Travelling to a foreign country often carries the risk of being scammed by unscrupulous businesses looking for opportunities to fleece money off unwitting tourists.
A British couple and YouTubers Zoe and Czar recently had a bad experience with a barber who charged them a shocking RM120 for a haircut.
Haircut advertised as RM19
In a TikTok video which has now gone viral and garnered more than 644,000 views at the time of writing, it first showed Zoe and Czar going to a barbershop in Bukit Bintang, KL, which advertised its haircut for just RM19.
During the course of the haircut, the barber, who was also a foreigner, began to initiate a friendly conversation with Czar by asking him where he was from, to which Czar replied that he was originally from the Philippines but now resides in England along with Zoe.
Charged RM120 for haircut
To the couple’s shock, when the haircut was done and dusted, the barber told them that they had to pay RM120 for the job — a far cry from the original RM19 price.
Not quite believing their ears, Zoe and Czar asked two locals to see whether the price was reasonable and unsurprisingly, the answer was no and that it should be no more than RM50.
The couple also claimed that they overheard another barber at the same shop charging a foreign customer RM250.
When Zoe and Czar confronted the barber about the RM120 price tag, he became defensive and said the price was due to the fact that foreigners have to pay more taxes for local services and that Czar had lots of facial hair which needed to be cut. Say what?
Upset by the experience
Needless to say, both Zoe and Czar left the shop with a bitter taste in their mouths and said that the incident had ruined their day.
In the clip, Zoe said that while it was understandable for foreigners to be charged more, the RM120 price was way more than what was justifiable.
It’s not fair for them to assume that just because we come from abroad that that means we’re made of money and that it’s okay to charge us that much.
The couple also added that they have visited Malaysia in the past but have never encountered something like this.
“Imagine if it was our first time here and we weren’t regular travelers. Maybe we wouldn’t want to come back. Luckily, we’ve seen good sides of the country and we do like it here. But you’ve got to think about the lasting impression that that leaves on tourists,” said Zoe.
Watch the clip here:
@zoeandczar_ What do you think? Do you also think 120 ringgit is far too much for a trim in a local barber shop in Kuala lumpur? First time this has happened to us in Malaysia 🇲🇾 #malaysia #kualalumpur #kualalumpurmalaysia #malaysiatiktok ♬ original sound – Zoe&Czar
Provided more details about incident
Following a wave of comments from netizen regarding the issue, Zoe uploaded another video which gave more details that weren’t stated in the first video.
She first started by saying that the clip wasn’t a representation of all Malaysians as there is bound to be “bad apples” in every country.
She then went on to say that Czar didn’t ask what was the price of the haircut as he saw the signboard saying that it was RM19.
She also said that he had Googled to see what was the average price for a haircut, which came out to be around RM10 and RM50 if it wasn’t done at a salon, adding that Czar doesn’t quite fancy the end result but will wait for his hair to grow out.
As for the barber, Zoe said his friendly demeanor had caused them to let their guard down and that he became rather angry when confronted about the price.
Throughout our year of travels, anyone who tried to scam us and get exposed for it will usually put their hands up (in surrender). But this guy was NOT backing down.
“We ended paying way too much but not the RM120,” she said at the end of the clip.
@zoeandczar_ Story time on barber scam in Malaysia #storytime #malaysia #kualalumpur #kualalumpurmalaysia #travelstory #travelscam #shouldbeme ♬ original sound – Zoe&Czar
What do you think of the incident? Let us know in the comments!
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