The one where I got scammed

Today was another first for me since coming to Abu Dhabi. I got scammed. Was talking on the phone with SY and after I was done, I decided to go get a haircut. Really couldn’t stand it anymore as my hair had grown long and thick. So I walked out of the hotel and found a men’s barber / saloon not far away. Another plus point was that there weren’t any customers in it too. I pushed open the door and looked at the fair skinned guy with too much hair cream at the counter. A rather young chap not a day older than 27. He smiled and gestured me towards one of the four empty barber chairs. I sat down and scanned the surroundings. A very huge poster of New York city donned one side of the wall and the other side was occupied with various photos of men in laughable hairdos.

Barber dude came over and I immediately asked him how much it would cost me for a haircut. He looked puzzled as if he didn’t understand what I was saying. I then asked him “Dirhams???” and he answered “Nineteen”. I thought the figure was a li’ll odd and asked him again “One nine???” and he nodded. Sounds reasonable to me and I signalled him to proceed.

Placed a towel over my neck and then the staple plastic coverall over me. Started with the razor at the back portion of my head and about 7-8 minutes later used the scissors to trim the front and top. The dude then pointed towards a sink nearby and he took a whopping 40 seconds to rinse my hair with a li’ll bit of questionable smelling shampoo. A quick dry with my neck towel later and it was all done. He asked if wanted some hair gel and I declined telling him that I was going to sleep soon.
Time to pay up, so I whipped out a 20 Dirhams note and handed it over. He said “NO NO ... nineteen”. I replied “Yes, this is 20 Dirhams”. He opened the drawer and took out a calculator and hit the buttons ‘8’ and ‘0’. I was shell shocked and asked “80 Dirhams???!!!” He merely nodded. I said “But you said nineteen” Con man barber pointed at the digits in the calculator and answered “Yes, nineteen”. I knew this was a scam job but decided not to create any trouble and handed him the money. Before I walked out I told him that it was too expensive ... that S.O.B merely shrugged his shoulders. KNN!!!

I walked back to my hotel and complained to the front desk manager. He said there’s no way that that barber could’ve charged me that much and that he would advise hotel guest never to patronize that place ever.

So there you go, that was how ‘lim peh’ was scammed in Abu Dhabi. Hopefully it’ll be the first and last time. *Grumble*