, though.



I am successful outside of e-sports, but I did not grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth. We never had money when I was young. Both my parents are self made successes. I've worked in construction, in factories, and in sales jobs making my way. I'm not loaded. $1,600 is a lot of money. It won't kill me if I don't get it back. But your post is largely misinformation.



Had been drinking. Was not drunk. Was stupid to try and go home alone. I've been around the world a couple times and this is the first time I've had something like this happen. I was completely to blame for being by myself, and for not just bailing out of that cab immediately when the random dude got in. Live and learn.