US Lawyer Reveals How Jaipur Hotel Manager, Cab Driver Tried To Scam Him: "Loud Pounding At My Door"

An American lawyer, Andrew Hammel, shared a disturbing experience at a hotel in Jaipur that has gone viral on social media. Mr Hammel, a writer and lawyer based in Germany, recounted in a thread on X, how he was nearly scammed out of Rs 3,000 by a cab driver and the hotel manager.

According to Mr Hammel, the incident occurred when he took a cab back to his hotel in Jaipur. Shortly after, the cab driver showed up at his hotel room door, demanding cash and claiming he had been shortchanged. Notably, the cab driver was accompanied by the hotel manager, who refused to listen to Mr Hammel's side of the story.

Mr Hammel recounted that the hotel manager falsely claimed the cab driver had mistakenly given him Rs 3,000 extra in change, demanding that he return the amount. Despite Hammel's protests, the hotel manager and cab driver refused to back down, persistently knocking on his door for another 45 minutes. Realizing this was a blatant intimidation tactic, he decided to take matters into his own hands and fight back against the attempted scam.

See the thread here:

1/ My favorite story was taking a cab back to my hotel in Jaipur, a Holiday Inn which was supposed to be one of the best. Maybe 30 minutes later there's a loud pounding at my door. It's the cabbie *and the hotel manager*. The hotel manager announces in barely-functional English https://t.co/LaQea82jZM

— Andrew Hammel (@AndrewHammel1) March 8, 2025

Mr Hammel credited his narrow escape from the scam to a crucial detail: the international complaint hotline number provided by the hotel in his room. Despite the number being barely legible and printed on a worn, laminated instruction sheet, he managed to dial through and report the incident.

"I was saved by American corporate culture. There was a barely legible international complaint hotline on the torn laminated instruction sheet on the table. I invited the manager and cabbie in and called the hotline in front of them," he explained.

Interestingly, even after Hammel began filing a complaint against the hotel manager on the hotline, explicitly stating the manager's name, the manager continued to demand money from him. The situation escalated to the point where the manager threatened to involve the police. 

"Even after I began spelling the hotel manager's name to the hotline, he still persisted in demanding the 3000 rupees and threatening to call the police. Only when I started repeating words like "police" "crime" "arrest" "harassment" and "fraud" did the guy finally relent," Mr Hammel added.