Indians and tourists to India -Beware of this! Confidence tricksters ---

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-Beware of this! Confidence tricksters can loot you of your money! I had gone down south and came back from Chennai to Mumbai by train today. As soon as the train arrived, a helpful taxi driver[So I thought] escorted me to a cab. It was dark in the morning and though I was a bit hesitant I did not think that anything was amiss and went along. Of course , nothing serious happened but follows a story which I hope is a warning to others. There was already another driver in a cab and this first gentleman kept my luggage in and I too got in. He suddenly produced a thousand rupee note and asked me for change. He wanted two five hundreds. Thankfully I did not have two five hundred rupee notes and I said so. He said that he had to fill gas for the vehicle and believing him I gave him one five hundred rupee note. Actually , I was a bit confused because I could not understand his Hindi too. and it was dark inside the taxi. I was examining the ‘thousand ‘rupee note given by him. He suddenly showed me the ‘one hundred rupee note’ that I had given him and asked me for the balance; At this point , I was digging into my purse for the balance change and seeing this in the faded light I immediately woke up. I told him clearly that I had given him one ‘five hundred’ and not’ one hundred’ as shown by him. and asked him for it. The other driver was there sitting quietly during our interchange. .I gave back his thousand and told him that I did not have change. Though he had told me earlier that there was a meter for the taxi now he said he would charge two hundred and fifty rupees[the normal fare would be a hundred and fifty at maximum].I had heavy luggage with me and could not lift it and carry it all over again. So, I just bargained a bit and reduced the fare to a two hundred and came back. I was quite scared till I reached home because I have already heard gory stories as to how passengers are looted by taxi drivers. By God’s grace I reached home safe. On enquiry, the driver told me that the other man[the trickster] was an agent who was working in the station. [].The driver approved of my refusal to give change to that trickster. Obviously this was after I came back home when I told hi m that they had cheated me with the increased taxi fare. I also came to know that this is a standard way of tricking unsuspecting passengers[asking for change]. [b]Lesson---Please do not fix up a taxi inside the station if someone approaches you. Walk up to the main road and take any taxi that would levy meter charges.[This was in Mumbai Dadar station] Travel light as far as possible. [/b]