A foreigner's first day in Kolkata turned into a nightmare. He was scammed and harassed by a taxi driver and his accomplice shortly after landing in the city. Meet Dustin, a travel content creator exploring India, who recorded the ordeal on camera, showing how he was threatened by the cab driver claiming to have ties with the "mafia."
The entire episode was shared on Dustin's YouTube channel in a nine-minute video titled "Taxi Driver in Kolkata Tried to Cheat and Threaten Me."
Mr Dustin touched down in Kolkata and was on his way to the Hotel Great Western in Park Street. Instead of booking a cab through Uber, he went for a local taxi. He clearly informed the cab driver he wanted to go to the Hotel Great Western in Park Street. The taxi driver, however, took him 15 km in the opposite direction, towards a different hotel named The Western in Rajarhat, far from his actual destination.
"I showed you the hotel first, we agreed to this, and then you took me to the wrong hotel," Mr Dustin told the driver in the now-viral video.
The driver initially asked for Rs 700 for the trip. When Mr Dustin refused to pay for the wrong drop location, the cabbie admitted his mistake but bizarrely increased the fare, saying, "Okay, sir, it will be Rs 900 to Park Street now."
Mr Dustin stood his ground and said he would only pay the originally agreed Rs 700.
As the argument escalated, another driver wearing a red shirt entered the scene and sat beside the original driver. He tried to mediate, but things soon took a turn.
When Mr Dustin explained the confusion, the man in red asked for Rs 1000 and said in Bengali to the driver, "I have connections with the mafia, I'll drag him to a lonely place and break his bones."
This blatant threat was caught on camera.
The two then convinced Mr Dustin to switch to another cab headed to Park Street. But before letting him go, the man in red demanded an extra Rs 100 for "parking and petrol," bringing the total demanded to Rs 800. In Bengali, he was also heard instructing the new cabbie that he would be paid Rs 400 while keeping the rest for himself.
What should have been a 50-minute ride turned into a 1-hour 20-minute horror. "I should've been at the hotel by now, but I'll probably be in this taxi for an hour and 30 minutes," Mr Dustin shared with his viewers during the ride.
"From this point forward I will never use random taxi drivers from the airport, always Uber. I didn't plan to make any videos from the airport as I was already tired from travelling," he wrote in his caption.
He also highlighted that Uber charges for the same route ranged between Rs 500 to Rs 600. "I agreed to Rs 700 for convenience, but this is just too much," he said, adding that he was initially told there would be a parking fee of Rs 150 just five minutes into the journey, something not disclosed beforehand.
Despite the series of misadventures, Meet Dustin clarified that these experiences won't spoil his opinion of India. "I've had a great time in India so far. This won't make me hate the country, it's just something you deal with in taxis and airports in many places," he said.
