I forgot to mention in my last posting that at the seminar of lawyers we attended, someone brought up the gold ring scam (See previous posting where I explained  how it worked) Out of the group of these bright trial lawyers two of them were willing to admit they had fallen for it. One lucked out paying only 5 Euros, but other paid twenty Euros for a worthless piece of junk jewelry. How many others who were too ashamed to admit they had been taken is unknown. Before coming to Europe we like to check the latest  scams being  used and most are pretty straight forward.