{"id":35233,"date":"2023-04-17T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-17T22:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/blog\/?p=35233"},"modified":"2023-02-16T11:26:41","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T17:26:41","slug":"taxi-scams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/blog\/taxi-scams\/","title":{"rendered":"R. Paul Wilson On: Taxi Scams"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
If you travel the world, ride share services like Uber, Lyft and others have become an invaluable tool to navigate new cities, but – as with all services – there are bad apples who seek to rob customers with a grab-bag of mini-scams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is far from a comprehensive list of cons associated with ride share providers but as always, whenever traveling, pay special attention to how much you are being charged and be aware you might fall into a well-practiced, inescapable trap without doing anything wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Taxi Tax<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A friend once told me he expected to be ripped off at least once in any foreign city by crooked taxi drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps he took a lot more taxis than I did but my experience is that it only happens from time to time and usually when I have failed to take precautions or pay attention to what\u2019s happening around me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Take Atocha railway station in Madrid for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A taxi from there to Plaza Mayor is not an enormous amount but one Sunday, with family, I got into a cab and on arrival was overcharged by more than double!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The driver used a technique I had experienced before, where he stopped traffic behind him to apply more pressure to me to act quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last time this happened was over 20 years ago and the scenario was identical but on that occasion, I was on my own and happy to put up a fight until local police intervened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thankfully, they sent the driver on his way once the police officer learned what he was trying to charge me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This time, there were no helpful officers of the law, and I was with my kids who didn\u2019t need to see me get into another argument with a scamming taxi driver (I once faced off with an aggressive New York driver who made a blatant attempt to take us on a tour of Manhattan instead of going directly to our hotel) so I paid up and spent the rest of the afternoon fuming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s the problem with this type of con: It\u2019s a trap that takes full advantage of your situation and offers almost no way out unless you are willing to cause a traffic jam, start a fight or in some cases, get arrested (local gendarmes are not always so helpful to out-of-towners).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scams such as overcharging or taking tourists for a longer ride are not very sexy but are commonplace in many locations and we can all fall foul of a dishonest driver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sadly, there\u2019s not a lot one can do unless you can prove the driver is scamming you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n