Day 56 (1 August): Encounter with Scammers?
Today I met the guy who I struck up the conversation with initally yesterday at my hotel, since he was supposed to take me to Samode today and I was supposed to cook him and his friends 'American food' for dinner in exchange.
The day turned out rather differently. In the morning I did meet him and we had several cups of Inidan tea. The character from the night before showed up and offered to let me stay in his 'family's hotel' since it was relatively empty as it was the low season. In retrospect, I probably should have refuse this offer, but it seemed genuine and friendly at the time. The hotel which I moved to was quite nice so his story seemed legit although it began to fall apart latter in the day when details failed to add up.
I ended up getting taken by his friend's rather than the inital 'friends' I met to Lake Ramgar instead since he said it was nicer. It was OK, but I doubt it was nicer.
When we came back he gave me a pitch about how he should ship some gems worth $40K to a PO box with my name in the US and his friends there could pick me up at the airport when I return home and then he would pay me $40K when they got their gems back; his story was that his family's gem business gets taxed at 250% for exports to the US and he needed friends like me to beat his the tariffs and that justified why he could afford to pay me their 'full value'. He promised me that it was legit and there was nothing illegal about it since tourist get a high allowance to help Inidan cottage industries that exporters don't. Obviously this still sounded very suspicious, but I was already in a somewhat compromised position (as I moved my stuff to his 'free' hotel room) so I pretended to go along with his story at this point and said I'd think about it. He thought that was great and said we'd go to the Post Office together the next day at 9 am to mail the gems.
This had me feeling very nervous and looking for ways out. At this point though he didn't let one of his 'friends' or himself leave my sight. He took me to dinner and then we went to have a drink at the 'Tiger Fort' which overlooks the city lights (similar to the pictures of cars you see overlooking LA at night.) He ended up talking and wanting to stay there until 3 am while I kept looking for ways to let him know subtley that I knew he was trying to scam me somehow. Eventually, I worked that into a conversation with one of his friends. Soon thereafter the head scammer told me that he could pick me up at 12 noon instead--I think giving me an out since he knew that I knew he was up to something.
Once they dropped me back at 'his families' hotel at 3:30 am, I set my alarm for 5:30 am so I'd be sure I could get out of the situation as safely as possible.
Observations:
1) These scammers are very good. I don't think the inital guy I met was the one who 'referred' me to the head scammer, but perhaps it was one of his friends. Especially since I was the one who struck up the conversation with the inital guy and he was actually going to Galtar as were his friends. I'm not sure who or when these guys decided to play this game on me, but since it was through 'friends' of 'friends' of 'friends' it seemed more convincing than it should have, especially given that I was already pretty highly on guard and very suspicous of trusting anyone I'd met in India unless they were my friend's parents. The whole situation makes me wonder how much of the previous day was 'real.'
2) Turbins have multiple uses and are another example of Indian efficiency. They are used unwrapped to carry things. When on the head they are meant to block the sun. They are also used as 'air conditioning' by adding water to cool people off.
3) Taxes. Everyone, all around the world wants to avoid them. The head scammer guy claimed he operated reatil store fronts when his business was primarily export to get him out of taxes. Whether or not this is true I'm not sure because the guy was clearly not trustable.
4) Trash. Apparently the government in Jaipur (and elsewhere in India) has tried installing public trash cans to help avoid the mass piles of trash in the street and litter everywhere that are common in India, but the effort failed. Apparently what happened is that people are so poor that they unbolt trash cans from the ground and sell them to other people! That's desperation.
The day turned out rather differently. In the morning I did meet him and we had several cups of Inidan tea. The character from the night before showed up and offered to let me stay in his 'family's hotel' since it was relatively empty as it was the low season. In retrospect, I probably should have refuse this offer, but it seemed genuine and friendly at the time. The hotel which I moved to was quite nice so his story seemed legit although it began to fall apart latter in the day when details failed to add up.
I ended up getting taken by his friend's rather than the inital 'friends' I met to Lake Ramgar instead since he said it was nicer. It was OK, but I doubt it was nicer.
When we came back he gave me a pitch about how he should ship some gems worth $40K to a PO box with my name in the US and his friends there could pick me up at the airport when I return home and then he would pay me $40K when they got their gems back; his story was that his family's gem business gets taxed at 250% for exports to the US and he needed friends like me to beat his the tariffs and that justified why he could afford to pay me their 'full value'. He promised me that it was legit and there was nothing illegal about it since tourist get a high allowance to help Inidan cottage industries that exporters don't. Obviously this still sounded very suspicious, but I was already in a somewhat compromised position (as I moved my stuff to his 'free' hotel room) so I pretended to go along with his story at this point and said I'd think about it. He thought that was great and said we'd go to the Post Office together the next day at 9 am to mail the gems.
This had me feeling very nervous and looking for ways out. At this point though he didn't let one of his 'friends' or himself leave my sight. He took me to dinner and then we went to have a drink at the 'Tiger Fort' which overlooks the city lights (similar to the pictures of cars you see overlooking LA at night.) He ended up talking and wanting to stay there until 3 am while I kept looking for ways to let him know subtley that I knew he was trying to scam me somehow. Eventually, I worked that into a conversation with one of his friends. Soon thereafter the head scammer told me that he could pick me up at 12 noon instead--I think giving me an out since he knew that I knew he was up to something.
Once they dropped me back at 'his families' hotel at 3:30 am, I set my alarm for 5:30 am so I'd be sure I could get out of the situation as safely as possible.
Observations:
1) These scammers are very good. I don't think the inital guy I met was the one who 'referred' me to the head scammer, but perhaps it was one of his friends. Especially since I was the one who struck up the conversation with the inital guy and he was actually going to Galtar as were his friends. I'm not sure who or when these guys decided to play this game on me, but since it was through 'friends' of 'friends' of 'friends' it seemed more convincing than it should have, especially given that I was already pretty highly on guard and very suspicous of trusting anyone I'd met in India unless they were my friend's parents. The whole situation makes me wonder how much of the previous day was 'real.'
2) Turbins have multiple uses and are another example of Indian efficiency. They are used unwrapped to carry things. When on the head they are meant to block the sun. They are also used as 'air conditioning' by adding water to cool people off.
3) Taxes. Everyone, all around the world wants to avoid them. The head scammer guy claimed he operated reatil store fronts when his business was primarily export to get him out of taxes. Whether or not this is true I'm not sure because the guy was clearly not trustable.
4) Trash. Apparently the government in Jaipur (and elsewhere in India) has tried installing public trash cans to help avoid the mass piles of trash in the street and litter everywhere that are common in India, but the effort failed. Apparently what happened is that people are so poor that they unbolt trash cans from the ground and sell them to other people! That's desperation.
posted by Traveling Brian at 3:24 AM
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