We have just returned to Scotland from a holiday which was marred by an incident which should be drawn to the attention of other tourists reading your newspaper.

Whilst waiting at Los Cipreses for a bus to take us to Fuengirola, a small silver car drew up beside us. The driver attracted my husband’s attention and asked if he spoke English, proceeding to advise us that there was a massive traffic jam at Marbella and the buses were currently running between 1 and 2 hours behind. He said he had been sent by the bus company to uplift as many passengers as possible to get them to Fuengirola whilst the buses were off the road. Now of course in hindsight this seems ridiculous, but this driver was very plausible, was wearing a logo’d t-shirt and was anxious to get as many people as possible into his car. As there were five in our family party, another person at the bus stop asked if there were other cars on the way and was told there would be others shortly. After some debate we got into the car and took off. Once we got to Fuengirola, however, his attitude changed - he became very anxious and started shouting and demanded 78 euros for the fare! Having only been in town for a couple of days and not quite used to the money yet, my husband withdrew 70 euros from his wallet automatically, the value of it not quite registering, and this was snatched out of his hand before we had a chance to think. We argued with him about the fact that he had misled us by said he was from the bus company and hadn’t said he was a taxi driver or that we would be asked to pay extra for the journey. The argument continued for some minutes as my husband and I realised we were being robbed and we demanded he return our money. Our children were starting to get upset, the driver got more nervous and opened the doors, telling us to get out. Whilst angry and upset, we realised within a few minutes that we had actually been in a very dangerous situation. I know we should have reported this to the Municipal Police when we were on holiday, but we wanted to minimise the affect this incident had on the children and didn’t want to subject them to visiting a police station.

So please advise your readers to be on the lookout locally for this (less than) helpful driver: a man in his late 30s/early 40s, with light fair/blonde hair, slim build, driving a small silver car.