DUBAI For jet ski enthusiasts and tourists looking to rev up the speed on the waters of Al Mamzar, this should come as a warning.
A fun jaunt on a jet ski for a group of young German visitors last Friday ended as a nightmare, leaving six battered victims of a well-oiled con job.
“It has scarred us all physically, emotionally and financially. So much so that we will think twice about returning to this place,” says Batuhan Gulsever, 21, who almost missed his flight back to Hamburg this week along with his five friends after jet ski operators illegally held their passports for days as a guarantee for damages they had apparently caused to three waterbikes rented for Dh100 per hour each.
Gulsever, a university student like most of his friends, says they had to next cough up over €2,200 (Dh9,000) to secure two of the passports. The other four were returned to them on the eve of their return flight, he says, after great harassment and a further payment of Dh700.
“They started by asking Dh15,000 overall for ‘damages’ to the three jet skis, then got down to Dh12,000 and eventually to snatching our watches and mobile phones. We settled for Dh700 more on top of what we had already paid, relieved that we were able to fly back finally,” says Jajoh Baschiri, who returned to Germany on Tuesday not just emotionally beaten but with a dislocated left shoulder – worst of the injuries his friends in the group sustained in the fiasco. None of them unfortunately had any money left to seek treatment or visit a clinic. Baschiri, with a numb left hand, says they had saved months of their pocket money to make this trip. Some were visiting the UAE for the first time.
“That’s all we had and that’s what we had saved for months in order to make this trip, but then we had no choice. They came swooping down upon us like hungry eagles, threatening us that if we didn’t pay we won’t ever get our passports back. They said even calling police won’t help,” Raesh Siamak, 23, Baschiri’s classmate at HofenCity University said. He told XPRESS how they were caught in the muddle unwanted after a jet ski collided, expectedly, with all three water craft.
XPRESS has reported how these operators carry out the scam like clockwork in a group that typically comprises a “policeman”, a “mechanic” and an Arab-speaking “owner” of the watercraft. To execute their plan they make one of their own jet skis collide with that of a tourist group, who often stand out for their accessories and mannerisms. Showing bogus damage to the craft, they claim compensation. Sadly, Siamak and his Gucci-sporting friends looked the part and fell prey to pesky operators of this horrid scam.
Worse, it comes less than a month after Sharjah Police launched an awareness campaign in which as many as 60 jet skis were confiscated following police inspections.
Yet people – mostly tourists unaware – are still conned every day, forced to pay up to 10 times for bogus or minor damages. Sometimes the price they pay is far bigger than they had set out for – including permanent injuries and fatalities.
