The New Delhi Airport Scam

Anyone who has ever received advice about arriving at New Delhi’s Indira Ghandi Airport will have probably heard variations of the same warning: "Don’t take a taxi from the airport! They are all a scam!” Now I would certainly not consider myself a particularly naive traveller, yet I would also not have taken a recommendation like that one particularly strongly - when you’ve just arrived off a long haul flight from the other side of the world- if you need a taxi, you need a taxi. But the kind of scam these warnings are referring to, I feel, could have used a little further explanation when it was relayed to me. If you, like me, were under the impression that someone scamming you is probably nothing more than trying to charge you an extra 10 or 20 quid for an undeserving journey after doing a few extra loops around your hotel, then you, like me, would be wholly, indelibly, wrong.

You see, the New Deli airport taxi scam is a scam like no other I have ever experienced. This is mainly due to the sheer scale of the operation and to the number of people actually involved- I estimate that we were in contact with at least 20 people in on the scam and that was only the tip of the Hanuman statue. When the whole thing was over, about 3 days - yes 3 days - after it had begun (and we got lucky), I was almost, as Ron Burgandy would have put it, too impressed to be angry. We were certainly lucky that the scam did not effect our pockets quite as much as some others, I think this is honestly due to the fact that I was travelling in a pair - India would be bloody terrifying as a solo traveller.

So what is the art of the scam?

I suppose the premier criterium of good scam is that it reassures you that you are absolutely not being scammed. In India as in many other countries, scammers prey on `shell-shocked, unprepared tourists. Especially backpackers. Backpackers are the prime target, as our sort of belief that we are not real tourists and can just go with the flow is the perfect storm for these guys. For example: When we arrived in the airport, there was no wifi (meaning we couldn’t google map the route to the hotel) and our ATM cards didn’t work as our banks thought they were being scammed because they were being used in Delhi airport - ironic. With no local currency on us, we could not purchase a sim card for our phones or even get money for a taxi. My partner and I agreed that we didn’t care if we had to pay the extra 20 or 30 dollars that they would inevitably charge us in this so called “ taxi scam”, we just wanted to get to our hostel. We knew we were going to have to ask the hostel to help us pay for our taxi anyway as we could’t withdraw any money. We didn’t seem to be worried about the obvious predicament that this left us in- we were going to be totally at the mercy of the driver and would have to place trust in him - these are factors, by the way, that the taxi drivers are well aware of (I almost wonder if the lack of wifi in the airport is part of the scam). You may be thinking, “but this is usually the case when you arrive in foreign countries, you regularly trust airport taxi drivers to take you where you ask them to?” Well, my friend, not in New Delhi.

So when we stepped outside into the sweltering heat of the arrivals lounge, blissfully unaware of what was to come, we were inundated with helpful taxi drivers only dying to aid us weary travellers with our loaded packs and whisk us away to our destination. After being semi- torn in half by several taxi driver’s eager gesticulations, one driver finally “won” our baggage from another (the competition is mighty) and we went towards his cab.

Art of the scam Lesson 1: Kill them with Kindness

“Welcome to India! Have ever you been before here?” I shook my head - my first mistake - smiling at the nuances of his English. He grinned gleefully, “Wonderful! I take the greatest of care for you!” I was too busy being excited by the sights and smells of this new place to realise that we were on our way to being well and thoroughly duped.

Our taxi driver was incredibly lovely and helpful, or so we thought. After we told him the name of our hostel and its location his eyes suddenly opened wide and his jaw hit the floor as if I had gravely insulted the entire female contingent of his extended family. He scooped his jaw from the floor in order to clarify his bamboozlement which was due to the fact, he claimed, that the exact establishment at which we imminently to arrive, had, not yesterday!! been the location of a murder of a young female western tourist!! And by god this whole neighbourhood around this hostel was the MOST dangerous location BY FAR on the ENTIRE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT and how on earth could we possibly be going there!!

Though we were, of course, moved by his obvious concern for our welfare, we assured him that he must be mistaken; this hostel and surrounding area had excellent reviews on trip advisor and hostel world and was a great place for tourists. Though he begged and pleaded with us not to go we insisted and eventually he relented with his head hung in deep regret that we would soon follow the terrible fate of our “western compatriot”. We were then delighted that he actually chose decent fair, something like $15 -for what we knew to be about a 40 min ride into the city centre- (we thought he felt sorry for us, how hilarious) and off we went. 30 mins into our journey, on the outskirts of the city, we reached a very prominent road block down an off ramp, at which our taxi driver pulled in. He turned around with a look of deep confusion carved into his brow thew. “ Oh..Please do be excused, your hostel is that way down, I cannot drive there…” he worried as his shoulders sagged. Then out of the darkness a mysterious figure emerged and the taximan, newly energised, rolled down his squeaky window to ask this “innocent bystander” what exactly had caused the road block. Shockingly, he relayed the same story about the female western tourist and added that, as a huge investigation was underway, the whole area was closed. The drivers face seemed to indicate that this was a warning he had already tried to impart and “the I told you so” look was barely hidden in his eyes. As a last attempt to salvage our booking he asked me for the number of the hostel, which he dialled into his phone for me, oh we were so incredibly grateful for his generosity. The man on the other end of the phone confirmed our worst fears: all of the awful stories were true and he was terribly sorry but we would have to find another place to stay as the hostel had shut down for the investigation. At this point we were both feeling a little uneasy and our confidence in the kindness of strangers was starting to wane. In my mind I was also drafting a heated complaint email to the hostel in question for leaving us high and dry.

Art of the Scam Lesson 2: Go Big or Go Home

So at this point the scam was well and truly working, as myself and my partner had had a sort of unspoken conversation that at this point this whole thing was far too elaborate to be a scam. There were already so many people involved in this that it seemed implausible. This was my second mistake, as it once again played straight into their hands. It was at this point that the taxi driver generously offered to bring us instead to the “central tourism office” where we could book a new hotel, to which we were now obliged to agree. The tourism office was located in an area which we later came to know was colloquially known as “scam central”. As we pulled up to the door we were greeted by the large smiling face of a man named Raj who jovially helped us unload our baggage and bounded through the door as we plodded behind. Once he heard us speak his face brightened even further as he produced the most authentic Irish accent I have ever heard from a non native - this guy was good - and we started to relax a little. The office was clean and air-conditioned and we discussed our potential accommodation options over a cup of deliciously milky chai tea. We were now feeling positively cosy and much less hard done by than in the taxi. We chose a moderately priced hotel and things seemed to be going smoothly, til Raj offered to book us a fully paid 6 week trip around the whole of India, for a mere €2000. As we started to make our excuses a “random’ British guy appeared at the door and Raj beckoned him in, throwing an arm around his shoulder and joking with him like an old friend. It was only later that we realised he had been specifically placed, and been in on the whole gig too. He reassured us that he and many of his friends had booked with Raj and it was the perfect way to travel around India.

We were sceptical, but agreed to meet with Raj at the reasonable time of 12 the following afternoon discuss the trip and minutes later we were being whisked away in a taxi, paid for by Raj, and on our way to a new hotel.

Art of the Scam Lesson 3: Ignorance is Bliss.

On our arrival to the hostel, we noted that the manager didn’t have quite the same helpful and friendly attitude as the other scammers we had so far been in contact with. He was very large with a bulbous pod marked nose and a permeant scowl. Well, what could we expect? We had woken him late at night and the place was only setting us back 11 quid a night! When we asked about wifi he informed us, to our disappointment, that the internet was broken and someone would be coming in the next couple of days to fix it. With a sigh we headed up to our room, which was actually pretty lovely. This first thing we saw was a room service menu, and immediately our spirits lifted completely, we were starving! 30 minutes later we received a knock on our door and we were served an absolute feast of butter chicken, masala dosas, pav bhaji, saag paneer and pineapple riita, our first food in India and it was so bloody delicious! We would reminisce later that as scams go, this was a pretty tasty one. We sleep like babies on full happy stomachs.

The next morning when we went down to reception we found it empty and the only staff we could find was a janitor with his earphones in. We got his attention to ask again about the internet and when it would be fixed. The sheepish look on his face told us that something was up. Maybe rather unfairly we pushed to know more. He eventually admitted that it was not broken and gave us the password, but asked us not to tell anyone he did so, a little odd, we thought.

Back in the room we realised just exactly how odd the whole thing was. On googling the name of the hotel, we found reviews, hundreds of reviews of our given hotel where 1 star out of 5 was highest accolade given and we soon found out why. Endless indignant tourists complained of the scam in which this hotel was involved that included: being picked up at the airport by a taxi driver who told them their hotel was dangerous, drove them to a road block and insisted they could go no further, called their hotel, found the booking canceled, were taken to the tourism office, booked at this hotel, where the wifi was “broken” and then almost swindled into booking an entire long haul trip around with a con-man called Raj. We checked our emails and sitting there in my inbox was an email from our original hostel Joeys, concerned about us and wondering where we were as we had not turned up for our booking the night before. They worried that we had fallen victim to the“the airport taxi scam”, of which they gave us a lengthy rendition. We could not believe our eyes. The entire thing from start to finish had been an elaborate scam. The two of us sat on the bed in stunned silence for a moment or two and then in unison burst into fits of unstoppable laughter. As we rolled around the room our convulsions were interspersed with giggles of just how resourceful these guys were, and we certainly felt very lucky that we had not been so adversely effected by the whole thing- it had only set us back a few quid!

It was at that time that we decided we would have to grab an uber ourselves and try and finally get to Joey’s hostel. We packed our bags and went downstairs and in the foyer we were accosted by another member of staff who demanded to know where we were going. We could see our uber waiting outside. We told him it was none of his business and pushed our way out the door as he frantically punched a number into his phone and began speaking in panicked Hindi to someone on the other end. As we reached the taxi he shouted and protested and exclaimed that it was unsafe to get into a taxi and he would call one for us himself as he attempted to get our bags back out of the trunk. But we stood our ground which increased his frustrations and he demanded to know if we were trying to go to Joeys. He was still shouting at us as the uber drove away.

A very jolly young taxi driver looked at our relieved faces in the rearview mirror, “You’re lucky you got out of there” he said with a wry smile, “That place is a complete scam”. Our giddy laughter echoed out the window as we drove off into the sweltering Deli morning.

So I guess the moral of this story is being scammed in Delhi is pretty much a right of passage for travellers heading to India. India is an unbelievably large country with a population so large it is really beyond conception. Though we had indeed been well and thoroughly duped we really didn’t feel the worse for it. It was hard to tell if the entire plot had been malicious at first, or if the nature of what they were trying to achieve was a necessary evil for a business to survive in the violent competition of a city of 23 million people. However it is also very much worth saying that India is nit all bad and certainly not all scams. We experienced serious kindness in India too, one example that sticks out in my mind is when I left my photography camera on an overnight bus and only realised when we were in the taxi afterward. The taxi driver spent all morning trying to find the bus terminal in Jaipur where the bus was supposed to be heading and when we finally found it, the bus driver dutifully presented me with the camera with an enormous smile!

But at the same time, caution is necessary. There are plenty of stories of tourists being swindled out of their entire trip’s savings in other scams so we were unsure as to how far our particular one might have gone. What both impressed and shocked me the most was the recognition of just how lucky we had been to avoid financial ruin in our scam. This only came when we reached Srinaagar in Kashmir, almost 1000km north of Deli and through a hefty portion of the Indian Himalaya. As we sat on the deck of our little house boat on Dahl Lake smoking a shisha pipe with our host Sheffi,we recounted the story of our Delhi scam. He asked who it was that we had met at the tourism office who had facilitated this scam. We told him Raj’s name and his eyes widened as he leaned back against the wooden wall boards and puffed at the pipe. “You are very very lucky” he said finally, “Raj and his family are known as the crocodiles of India” we sat in stunned silence and once again erupted into fits of laughter. Sheffy shook his shaggy grey head at the crazy tourists who didn’t seem realise what a close call it had all been.