RE: Banged up in an Indian hospital!
Well, I figured out afterwards that the rickshaw driver took the liberty of taking me to an expensive private hospital - presumably for a commission - and then if you look at the bill they gave me it's full of ridiculous stuff, like a quick visit from the doctor was 2000 rupees, a "special" visit from the doctor was 3500 rupees (I never had a doctor in my ward for more than 5 minutes), the ultrasound was expensive and I even had to pay for the lubricating gel they rubbed onto my skin before the ultrasound, the bed in the deluxe ward was 8000 rupees per day. Crazy stuff. They took advantage of the fact that I was too incapacitated to say that I'd be happy in the general ward for 1500 rupees per day, so in a sense, the situation had some elements of a typical traveller's scam. But, when you're fucked up and you want to feel better, you kind of don't care.
That's a really shitty scam, taking advantage of people who are not in a position to think clearly or even give a damn. But...not surprising, I guess. I'm sure they get a lot of customers that way.
You're so nice for commenting on this post. For that, I gave you a vote!
Hahaha the name of the account that just upvoted this comment... classic.
Yeah, it's not ideal. I wouldn't consider it a full-blown scam because I went in sick and came out better, but it was definitely overpriced; especially considering I went for a tetanus shot in Mumbai after scratching myself on a rusty bin and that cost me all of a dollar.
Lol. I saw that..bot? or whatever it is, upvoting a spammy comment, and I thought it was supposed to be some kind of ironic joke. But maybe it's just upvoting comments completely at random? Not quite sure as to the purpose of it.
Many of the scams that hit travelers are of this kind. You get proper service, but at several times the normal price. And/or there are some extra charges added on here and there that nobody realizes are unnecessary.
I ran into such a scam in Thailand, when I first started my travels. I purchased a bus trip at a travel agency pretending to be an official tourism office. They were using the same name but with 1 letter changed. The bus was real and got me where I wanted to go. But I found out during the trip that other passengers paid 1/3 the price that I did. Otherwise I would have never known I was scammed.