Cape Town- LovelyTea & a Big Scam

We met our driver at the airport, and he got us safely to the Holiday Inn Express in downtown Cape Town. Our room was ready, so we moved right in. I was very confused on time- my watch said 12:15. I had a moment of panic- we had reservations for Afternoon Tea at noon. I logged in to the Wi-Fi and googled "time in CapeTown." Turns out it was only 10:15. Deep breath.

The front desk ordered up a cab to take us to the Mount Nelson Hotel. Wow. The Afternoon Tea, which began with sparkling wine, was amazing. In true fashion, we had sandwiches, scones, sweets, and the topper was a cake bar. We had way too much food, and were able to take the extras back with us.

Good thing, too.

Later in the evening we went for a walk to the ATM and decided to pop into McDonald's for a quick dinner to take back to the hotel. A guy at the door said they were closing, but that we could order at the kiosk. Big Setup. The kiosks don't take credit cards. We didn't know that... We also didn't know that we were getting scammed. A guy was trying to "help" us, and another guy came over and said he was the manager- and somehow in the middle of all this they took the credit card-- we don't know how/when it happened. One of the McD workers came over when our order would not go through, and she realized right away what happened. I tried to call the credit union, but the call kept dropping. We went to the hotel, where the very nice desk clerk let us use the office for privacy to call back to The States. In less than 1/2 hour, the worms tried to charge over $6000 worth of stuff. NFCU said all those transactions were declined, and had honored the valid ones that preceded the rip-off.

We ended the evening with a glass of wine. There might actually have been two.Read more