Ricks Cafe Cave Scam

[TizzyATX]

LOL @ Jamerican....

RIGHT?! I was just thinkin......I WISH one of those kids would pull that sh*t with me....In fact I'm gonna make a special stop at Ricks (never been) just to check this out 4 myself. lol

[Rasta Stan]

I haven't dived at Ricks in many-many years and think it;s time to do it again with out the booze..
I want to see them pull this crap with me....lol
Someones getting a beating.

[indybob]

We have been watching the webcam from Ricks lately...they do have a decent band on Monday nights...but one thing we noticed one more than one occasion is a security guy running the kids off of the other side. One would also think to have an exit
plan before jumping...but people do amaze me..especially on vacation.

[groove16]

I think I am gonna go by Ricks and jump on this reach myself....Cant believe they are allowed to pull the ladder out....gotta be crossing a line there....maybe tizzy, stan, and I can go together...lol,....

[DConkle]

Fredstripe I agree with you!

[dlgroh]

I am in TOTAL agreement with Fredstripe! Ricks is a total tourist trap and if they aren't willing to try to help protect their major clients.....all of us tourists.....then they are shooting themselves in the foot and they will all be out of business. Owner, servers, bartenders, cliff divers, etc...etc...without the tourist market they all have no $$$$ coming in.
If they allow this to continue.......where will their next paycheck come from......?
Something for the owner and workers at Rick's Cafe to ponder...................

[negrilaholic]

Well, Rick's may have leased the land next to it and have a security guard I have seen there at times, but as far as stopping the hustlers in the water by the ladder from pestering and hassling the tourists? Nope, that still goes on, I have seen it more than once, and will let the tourists in question know they can go up the ladder and to pay no attention, and have seen at times even the professional divers yell at them to back off, but as far as actual security doing anything? No, not one bit,and they need to before someone gets hurt, imho.

[kim in socal]

Watched the web cam for over a hour now and I clearly saw 2 dudes on the opposite property yelling at people and pointing to the cave.
This is done after the tourists dive...probably because they know they will be frazzled...sad really...They come and go it seems...

[rinakim]

Yup, I just watched it happen on the webcam too. Twice in less than 15 minutes. They see someone jump in and then they swim after them and direct them to the cave. They weren't by the ladder, but on the other side.
If I was with someone that had jumped I would be worried sick if I didn't see them come up the ladder right away.
I wonder if Rick's knows all of the bad publicity they are getting due to this. Do you think they follow Negril.com or TA?

[TiCtOc]

Yup, I just watched it happen on the webcam too. Twice in less than 15 minutes. They see someone jump in and then they swim after them and direct them to the cave. They weren't by the ladder, but on the other side.
If I was with someone that had jumped I would be worried sick if I didn't see them come up the ladder right away.
I wonder if Rick's knows all of the bad publicity they are getting due to this. Do you think they follow Negril.com or TA?

I can confirm this little fiasco/scam is real as I saw it happen myself, at the time I was not aware of the purpose but afterwards when I realised what the plan was I was quite scared.
I was taking pictures of my daughters from the lowest ledge , I asked them to jump in so I could take pictures, it was pretty quiet at Ricks at that point yet the divers were all out practicing. So when they first jumped in a couple of the boys/men around 20-28 years old started whistling at my daughters shouting words to them that we could not hear very well then they came lower down the wall and started shouting at me to take pictures of them which I did not do as I was there to get some pictures of my girls.
As I took some pictures a couple of the boys had made it into the water and were telling my daughters to get out of the water in the opposite direction to where I was standing fully clothed on the lower ledge.They were directing them away from me when the ladder was only a couple of feet away from me and my girls.So one of my daughters started to swim in the direction the man had told her, assuming he worked there and he knew what he was talking about, he said it is hard to get out of the water on that ladder , use the other one just round the corner and was pointing and sounded even to me like he knew what he was talking about.But motherly instincts immediately set in, I was thinking I don't know these guys, my girls are in DEEP water in a foreign land and these men wanna go swimming out of my sight with them when the ladder is directly in front of me? NO WAY so I shouted my daughter back and she was saying no he said to go the other way so I just shouted GET OVER HERE .USE THESE LADDERS. The boys/men were not happy judging by the looks on their faces but as far as I was concerned there was no need for a couple of older men to be taking my daughters around a corner in the deep water to where I could not see .I knew something was up .Later I found out that there is a cave there which made me worry what would they have done to my girls as they were in such deep water and would have been out of sight , they had no money or valuables on them. I hope something is done about it because Ricks is great fun and we spend many an enjoyable day and night there on our trips.Then I wonder if they had followed the men and did not surface within a minute I would have been jumping in after them and as it was so quiet security would not have even known that all three of us girls were stuck in some cave .It is a worry.