In Thailand, Malaysian tourists ordered a taxi through inDrive and, according to them, almost ended up in slavery. The driver of the car aroused suspicion among the vacationers, which is why they had to escape from the car in the middle of the highway, Must Share News reports.
Five tourists from Malaysia – two guys and three girls – called a taxi from a hotel in Bangkok to the airport. An SUV with tinted windows came to them. During the trip, according to tourists, the driver behaved suspiciously and kept talking to someone on the phone. One of the Malaysians understood the Thai language and this, in his opinion, saved him and his friends.
“The whole trip the driver talked to someone, described us, told us our gender, and generally conveyed a lot of information about us, reporting on our every move. It seemed strange and frightening to me,” the tourist admitted.
Passengers also noted a discrepancy between the route in their GPS navigator on their phone and in the driver’s navigator. In addition, the time of arrival to the destination varied: for tourists, the navigator showed 30 minutes, and for the driver – 50 minutes.
“Noticing strange things, we asked the driver to stop the car, supposedly we needed to go to the toilet, but he said that he could not, since he would be fined, and promised to stop us at a gas station along the road. But according to the navigator, there were no gas stations along the route,” – says the tourist.
As a result, the Malaysians took advantage of the car stopping on the highway, where a traffic jam formed. When the car stopped, they opened the doors and jumped out of the cabin. The driver allowed them to take their luggage and did not demand payment.
After the incident, tourists spoke about what happened on social networks. They assumed that the driver was somehow connected with a gang involved in human trafficking and wanted to sell them into slavery. Representatives of inDrive responded to their posts. They reported that they conducted an internal investigation and came to the conclusion that the driver of the car did not plan anything illegal and there was simply a misunderstanding between him and the passengers.
In turn, the Malaysians advised other tourists not to forget that there are many dangers in the world and not to let down their guard while on vacation.
“Always track your route using GPS and pay close attention to driver behavior,” they said.