Jessai Flores

There are very few things that truly embarrass those who are from Mumbai. Spoiler alert, it’s not having to rudely push through a crowd, or bargain with a small business. It is falling victim to a scam. Our city is full of beauty, history, culture and of course tourist traps. And so, we consider ourselves to be experts in successfully identifying and avoiding these situations.

It was a sunny morning, and I was showing my parents and sister around New York. They were fresh off the boat and ready to get back on it to see the Statue of Liberty. My navigation skills thus far were phenomenal — not a single glitch. I was using the subway like a pro. As we stepped off the train, we were swarmed by a group of men donning blue “Iconic Tours” vests. Before we knew it, we had agreed to a $130, 12:00 p.m. tour for the four of us, which came out to just a little more than the regular ferry price. We were then passed along a route from man to man, which, without the sun, would’ve felt like a thrilling prison break.

Three men, two streets and a half-hour wait later, I glanced at the receipt in horror to see a charge of $190. My heart sank — it was at that moment I knew we messed up. There were two other families waiting with us; Terry and Scott, and Jennifer and Cary, all American teachers. They said they paid the same price, and I’m not sure why, but knowing that Iconic Tours wasn’t discriminatory in their scamming practices made me a little relieved. We struck up a conversation and reached a common consensus based on Jennifer’s point about absorbing free lessons: getting schooled doesn’t require a campus. 

Time slowed to an annoying, screeching halt. The bus to reach the ferry still wasn’t here. We hedged bets on when it would arrive. The supervisor’s arrival broke the fragile remnants of our patience like a 5-year-old around a candy-filled piñata. There were flying accusations and shouting. But I was now on a mission; I wanted this man to look me in the eye and make sense of the receipt.

He shook his head solemnly. “The $20 extra charge per ticket is taxes, you know. New York is a very expensive place.”

I sympathized. It was proving to be an expensive place to make mistakes indeed.

I asked him to tell me the tax rate he supposedly applied, and there was $17 to account for per ticket after the application of said tax — this felt like a lot more in my head because, apparently, getting scammed triggers a mental rupee conversion, and I was mortified by the situation anyway. 

“The rest is service charge.”

Well, at least the scammers are well compensated. I’m all for fair wage practices, but it would’ve been nice to know that I was contributing to them.

At this point, there was really nothing to do. The bus was supposedly a minute away, and going back, finding the man who gave us the tickets and convincing him to trigger a refund would’ve caused us to miss the ferry entirely, leading to a bigger waste of time and money. 

But I’m not one to resign to my fate without causing a little trouble. I made the most of the minute before the bus arrived. For every unsuspecting tourist that Iconic Tours cornered on that street, I cropped up warning them about the hidden charges. It was a gorgeous game of whack a mole, but the mole in fact was un-whackable. 

The thing about tourist scams though is that they usually involve fake niceties and cheeriness. Turns out, my truth bombs were affecting Tito’s business. This scam, therefore, was garnished with some colourful but overall uncreative slurs. There should be something disturbing about hearing someone scream at you and tell your mom to “suck a d**k.” But coming from a man whose skin I had aimed to get under, only seemed satisfying — though it was also a harsh reminder of the undercurrents of misogyny in America.

Terry, Scott, Jennifer and Cary — all of whom, needless to say, defended my parents — joined my family as we finally hopped on the bus and reached the ferry. We learned a lot about each other in a short time, and exchanged numbers, grateful that our mistakes led to our meeting. The Statue of Liberty was beautiful, and it was a stunning day outside. The cocktail of drama, new friends and some history created a story that will from now on be considered family lore. A story that we were already laughing about, and a story we’ll probably tell on our next family vacation.