American vlogger harassed by Kolkata taxi driver: 'I’ll drag you to a lonely place and ...'

An American travel content creator who had come to India to explore its culture and landscapes, was allegedly ‘harassed’ and ‘scammed’ by an autorickshaw driver and his associate in Kolkata.

The tourist, identified as Dustin, captured the whole incident on camera and later shared on his YouTube channel on May 18. The nine-minute video, titled “Taxi Driver in Kolkata Tried to Cheat and Threaten Me,” documents the experience from the moment Dustin landed in Kolkata and opted for a local taxi instead of using a ride-hailing app.

According to Dustin, he touched down in Kolkata and was on his way to the Hotel Great Western in Park Street. Instead of using a ride-sharing app like Uber, he chose to take a local taxi from the airport to his hotel — the Hotel Great Western in Park Street. He clearly told the driver his destination, but the taxi took him in the opposite direction, nearly 15 km away, to a different hotel called The Western in Rajarhat.

In a video he recorded, Dustin is seen confronting the driver, reminding him that he had shown the correct hotel earlier. Despite acknowledging the mistake, the driver first asked for Rs 700, and then raised it to Rs 900 when Dustin wanted to go back to Park Street. Dustin refused to pay more than the original amount they had agreed on.

As the disagreement grew tense, another man in a red shirt joined in. While Dustin attempted to explain the situation, the second man allegedly threatened him in Bengali, saying, “I have connections with the mafia, I’ll drag him to a lonely place and break his bones.”

Eventually, they arranged for another taxi to take Dustin to Park Street. But before letting him leave, the man in red demanded an extra Rs 100 for ‘parking and petrol,’ making the total fare Rs 800. Dustin, frustrated, said in the video that he should have reached his hotel long ago, but was still stuck in traffic.

In his caption, he wrote, “From this point forward I will never use random taxi drivers from the airport, always Uber. I didn’t plan to make any videos from the airport as I was already tired from travelling.” He continued, “However, when the taxi driver brought me to the wrong hotel after I showed him the correct address and location on the map I started film. At the time, I didn’t understand what he was saying and had my friend translate, he said it was pretty messed up. We agreed to 700 beforehand including the parking ticket and as you can see in the video the prices kept changing.”

Despite the incident, Dustin made it clear that this one bad experience didn’t ruin his impression of Kolkata or India. He said he met many kind and welcoming people in both Delhi and Kolkata. He added that not knowing Bengali made it harder to understand the situation until his friend translated it.

“Hey everyone, I see that this video is getting a lot of comments and many are messaging me privately. First off, I have already left Kolkata as my videos are delayed. And I want to say that I had an AMAZING time in Kolkata and I met incredible people there, super friendly, only complaint is Kolkata has tooooo many sweets :D This taxi driver was a 1-time incident, and it didn’t change anything for me and how I feel about India, Kolkata or anyone else. I can’t even begin to describe how welcoming the families I stayed with were and just incredible in both Delhi and Kolkata,” he said in a follow-up note.