Can’t pull traps on tourists in Australia, they’re constantly minding their surroundings because of the drop bears.
I’ve encountered the CD scam in Vegas.
I’m pretty sure I encountered another scam not listed here in Vegas, where a guy came up to me offering me a free limo ride to a club of some sort where I’m sure I’d have been charged up the ass.
Cite? I’m not disbelieving, but it would be nice to find a scholarly report on those old texts! 
In New York,there used to be a well-known scam for tickets to Broadway shows.
At the TKTS booth in Times Square, there is always a long line of people buying last-minute tickets to the shows.
It used to be common for somebody to approach you at the back of the line,with a story about how his girlfriend is sick and he has to work night shift tonight, so he can’t use these two tickets he has in his pocket, so maybe you’d like to buy them from him,real cheap ?
Hey, it’s half price,and you won’t have to wait in line—what could go wrong? (other than the fact that the “tickets” are fake)
Is this scam still going on? It was common in the 1980’s.
Yeah, rogue driver/cab scams still happen. Last year when I flew into O’Hare, I was debating on whether to take a cab or the long el ride home. Some guy approached me and said he had a car, asked me where I was going. So, being tired, I was like, sure, started following him and then was, wait, this guy is leading me upstairs to the parking lot, so he’s a private car of some kind. I ask him the price to get me where I’m going. He quotes something ridiculous like $100. (It’s usually around $50-$60). I say, thanks but no thanks and quickly make my way back downstairs.
While I didn’t fall for it, I did slightly feel like an idiot for considering it, given that they explicitly tell you not to accept rides from people approaching you at the airport.
Anyhow, I ended up just taking the two el rides and a bus home for like $5 instead, after all.
Well, I’ve never encountered “a friendly tuk-tuk driver” anywhere in the U.S. Most tend to be scowly.
The linked list didn’t mention one venerable tourist scam, which I encountered in person some years ago while visiting New Orleans - where a guy comes up to you and offers to bet you he knows where you got your shoes.*
*if you agree to the bet (how could he possibly know where the shoes came from?) he’ll tell you “you got your shoes on the pavement in New Orleans - pay up”). I declined to bet, having read about this scam in the novel “Hotel”, but it might’ve been fun to flip the answer back on him.
Anecdotal here but it could be that in the US you need to literally drive everywhere and have much less chance of meeting tourist scammers like the ones in Europe. There are more people on the street in places like Paris, London, Barcelona which means more people to interact with along with a higher use of public transportation (trains where again you can pickpocket/scam easily).
Just my two cents.
Yeah, I was thinking about mentioning that one. There’s a few of them in New Orleans, as I recall. Anyhow, the answer I knew was a little more poetic: “You got your shoes … on your feet … on the street … in New Orleans!”
As noted, I would LOVE to provide references, but she, and her profs are long dead. 
Wait, what? A tourist loses money while gambling and the tourist is fined fifty bucks??? I get the other two. It’s a crime to refuse to pay for services rendered and it’s a crime to urinate on a statue. But why is it illegal to lose money to a hustler?
Some gambling law or other I expect.
There is a scam in the US played on people that don’t know any better. It involves a woman saying she lost her purse, the police station has found it, but she needs cab fare to get to the police station to get her purse back. This happened to a friend of mine who was traveling on business. He told me the story because he thought he was doing her a favor and the whole thing was legit. As he told me, I finished the story for him and asked did she also ask for your mailing address to send you a check? He said “Yes, she did.” I said that’s a well-known scam. She works different corners and collects money from people who believe she really needs money for cab fare.
I know there are some people that think there are additional questions to ask someone to test them, but this is a stranger and it is best to ignore them. Cause they might be using this con to have someone else rob you too.
Such scum that do any of this.
Yeah. Scammers that try and work with the natural pettiness and greed of people (as in, say, the classic violin scam ; or three-card monte) are… well, they’re jerks but fine. I can look at it an go “good game, Callahan”.
Scammers who work based on generous impulses and what little goodness we still got are absolute scum. Same goes for fake charities. Toxic sewage, the lot of 'em.
Yeah but that’s not really the point of tourist scams though. Scammers rob obvious tourists because a) they’re clueless, so easier to fool than locals who know how things tend to work in <tourist city> or what the price ranges are (so they might not know that 15 euros is a *bit *much for a pint in Paris, and outright robbery for a cup of coffee) but even moreso because b) tourists are going to go back to wherever they came from in a week or two and likely won’t bother learning all about <tourist city’s> law enforcement or come back to testify over 20 bucks. Most will put it down in the “cost of doing vacation” column.
But if you stick a gun (or a box-cutter) in their face, they just might be motivated to sic the cops on you for real.
Seen a few of these. Doubt the US is free from scammers, but there are pretty big differences in degree between the listed items.
Saw the “slow count” at a German train station. Did see old women in Madrid’s biggest park selling rosemary for change but didn’t really consider it a scam — Mexicans sell chewing gum or food to get money, and this isn’t remotely the same as someone stealing or worse.
Had a guy in Mexico City direct me to a unpopulated area and then brag about how he was a professional boxer. Had a Chinese taxi driver go 45 minutes out of the way then tell me I owed the equivalent of $2.50 instead of a dollar. Hard to let that ruin your day.
In San Francisco, heard a few sob stories about lost wallets, and supposedly not genuine Buddhist monks in saffron robes wanted money for wooden beads.
Other scams I have and have not fallen prey to as a native and not a tourist:
–Guy bangs on apartment door. “We live upstairs, my wife is in labor we need to get to the hospital and I have no cash for a cab!” This is NYC, 20 units in a tenement style building, I don’t know my neighbors. I kind of knew it was bullshit but it was worth $5 to me on the off chance he was telling the truth. I later polled some of neighbors, and it was in fact a scam.
–Walking to work in NYC, obviously not a tourist. Guy in a panic stops me. “I’m Ridley Scott’s production designer, he’s shooting a movie in the area. I left some crucial drawings in my apartment uptown. I have to get them but I have no cash for a cab. I’ll give you my phone number and my Enrico Coveri jacket to hold until I pay you back.” I actually considered this for two seconds before I laughed and walked away. This is a variation on a classic scam mentioned upthread. Apparently this guy had been working Greenwich Village for a while and gulled a few people; there was an article in the NY Observer that quoted me. #famous I was living in the same apartment as for the above scam but I don’t remember which came first.
I would also add to the comments about the gun in the face–yes it is certainly more possible in the US than in most countries. But the only time I was ever mugged it was by a couple guys with boxcutter knives. Much cheaper and just as effective. Who the hell wants to get cut up over a little cash and some credit cards you can cancel?
I’ve had US taxi drivers run me around a bullshit route. This is less feasible as a scam in this era of phone mapping.
I’ve seen reports on Japanese tv about scams in the US. There’s the dropped bottle of supposedly expensive wine. Someone bumps into you, drops the bottle and demands a large amount of money. Another was an invitation to an illegal gambling center where people are playing poker and whatever. The “police” show up and the host helps you run away, but you don’t have time to pick up your money, of course.
Those regulations won’t help someone who doesn’t speak the language well, doesn’t know where to complain if something goes wrong, or what kind of documents are acceptable. The last time I took a cap at Philly airport, that thing wouldn’t have passed inspection in most countries (I could see the tarmac through the floor); dude tried to charge me twice the posted standard fare.