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HOW SCAMMERS USE CHARITY AS THEIR SHIELD (Honest Guide)
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Jul 14, 2025
Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/honestguide - Enter promo code HONESTGUIDE for 83% off and 3 extra months for FREE! Help us create more videos by joining us on Patreon http://patreon.com/honestguide Thank you, our creative journey would not have been possible without your help Scammers all around the world come up with new techniques to trick people. These scammers in Prague found a way to continue in what they are doing by using charity as their shield. Watch till the end to find out more about this disgusting practice. Our BOOK: https://honest.blog/shop/honest-guide-en/ (Best places for beer, coffee & food included) Honest Guide on Instagram: https://instagram.com/realhonestguide Janek: https://instagram.com/janekrubes/ Honza: https://instagram.com/honzamikulka/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HonestPragueGuide/ Music we use for our videos: https://bit.ly/HonestMusic (A great website for creators. This is an affiliate link and we may earn a commission if you purchase through our link.) 0:00 Rotating bar scam
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0:00
Hello and welcome to Snowy Prague. Snow has the effect to cover up things so suddenly everything
0:05
looks nice and beautiful, it covers up the dirt and that's exactly what some scammers use in Prague
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to cheat, scam and trick people because they do something that would normally be illegal but they
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hide behind a charity. So today we're going to show you how scammers use charity as their shield
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and the first example happens right here. We actually showed it to you before and it's a case
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where a guy is taking money from people so they can hang on a bar. It costs 200 crowns, around 8
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euros, and if they can hang on the bar for two minutes, they will win 1500 crowns, which is this
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much in euros. But the scam is that it's impossible to hold on to that bar because it spins. And of
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course, legally, he can't be here and do this thing because it's just illegal to do such a thing
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But in his case, he's a charity. And he even has it stated on the board, on the sign, because he knows cops will go after him
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But once the cops show up, they're like, oh, so you're not collecting money for people to hang on the bar
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You're collecting money for charity. And he just says, yes, it's what the sign says
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And I have witnessed the scene with the cops myself. The cops showed up, he pointed to the sign, and the cops left
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And in the meantime, this guy was making a lot of money
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And at this point, you might be saying, well, but the money goes to charity
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You just said it, Janek. Well, not really. Out of those 200 crowns, he only has to give at least one crown to charity, and then he's just fine
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If he does give that one crown to charity, nobody knows. And of course, we googled the charity
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It's called European Institute of Eastern Partnership, and we could find nothing
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I mean, we could find it that it's listed, but there's no contacts, no information
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what the money is being used for, how much money they collected, nada. Next example where tricksters use charity as their shield actually happens right here
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but we're going to go to another square so you can see more of Prague. here on old town square a very popular tourist location in prague is where many tricksters
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shield themselves with a charity and if you've been to prague i'm sure you've seen all the
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colorful umbrellas that stand around here they either red and blue and they sell tickets for hop Hop hop buses Usually they tell you oh you going to the Prague Castle Well you gotta buy a ticket for 20 euros because it really far It like 15 minutes and you do not need to take the bus
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But how can they be here? Because the city law prohibits from selling goods, merchandise, and services on the street
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Well, they're not under that law because they fall to the category of charity
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And you can do that on the street, as we mentioned. because they give a tiny little portion from those 20 euros to charity
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Do you want to know how much, Honza? I heard it's around 3%
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Regarding this issue, the city was actually discussing if they should regulate somehow charities that operate on the streets of Prague
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But keep in mind, there are still very good charities that collect money and they give the entire portion of the money they collect to an actual charity
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So I think the new rule should be that if you do a charity on the streets of Prague
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you have to give 100% of the money you collect to a charity. Before we show you the next tricksters or scammers
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Do you want to see me slide on the snow? I'm sure you do. On Old Town Square, there are obviously food stands
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that sell Prague ham and some potato with cabbage and bacon. Well, what's the trick there
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Well, they sell it by weight or they advertise the price for weight. And if you're a tourist and you ask for Old Prague ham
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you will never get 100 grams, which is for 4 euros, but you will rather get more like a half a kilo or even more
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and you will end up paying 60, 70, 80 euros for two portions of meal from a stand
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And where's the charity, you ask here? Well, in this case, it's not a charity, but a foundation, the Prague Kits
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because these stands, the spaces for them, are rented from the city by the charity
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They pay very, very little. and according to the sign that's from behind, they organize events for kits here
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That's why the city rents them this space. The only problem I see here, the stands are facing the opposite direction
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Because the point here is they're not here for the kits, they're here for the tourists
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because the tourists are over there and I actually never saw kits over here Did you Honzo So it just a shield isn it Surfshark VPN is the sponsor of today video
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the link below as i mentioned so once again thank you surf shark vpn for partnering with us during
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last christmas all the christmas markets in prague were closed but there was a lot of domestic
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tourism and obviously people want to buy something and suddenly these guys with balloons that lit up
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showed up and they started to sell them to kids for around 10 euros a piece. Well, there's nothing
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wrong about it, right? Except that once again, they shielded themselves with a charity. So they were
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selling balloons, claiming that the money collected will go to a charity. But the story is even more
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interesting because there were two separate groups selling these balloons. One group had the charity
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paper and the other one didn't. So the group that didn't have the paper was actually busted by the
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city cops and the city cops in Prague were showing off on their Facebook, we got these balloons and
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we stopped the, you know, whatever was going on in Prague. And at that point, the group that did
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have the charity paper contacted the other group selling the balloons and they said, hey, guys
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you want to keep on selling these balloons? No problem. We'll give you the charity paper as well
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but you got to give us some money from the sales you make. And if you're asking if that money
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went to charity? Well, I highly doubt that. And that, kids, is called a professional deformation
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because when you walked in Prague and you're like, oh, wow, nice balloon that lights up
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And in my head, it was like, hey, isn't that the same guy that a year ago was in the panda costume
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and that was violating all the other laws? Hmm, something smells here. Stupid balloons, man
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So now there charity like everywhere Dude you a pickpocket no no i do it for charity all the tricks and scams we showed you so far were actually shielded by an actual charity the
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amount of money they gave to the charity was questionable but in the next case we're about
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to show you no money went to charity because the entire charity was a scam and i'm talking of these
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deaf mute guys and girls that walk around cities not only in Prague but also around Europe and they claim to collect money for
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National Association for children with disabilities and all the money goes to their pocket not to the children in need
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A couple years ago we filmed one woman doing the trick right here and
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this spring or previous spring we filmed some guys doing it a couple streets down the road and
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And with that footage, we actually made it to the Romanian national TV
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So if you ever see this piece of paper and a guy approaching you with a pen to sign it
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and then ask you for money, run away. And if you want to do it like us, run away with his pen
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Yeah, we collect these. What do you want? You're a police? I'm not
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You're a police? I'm not. You're a journalist? Yes. Journalist? important notice this video was not about the specific services that are
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being sold or offered on the streets of Prague but that they're shielding with
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the charity so yes on one hand you can sell stuff that is overpriced you can
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sell a color for balloons but if you do that and claim to be charity we with
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Hansa believe that it is disgusting because it can only hurt true real
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charities that operate around the world and collect money for people that
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actually need them. We're two dudes from Prague and we film about Prague because we love it and
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we do a lot of scam videos that you can watch but we love to do also videos about our city
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about the churches, about a church bell that we collected money for and so on so you can go
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through our channel and watch some of that stuff and if you subscribe as I mentioned it will make
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us happy and I'll see you next Sunday on another video of The Honest Guides, Janik and what's your
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name? Uh-oh, he's gonna punch me. And the Czech word at the end will be charity. How
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to say it in Czech? Charita. Charity is charita. And if you want to learn more Czech, you can
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actually watch this entire video in Czech language on our Czech channel, which is called
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Kluci z Prahy. So look it up and you'll hear me talk Czech and most of the stuff I say is
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same, but in Czech
#Charity & Philanthropy
#Poverty & Hunger
#Social Issues & Advocacy
#Tourist Destinations