Road-trippers: Scam alert!

So we got scammed at Delhi! And this post is a guidance post for everyone who's traveling to or in Delhi specially in your car with outside Delhi number.

It all began when we stopped at one of the shops in south delhi to buy something and when I came back to the car, I was informed by one of the person who was passing by that there's some kind of oil leakage from the bonnet! I actually ignored it as I vaguely was aware of such scams so I just entered the car and started driving. Here comes the next person from the front on a bike, blocked our way and informed us again of the oil leakage!! This time I was like ok maybe because we are coming from out off-roading trip, there could be some damage and maybe the oil leakage is genuine.. so I moved just a bit to park my car and inspect and could smell something like a chemical in the cabin. I thought maybe the oil is causing some fire and that's entering the cabin and within few seconds I asked my wife to jump out of car and I did the same too as we almost stated coughing badly and choking! We immediately jumped out of car and observed if there's any fire or smoke coming out but we couldn't find anything wrong at that moment.

I started looking at the bonnet and the grill and could see some oil on it. I couldn't see any damage though on the closer inspection of the engine area. That made me think that maybe there's some internal issue which I'm not able to see. I called th Ford RSA who told me that they'll arrive in 2 hours. This was evening time around 5:30 pm and was getting cold and dark. While I was inspecting the bonnet area, I also called one of my friend about the issue who informed be that I should be careful as he's heard of some scams where people stop you and maybe rob you if it's an isolated area! I was a little concerned now and since this was a busy area I didn't think that this is a scam of any sort. I called my brother and told him to get his car so we can shift the luggage into his car and then get the problem sorted by the mechanic or RSA who were on the way.

When my brother arrived, we closely looked at the engine bay again and couldn't find anything wrong. I was a bit confused in terms of what to do but then decided to take it to my friends workshop and get it thoroughly checked for any issues and cause of oil leakage. I started the car and slowly took it to his workshop which was just a couple of kilometres away. Upon reaching there he looked at the car and quickly told us that the car is perfectly fine and this was some scam that someone plotted to maybe rob us or something but since we came out of it.. it's good and we should continue our journey as there was nothing wrong with the car.

We then started our further journey and reached our relatives place where we were headed. Upon unloading the luggage we realised that yes we actually got scammed and our camera bag is not in the car and got stolen by someone. This bag was lying in the middle console and had a quite a bit of cash, wallet, my GoPro, sd cards from my trip and some tidbits. This was a big loss and we were really disappointed and felt aghasted with this. We couldn't even realise when this happened and how it happened!

Upon looking at the dashcam footage, we got the entire thing and the plot! So one guy came to spill the oil on the grill that had some chemical which caused a bit of smoke and smell inside so we couldn't sit in the car and had to come out. The other 2 folks came and made sure we know that there's a oil spill/leakage and come out of car. And they knew very well that we will com out and inspect the engine area and open the boot for inspection and that's when they struck! It's clear on the footage that this is how they operated. See the footage!

As I had to return to bangalore next day, i didn't feel like reporting this to police as i firstly believed that they wouldn't do anything about this and may cause further delays to our onward journey and secondly, i was a bit scared of this would need an FIR and i will have to be delhi for sometime to attend to this matter. So we continued our journey and didn't bother to take police help. When we reached our hotel next day, i was searching for my AirPods and then realised that the bag had them as well. Quickly I checked for the location and could see the AirPods location as in the screenshot below and believe this is where the thief took it. Here I thought to try to take some help from police and through one of my friend got hold of a cop who promised to look into the matter and help us get our stuff or atleast the sd cards with footage back as that's what I wanted back mostly. I sent the cops all the details and footage of the incident but to our disappointment no body did anything inspite of multiple follow ups! We followed up for 2-3 days with the cops but nothing happened and we had no other option but to give up on this!

This incident was really scary and disturbing for us as we were just returning from our vacation and had quite a lot of stuff in the car. The bag which they stole was a big loss specially as it had all the footage in sd cards of our trip. But we also felt thankful to GOD that we didn't had to deal with anything bigger like a fight or anything like a personal attack on us for a larger scam it could be..

Guys, please be careful and drive safe when on the road. Install a dashcam if you don't have in your car! Looks like this is a known scam in delhi and a lot of my friends told me about this later.. so stay safe! Take care and drive safe!