Travelling in India : scams and safety
- Safety in India : India is a very safe country to travel around in, the risk of being robbed or violated on the street is very small even at night in the big cities. The way that thieves do try to get money from tourists is a lot smarter than that. mostly it's about a few rupees only, but there has been several incidents lately where tourists have lost big amounts of money. The scams have almost only happened in very touristy places like New Delhi, Jaipur, Agra, Varanasi, Goa; so there is no reason to get totally paranoid and start avoiding contact with friendly locals. The corrupt police probably earns a lot of money through these scams which means that turning to them for help will often not have much point. A collection of bad experiences can be found on the Lonely Planet thorn tree about scams in india. Because I heard the following three stories direct from the victims and have read several other similar stories on the internet I have decided that it happens often enough that it is important to spread information about this so that future travelers to India can be aware of this and hopefully avoid to end up in the same situation. Don't let yourself get scared off from going to india because of this information, if you would recognize the pattern when there it is very easy to simply say "no thanks" at an early stage. On the other hand by knowing information like this you will will increase the chance of having a great traveling experience. Since the pattern that the scams follow is so recognizable it is very easy to recognize and only an unknowing person will fall in the trap.
- Kashmir scam (New Delhi) : the so called "government" travel agencies in New Delhi tries to convince you to go for a few days to Kashmir, promising that it is completely safe, which is absolutely not true. Check at http://www.fco.gov.uk/travel for the official travel advice. if you fall in to the trap, convinced by the low price (600 rupees full board) and the beautiful photos, you arrive in a war zone that you simply don't get out of. The hotel owners always send a guard along with you if you want to leave the hotel for a walk, but this person also makes sure that all the travel agencies don't sell you any tickets out of there for the next month or so. They will all tell you, "sorry our tickets are totally sold out for another month". The travel agencies lie probably for fear of and thanks to bribes from the houseboat mafia that owns the hotels. You are simply a prisoner and must plead the houseboat owner (by paying more money of course) to help you and finally after a lot of extra payments and many unwanted days in Kashmir he might find a ticket via-via a fried at the travel agency that had a cancellation... Since many travelers know that Kashmir is not a safe destination the travel agencies have to do it more hard core. This happened to me the first time I visited India and wanted to go to Ladakh but ended up in - Kashmir... Among the other stories I have heard from people falling into the same trap a german girl told that she was recommended the travel agency ABS India by a very friendly german guy. She booked and paid 600 dollar for a 3 week trekking in Daharamsala, transport and food included. The travel agency even brought her to the bus but when she woke up after 20 hours traveling she was in Kashmir where a houseboat owner awaited her - and her wallet.
- Diamonds (Jaipur) : a very dangerous and professionally organized scam that have mostly happened in Jaipur, but now also have spread to Pushkar, Agra, Goa and
other touristy places. The basic idea is that diamond traders have to pay 250
percent tax when they export to the west. Anybody with a tourist visa can according
to the scam without problems buy and send diamonds to the west as gifts and
then avoid the tax. Around this story a whole theater play gets set up and
performed and the poor tourist gets one of the main roles...
Normally it goes
like this, you meet a very friendly guy and he invites you to a meal in a restaurant.
You meet up again and everything is going very well. After a week or so he
invites you to a family feast (wedding etc) where you enjoy yourselves together
for a few days, everything free of cost for you. The moment that they know
that they have your full trust the next phase starts. Your new friend tells
you that his family has a jewel business and all you have to do is to send
a packet of diamonds to your home in Europe, fly over there and give the packet
to the contact person in your home country and then fly back to India. Everything
paid for of course. The whole thing is done in a couple of days and as a thank
you you will get 10.000 dollar!
After having agreed to help your new friend
you pack the parcel together, bring it to the post and send off the diamonds
to your home address. Then comes the big surprise; since you now have a packet
filled with diamonds worth lots and lots of money soon arriving at your home
they need some kind of assurance that you don't just run off with the treasure
and never return. All you have to do is to sign a paper that gives them the
allowance to enter your bank account and get out at least 10000 euro the moment
that you try to escape. If you refuse to this the problems begin; verbal attempts
to convince you soon turn into threats and torture which might mean you getting
locked up without food or sleep until you finally, weakend by fright and exhaustion,
agree to sign. One Belgian guy was even forced to call to his bank to rise
the limit of his VISA card. Once you have signed they let you go and quickly
disappear, as well as the money on your account. The diamonds arriving to your
home turns out to be polished glass.
This scam seem to be very active, I was
approached by two different diamond dealers in Pushkar who tried this story and a young very friendly guy that first invited me and my friend to a cafe and then the following day wanted to take us to a very expensive restaurant. When we found it a bit too much and felt a bit suspicious he invited us to a coffee again and noticing our un comfort quickly told us the diamond story and the offer of the 10000 dollar. When we after a bit of doubting said no it was not a problem but it also meant the end of the friendship with the young friendly guy. Suddenly we were not interesting anymore and he stopped talking to us, when we left the cafe he did not say goodbye. I heard about many other travelers that had similar experiences, all with more or less the same basic scam story. One variety can be that they want to send carpets.
The scam is still active, and you should also take care in Manali:
"I just came home from India where I got mixed up in the jewel scam you mention on your web site (I feel like a real sucker).
Anyway, I just wanted to inform you that I was approached in Manali and then taken to Jaipur. So you might wanna add Manali as another place the scam takes place.
They were also very interested in my guide book, which suddenly and silently dissapeared while on the way to Jaipur. They obviously did not want me to read about the scam.
I can, if you are interested, give you the name of the company. But I suppose this was just a front for the operation, and that they change this name all the time."
James, 6 june 2007
- Food poisoning in Agra : this scam is more uncommon but I will mention it since it has happened to several people. So, it goes like this; you have dinner in a restaurant, suddenly you get a terrible diarrhoea. The friendly restaurant owners help you to a doctor or hospital where you get treated. Then it turns out that the night tariff of the hospital was 5000 rupees that you have to pay. In some cases the traveler was kept in the hospital several days to make the bill ever fatter. Depending on what pills they have put into the food the symptoms may vary.
