The Scam That Wasn’t

There is a scam as old as travel itself.

As soon as you arrive at your destination, as soon as you exit the cocoon of the airport, or the confines of your train, or arrive at the dock, the throngs are waiting, eager to pounce. Fresh meat.

You’re tired, possibly exhausted, nearing the end of your journey. You’re in an unfamiliar town. All of your travel belongings are on your back or in your hand—your moment of greatest vulnerability.

And so you press through the throng of touts and taxi drivers and who knows who else, you yearn to be taken to an oasis: a hotel where you can lie down, relax, keep your bags safe, get a drink, get your bearings.

You ask to be taken to a hotel recommended in your guide book, or by a friend, or that you found on the internet. Sorry, that hotel is closed, you’re told. Or it’s full. But lucky for you, the taxi driver knows just the place.

Yeah, right.

It’s a scam. The hotel is not closed. It’s not full. But the place your taxi driver knows will give him a nice kickback. In some places, the scam can get elaborate: they’ll fake calling the hotel, and you’ll be given the phone, informed by the supposed hotel receptionist (actually the scammer’s friend) that there are no more rooms available.

I’ve had plenty of people attempt this scam on me, and know how to avoid it. Glaring at your taxi driver or laughing it off usually do the trick.

So when I arrived in Bamako, Mali, I was not shocked when I was told the hotel was closed. I laughed, and asked again to be taken there. The driver (and a few of his buddies standing around him) insisted that it had closed down.

Fine, I said, take me to this other place instead (I had two potential hotels selected ahead of time), and off we went.

The driver couldn’t find it. Asked for directions. Comically, one guy pointed in one direction and the guy next to him pointed in the complete opposite direction.

I dug up the phone number, and the taxi driver dialed it. He spoke a little bit then handed me the phone. The woman on the other end told me she was the ex-owner and that the hotel was closed.

Give me a break. The taxi driver must have dialed his accomplice instead.

Oh yeah? I asked. What was your hotel’s address before it closed? She said she didn’t remember. Caught you! I thought.

So I reamed into the lady on the other end of the phone, accused her of fraud, threatened to call the police, hung up on her and started laying into the taxi driver for good measure.

I demanded the phone from the driver, and dialed the number to the hotel myself. Same lady. Oops.

Well, as fate would have it, she was indeed the ex-owner and the hotel had closed. As had the other one. The exact two that I had picked. The odds of that happening when selecting out of a newly published guide book are what, zero?

In the process of apologizing, the phone’s outbound minutes expired, so it appeared that I hung up on the same woman twice.

Amazingly, the woman called back, went out of her way to recommend another place, and even called ahead to reserve the room for me. As I ate dinner there that night she did show up to give me a piece of her mind, though. I was thoroughly berated, although I couldn’t help laughing at the absurdity of it.

Sometimes hotels really are closed, and sometimes what looks like a scam really isn’t.