Here's a scene every taxi uncle in this city knows. Mainland tour bus pulls up outside a jewellery shop in Tsim Sha Tsui, forty people get herded in, doors basically close, and nobody's allowed back on the bus until someone buys something. It's been going on for years. Everyone's seen it. Nobody's stopped it, not really.

Now the Travel Industry Council wants to pay you to snitch. A reward scheme for tipping off forced shopping, floated this week, on top of the badge system that already nails bad guides. Funny thing is, the badge system just caught someone: a guide racked up three strikes this year threatening tourists into a jade shop before losing her licence. Three strikes. That's a lot of terrified tourists before the paperwork catches up. A cash reward might actually beat a points system that only bites after the damage is done.