I got scammed out of rupees 13000 while solo travelling in Varkala.

(He turned out to be a serial scammer who scammed many people, and the hostel chain owner posted this on Instagram as well . https://www.instagram.com/reel/DG01CUfTmx6/?igsh=MTBybGYyMGR2OGtseQ== )

I am backpacking across Kerala and went to Varkala, where I stayed at a hostel called Hostel Stories. In that hostel, there was a guy named Sandeep from my state, Andhra Pradesh, who claimed to live in Bangalore . He introduced himself to me on my first day. He had already been staying there for 7 days and said he would stay for 10 more days before returning to Bangalore, where he works as the global operations head for Puma. He also mentioned that he was a friend of the hostel owner and made me believe they were close friends. He tried to befriend me and asked if he could join me on multiple occasions when I was visiting different places near Varkala. The vibe felt off from the very first day, so I politely gave some excuses to avoid him.

On my last day, he knew it was my last day. He acted like he was in some kind of urgency and needed to transfer money to someone else. He claimed to have balance in his bank account but said he didn’t use GPay because of a promise he had made to his mother (he had been telling everyone this story for the entire 7 days I stayed there). He asked me to transfer Rs. 5000 to someones GPay account, promising that he would withdraw the cash from an ATM and give it back within an hour. I transferred the money without thinking. Since it was my last day in Varkala, I asked him about it before leaving for Alleppey. He said he would either transfer the money from another person or come to my hostel in Alleppey to give me the cash, as he claimed Alleppey was part of his travel plans.

I went to Alleppey, and the next day he contacted me again, asking me to transfer another Rs. 7000, saying he was coming to Alleppey and would give me the entire amount in cash. The way he was buying drinks worth Rs. 3k-4k every day and distributing them to random people in the hostel made me think he couldn't possibly be a scammer, so I transferred the money. However, he didn’t show up that day and made up random excuses for the next 2-3 days. After 3 days, he asked for Rs. 15,000, and that’s when I became skeptical. I told him I didn’t have that much money and inquired with another person he had gone to Kanyakumari with. That person also said that Sandeep had taken Rs. 3000 from him and hadn’t returned it, citing random excuses.

I asked him for my money back several times over the next two days, but he has now blocked me on WhatsApp and other platforms.

Any suggestions would be helpful.