Originally Posted by
AAJetMan
2. "The 'Pre-Paid' Hustler" -- Mumbai (Bombay) Airport
Exiting the terminal, guard down due to my supposedly trusty pre-paid ticket waving in hand, a white-shirted young man hustled over, inviting me to go with him. "This way sir", directing me to the right. I naively began to follow him. However, two dark-suited official looking men quickly and assuredly guided me away from this scamster and his private taxi, toward the actual pre-paid taxi area (slightly left of straight out the terminal).
Sweet Revenge: Enraged by both the scam and the lack of punitive action from the officials, I discarded better sense and verbally assaulted the scamster,inviting him to do some things he might not find particularly pleasant.
This message is very timely as I literally just fell for this one at BOM. Except that in my case, the hustler came running up to me and literally grabbed the prepaid voucher right out of my hand and started walking very quickly, urging me to follow him, and a ride to Juhu that was Rs. 200 became Rs. 1600 (the 200 was supposedly the "airport service charge"...they even had a laminated sheet that said so and showed the Rs. 1600 price!). So my question is...was I just screwed at that point since I no longer had the voucher? I was carrying some heavy stuff so there was no way I could try to run him down. Would the security guard have let me back in the airport to get another voucher?
Anyway, moral of the story is to put the piece of paper in a safe place until you are in the taxi assigned by the security guard.