Just came back from week in Montenegro, as it was last Balkan country that I haven’t visited. I usually like how balkan countries operate but this experience is something I want to share and warn people.
To the point: the amount of scam, extortion and looking at tourists purely as walking cash machine is something, that I’ve never experienced before.
Maybe in some countries like Morocco or Egypt you will have similar situation, but the level of it in Montenegro was truly outrageous.
Whole holidays, we’ve been scammed by taxi drivers, where we would agree on a price before the ride (prices are still high and outrageous, you won’t pay as much in any European capital), and by the end of journey they will double or triple it, threatening not to let us out or worse…
For example, for 3 min ride to the beach near Kotor we were charged 30€!
Another ridiculous situation was at the bus terminal. I’ve purchased online ticket, and even though it was legit it was online ticket so no good and had to pay some secret tax on top of this. Then for putting my carry-on luggage to the bus booth, I had to pay driver as well. People with 20+ kg suitcases were told that they won’t be taken onboard, and it was a bus that most of people would take to the Podgorica airport so naturally, tourists have suitcases. Obviously, if you pay driver and whoever enough money, suddenly it’s fine 😀
For such dirty, worn down and completely not tourist oriented country, the prices and scamming is out of control and I came back extremely disappointed and angry that I’ve waisted any money there. I was never treated like that in Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina or any other balkan country.
Customer service is pretty much non existent and I had a situation where I requested a bottle of water in an expensive beach bar and it wasn’t given to me. So I went to the bar and all barmen were standing and chatting, and no one offered to bring it to my sun-bed even though I had cash, glasses, ice and bottle in my hands and almost couldn’t carry all this.
No sorry, no can I help no nothing.
The cherry on top was when our apartment booking was cancelled while we were there and the owner showed up to tell us that he doesn’t want to pay taxes and fees so we have to give him cash right now and confirm cancellation on the app. As 2 women we felt endangered so we had no choice.
Overall, this was the worst country I visited with nice views. If you are ok with being ripped off and scammed- it’s a country for you.