Restaurant Scams in Lhasa

Tea Tasting or Massage Invitation Overcharge

The FCDO's current China advice describes a pattern it warns about nationwide: a friendly stranger, often practising English and often working in a pair, invites you to join them for a tea tasting or a massage. The venue is unremarkable and no prices are shown. At the end the establishment produces a bill running to hundreds or thousands of yuan, and refusal is met with intimidation, a locked door, or a card machine handed over under pressure — after which card fraud sometimes follows. This is not yet documented as a Lhasa-specific pattern, and the volume here is far lower than in Beijing, Xi'an or Chengdu, but Lhasa's tourist strip carries the same ingredients and travellers routinely pass through those transit cities on the way in.