A Brit based in the Canary Island of Tenerife has warned tourists about a fiendish “all-inclusive” scam.
Kevin, who appears on YouTube under the name Scotsman in Tenerife, claims unscrupulous holiday reps working in league with the nightclub owners were offering a “too good to be true” deal.
He fell for the scam himself at one point, but the particular club running it at the time has since closed down. “They used to tell you it was something like €20 (about £17) to get into a nightclub,” he explained.
“This is not Ibiza, they should be offering you money to come into their nightclubs. They’ll tell you it’s around 90 or something ridiculous for an all-inclusive package and say, ‘Listen guys, do you want to go to this nightclub later on? I can sell you a package where you can get four or five drinks for about 30 or 40.'”
But, according to Kevin, there is of course a catch.
He explained: “The first catch is you need to go really early at some ridiculous time like 9 or 10pm when nobody’s in there apart from the people who have bought the package.”
The reps promise that they will “save you a fortune” because the entry price of the club alone is half the price of the all-inclusive pass.
But Kevin says they have “hugely inflated” the price of entry and once midnight rolls around then most of the clubs start offering free entry.
TripAdvisor reviews of many popular clubs contain mentions of this shady “package deal”.
“Check online, do a bit of research, sometimes if deals seem too good to be true, then they are too good to be true,” Kevin explained.
He said it’s mainly younger visitors that will fall for the trick, adding: “If you’re a young person and you arrive in Playa Del Ingles and you’ve got someone trying to sell your passes to the nightclubs, be very very aware that most of the time you can walk into these clubs free of charge whatever time suits you.
“We’re still getting people selling these passes and telling you that you need to turn up at 9pm and you’ll get a certain amount of drinks so just be aware of that.”
And Kevin claimed it was “pretty shocking” because club owners must know it’s going on. He added:”They don’t say ‘listen it’s free to get in but if you come earlier we’ll give you four or five drinks and you’ll get this included which is fair enough that’s a good deal. Just avoid that scam.”
