Editor's note: The following article is translated from an investigation by Xinhua News Agency into a frequent scam in the capital that had been leaving foreign tourists out of pocket after unscheduled trips to a phoney Beijing pharmacy were included on popular One Day Tours. The tour would announce an impromptu trip to a well-known centre of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Beijing Tongren Tang, and visitors would wind up at one of the pharmacy's shadier affiliates.

Many foreign tourists who visit Beijing like to check out TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), and come to Beijing’s famous old Tongren Tang. But Xinhua News Agency’s “Viewpoint” section recently highlighted a Tongren Tang-affiliated travel pharmacy in Beijing’s Changping District that was using deceptive tactics to sell high-priced alleged Chinese medicines to foreign visitors. This not only damages the interests of consumers, but also sullies the capital’s image.

‘Shady’ Tongren Tang Hospital

On May 14th of this year, an American tourist named Wade booked a trip to Badaling Great Wall and the surrounding Ming tombs through the concierge at his hotel, the Wangfujing Grand Hotel. “I paid 350 RMB to book the trip and received a handwritten receipt.” Wade told reporters, the trip was originally meant to include a visit to the Ming Tombs in the morning, and a hike up the Great Wall in the afternoon. “In the end though, at midday our tour guide told us he wanted to show us some traditional jade and Chinese medicine culture, so took us to a jade factory and the ‘South Beijing Tongren Tang Pharmacy’ in Changping District.”

“The staff at Tongren Tang gave us a brief history of the place, and introduced a ‘professor’ in a white lab coat; then the guide took us through narrow winding alleys to another room.” Wade told reporters he filmed some of the trip on a video camera. The recording showed a waiting room with a few dozen chairs, and a number of people in similar white coats.

“One by one we had our pulses read [in the TCM way],” said Wade, as the staff from the pharmacy translated the doctor’s diagnosis, telling him vaguely he had issues with his kidneys and stomach. “I noticed this ‘doctor’ had diagnosed most all other tourists with roughly the same conditions: all something wrong with our kidneys.”

Wade told reporters that when he spent 780 RMB on a box of medicine, the pharmacy wrote him a prescription but refused to give him a receipt. After some enquiries, it’s become apparent that other foreign tourists who have gone on ‘One Day Tours’ have had similar experiences. A tourist from Sweden named Alex said, “This March was my first visit to China, and I was ripped off by this ‘pharmacy’ too — they’re disingenuously using Chinese medicine to rip off tourists.” “It’s disgusting,” he added with a look of contempt on his face.

Industry insiders revealed that the ‘South Beijing Tongren Tang Pharmacy’ is especially for tourists who are doing day tours in the capital, especially those who don’t understand Chinese. On May 24th, a reporter checked it out and found a dozen or so Western tourists who had been led to the pharmacy and were being given a brief history of TCM in English, but when staff saw the reporter, they requested her to leave.

Not long after this, the same reporter followed a group of Korean tourists to the same place and saw the same thing happening: pulses being checked, ‘diagnoses’ being dished out, medicines being prescribed with invoices but no receipts, with the invoices made out to ‘Beijing University of TCM, Changping Clinic’. The reporter also noticed that on some of the medicine boxes prescribed to the tourists were the words ‘Beijing Hanci Hospital’, as part of the ‘South Beijing Tongren Tang Pharmacy Group’. Whether it’s ‘Out Patient Clinic’ or ‘TCM Hospital’, the South Beijing Tongren Tang Pharmacy has no formal identification or historical introduction, making it a shady operation hidden inside Tongren Tang.

Caught red-handed

So what exactly is the relationship between these dodgy hospitals and Beijing’s Tongren Tang?

When the reporter questioned the Beijing Tongren Tang Group Co. Ltd, an official of the company at first denied that the aforementioned were affiliated pharmacies, then two days later contacted the reporter saying: “‘South Beijing Tongren Tang Pharmacy’ is an affiliated store of the Tongren Tang brand, national laws and regulations have become stricter in the last few years, but they haven’t sold over-priced unknown medicines. If the medicines were bought from the ‘Beijing Hanci Hospital’ then that’s nothing to do with us.”

However, a British tourist gave his invoice to the reporter and it had been stamped with the South Beijing Tongren Tang Pharmacy’s seal. On January 27th of this year he had been diagnosed at South Beijing Tongren Tang Hospital and bought two boxes of medicine costing 1,720 RMB in total.

Tourists encounter difficulties when lodging complaints

A general manager of one of Beijing’s tour operators told the reporter that because of language barriers, it is much harder for foreign tourists to make complaints at the concierge of their hotel or at travel agencies.

Pablo, a Spanish newspaper journalist told Chinese reporters that after being scammed in the South Beijing Tongren Tang Pharmacy he had alerted the Beijing Tourism Bureau, Red Sun Travel Company and the hotel he was staying in at the time, but so far he only received 700 RMB in compensation from the hotel, and all of his letters went ignored.

Pablo says after living in China for six years, one negative experience won’t tarnish his overall impression of China, but for those in China for the first time, this experience may leave them disappointed. In a letter to the Beijing Tourism Authority, an English traveller wrote: “I’m utterly baffled, how is it possible to book such a terrible tour while staying in a five star hotel? Why would ‘government-approved stores’ tell me I’m sick, then prescribe fake medicine to me?”

Shenzhou International Travel Agency, Beijing Destinations International Tourism Ltd and many other travel agencies have called to increase the investigations into these ‘tourism black-spots’, and prohibit these so-called ‘travel medicine consultation’ services, and hopefully put an end to sham medical organizations aimed at newly-arrived foreigners in China.

Source: gcpnews.com

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Keywords: hospital scams China traditional medicine scam Beijing Tongren Tang pharmacy Chinese hospital rip off Beijing common scams