How to avoid getting taken for a ride
You’re exhausted, in a strange country, don’t really speak the language and you just know you’re about to get ripped off by a fast-talking taxi driver.
Be calm. Help is at hand.
The more tourists know the going rates, scams, and how to identify off-the books operators, the better off they’ll be, maintain Edmonton-based travellers Todd and Steve Romaine.The website, launched earlier this month, includes more than 200 airports from over 75 countries so far and can be accessed on the fly via cell phone as well.
Cairo and Rome are the worst countries for catching a cab at the airport, the brothers claim.
In Italy, for instance, you're really likely to get ripped off at both airports (Fiumicino or Ciampino) and the Termini train station, says 'American in Rome' blogger Shelley, who scathingly describes an organized ring of taxi drivers headed up by a gruff woman who targets unsuspecting tourists.
Think Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, she warns.And things are no better in Prague, it seems.
In the latest round of an ongoing battle against taxi rip-offs, Prague City Hall recently removed a group of alleged over-charging drivers from their stands at the tourist-heavy Old Town Square this summer.
Tell us: What's your worst overcharged taxi experience?
By Gordon Powers, MSN Money
Posted by: stan White | Sep 28, 2021 3:11:10 PM
I have been a Taxi driver in Muskoka for more than 5 years now and I think the problem here is not making enough money you work 11-13 hours a shift On a good day you can make about 90-120 dollars and most of the time it is about 40-70 dollars a day. In most cases not even minimum wage . The goverment should step in and make company owners pay the driver who only get paid on commision at least minimum wage. Than the driver wouldn't over charge the customers so they can suvive.This happens here a lot. I work over 55 hours a week and I make about 300.00 a week.You can't suport a family on this.
Posted by: Laura | Sep 28, 2021 3:49:57 PM
Stan, your first problem is that you work in Muskoka ... Cab drivers in Toronto, Montreal, Van and here in Edmonton make really good money.
Posted by: Delilah | Sep 28, 2021 4:30:13 PM
I had no choice but to take a bandit cab in Mexico City fully knowing that the driver would try to take me for a major ride. He had the meter hidden behind a velcro strip which he pulled away at my destination. The ride was worth about 100 Pesos, meter price was over 800 Pesos. I simply refused to pay the full amount - I told him he could take the 100 Peso bill I was waving at him or nothing - his choice. Of course he took the money I offered.
Posted by: Olive | Sep 28, 2021 8:39:59 PM
I have been driving taxi in Toronto the past 7 years. I have seen enough of conmplicity by local government that makes you bleed. An average Toronto taxi driver is either brown or black, immigrant and most are university graduates either with foreign or Canadian degrees.
Average weekly work hours is between 70 t0 77hrs. and average weekly gross in come can go up to $700 cdn . Here's how you spend it : The Metropolitan Police in Toronto work on cab drivers to fill their traffic quota. The city know this . Toronto cab is more regulated than any other city on the planet. It is estimated that the police and city collect disproportinate chunk of the annual revenue from cab drivers. Cab bylaws in the city is designed to trap cab drivers in a catch 2x2 theory. A city with over five thousand Taxi cabs have less than two hundred functional Cab Stands. Most of these stans are marked for 1 or 2 cabs only.
The city makes over million dollras per year from cab drivers under the pretex of enforcing this segment of bylaw. In an exchange between Metro Police Chief Mr. Bill Blair and Licensing Chair Mr Mosco . Mr Blair said that the role of the Police was to enforce laws made by the city and that if Mosco was irritated by the way Cab drivers are treaded by the police , that Mosco should tell the city to change their draconial Cab regulatory policies .
I wonder why no one , not even those in Public policy design or the Criminology schools have had the temerity to question the moral ethics of putting the Police Force on quota as a revenue source for the city . No body speaks for the cab drivers in Toronto , they are so hopelessly driven by ethnic loyalities and many overiding factors they,re unable to form strong body to fight for them . Infact the cab industry is a prism to underscore Torontos social malais . The Cab industry here is home for underemployed and slave wages.
Posted by: RalphsWife | Sep 30, 2021 3:02:08 PM
Costa Rica. Random individuals paint their ragged unsafe vehicles in the burgundy colour of the predominant cab company & pull up to the curb when it's obvious there's a tourist looking desperate for a lift! My daughter & I made the mistake of assuming that a burgundy car meant it was part of the taxi fleet - most of them look like crap, so just because it looked thrashed, that wasn't exactly a clue. Got in, and by then it was too late. No handles on the inside of the door.... Thankfully, he took us where we wanted to go, but charged us through the nose for the very short trip. It should have cost us about $5 US plus tip, but we paid over $30. At that point, we didn't care - we just wanted out of the car! Which meant he had to come around & open the door - that whole "no handles on the inside" thing. Some cab regulations in that country would be terrific!