Tricks And Scams To Aware Of While In India

Last year I visited the Thirupathi, Sri Venkateswara temple, India for the Vaikunda Ekadasi Celebrations. I booked a package tour with Kumar travels for Rs.3000, I was informed the package will include, visit the Balaji and Padmavathi temple, delicious breakfast, Lunch and Darshan tickets and two Thirupathi laddus.

The bus started at 11.00 pm. When it traveled through the countryside, I experienced numerous jolts, horrible suspension system. I didn’t get much air from the ac, expressed my discomfort to the coordinator, he said the ac has some technical issues and assured it will be sorted in Tirupathi. I reached Tirupathi at 2.00 am. I was taken to a small dormitory. The small toilet cum bathroom was kept in unhygienic condition, the washbasin filled with betel stains.

I was taken for the 3.00 am darshan, waited for three hours, and got the glimpse of Lord Venkateswara and the inner sanctum, I was given one Thirupathi laddu, I reminded him, the tour package brochure says that I will be provided with 2 laddus, he told that it is a printing error on the brochure. I was taken to a small restaurant for breakfast, horrible Tiffin, rice cakes (idlies) as hard as a rock.

I was provided lunch in another shabby hotel. Rice was not properly boiled. On the return trip, the ac was still not properly working, I reminded the coordinator, and he said that regular ac mechanic is on leave. Really this was a very bitter experience.

Tourist Office Scam

I would take this chance to tell you a quick story about how we got scammed in Delhi. As soon as we were landed at Delhi we were trying to get the Metro to our hostel. While standing in the metro station, there was a taxi driver offering us a taxi ride for 120 rupees all the way to a hostel. It was too good to be true. The taxi driver did get us all the way into Delhi but then told us that there was a road closed while driving halfway.

He stopped in the road, got out the taxi and checked with someone by the side of the road if they could get through or not. After a while, he came back and let us know this is the only way we can get through and the road is temporarily shut because of protests.

The taxi driver then took us to the Delhi tourist office. At this office, there was a nice officer there and he asked us for the number of the hostel so we could contact them and see if there was a way through.

I showed him the contact number of the hostel on my phone, he punched it into his phone in front of me and then passed it to me to talk to them. Little did we know I was actually just speaking to his mate because he typed in a completely different number.

The girl on the phone told me that she would check it out and will give us a call back in 5 minutes. About half an hour later, obviously they’re still hunting me a phone call and the guy from the tourist office was showing us way more expensive hotels that we could be staying in.

He also pointed out in the area that our booking was in somewhere like a druggy area and we probably shouldn’t be staying there which we later found out was nonsense. We were messaging our friend to critique her. At this point, it very quickly became apparent that we were caught up in a scam to stay at a way more expensive hotel at the tourist office.

The officer would cancel our booking at the hostel using our code from the hostel we have booked. We were forced to end up finding somewhere else and luckily we had our contact to do that. Otherwise, we would have ended up paying way more. We didn’t really think much of it at the time but as it turns out in Jaipur, we met two couples who have had exactly the same experience as us.

In fact, one of them landed on the same day as us a few hours earlier. But they were quoted with even higher prices. Obviously it’s terrible that the Delhi tourism office is committed to this kind of scam. Hopefully, we can call them out and make this scam known. We consider ourselves lucky as we had contacts because if you are on your own in Delhi, you would be absolutely stuffed by the cheeky scammers.

Train Ticket Scam

If you want to travel by train in Delhi and if you are looking for the booking office and the railway station or the train station, when you ask the local people where the booking office located, some scammers may approach you and pointed you to the wrong building so that they can sell you the fake ticket or have you to pay for a higher price for the ticket.

We were in Delhi and we wanted to buy a train ticket, when we asked someone nearby the station, there was a guy came to us and show us the direction of the booking office. When we were there, we found out that the building wasn’t the right one.

The real international booking office is open 24 hours every single day and is never closed. People there will try to tell you something else and you shouldn’t trust what they told you.

If you are traveling by metro, you will arrive at a place where there are many scammers gathered and try to scam you. They may try to send you somewhere else, mostly to their connect place because they have travel officers to work together with them.

Travel Agency Scam

travel agency scams are legendary here in India. There are many negative comments about foreigners who have had their trips destroyed by this scam travel agencies.

How the scam works is normally a friendly guy on the road will come up to you and says that he can offer to take you to the official government India travel agency so you can book your trip.

But the thing is the official government of India tourism office didn’t offer this kind of service. They only offer you advice on your trip to India and they are genuine and good.

These travel agencies will lie to you and they are going to sell you an overpriced tourist package. They will promise you the world and deliver you near to nothing. If you are getting a two-star tourist package, they will promise to upgrade to a four or five-star experience.

If you guys want to avoid being scammed, you need to always check the online review for the travel agency you are using. You can find reviews on Google Maps and all over the internet. It is best for you to go with a trustworthy travel agent.

When you been hooked by the scammed travel agency and get stuck with them, my advice would be don’t get intimidated by these people. They’re gonna try to scare you, they will keep you in their office and not let you out. But you know when you’re being surrounded by these touts, just don’t be afraid to walk away. They will not be able to stop you. They might try but you just keep going.

Don’t trust people on the street. You should compare the prices online or go to a few different travel agencies and compare the prices. Do you due to diligence to keep you safe and to make sure you will have an incredible time in India.

When booking for your tour package, you should use your credit card. A lot of scammers won’t take the credit card because it’s the digital payment. They want you to pay in cash so that they can skip paying taxes. Also, if you pay with a credit card, they know you can get your bank to do a chargeback if you are unhappy with their service. You can possibly get your money back and they will get nothing.