Taxi Scams?

Lollipops23

we would have been getting the last nightrider number 109 to kells.

Pythia

I imagine what the OP feels is a scam is that a number of taxi drivers and perhaps their bases all conspired together to cut off the flow of taxis onto Stephen's Green, effectively forcing people to offer more money until they would take them up. They never did have prebookings but just made it look like that for a valid reason to hang around and auction their service.

I'm not saying this is by any means what actually happened, just that this may be the OP's take on it.

Emerald Lass

I don't know of any taxi driver (and I know a good few) who would sit on the opposite side of the road to a taxi rank with plenty of customers and 'pretend' to have a booked fare. It would be of no benefit to them. If they joined the rank they could get one good job out of the way for a decent few quid, or get a local one meaning that they can be back at a rank quickly ready for a new customer. I don't know of any who choose to avoid a rank unless they actually have a pre-booked fare.

Why would you 'wait' for a fake fare when there are plenty of genuine fares waiting in their droves on the opposite side of the street? Why hang around in the hope of auctioning off your services when you can actually just go and make money there and then legitimately? As OP said there was no auction - its not like it was OP's hubby and some other guy out bidding each other for the taxi. OP's hubby just went up and straight out offered €100! Taxi man even called into base, so it would appear that he DID have a pre-booked fare, and I would wager that he was getting pi$$ed off waiting for that fare when there was a full rank of waiting customers on the other side of the road. So when someone gave him an offer too good to refuse he took it - can't blame him really.

Some taxi drivers actually refuse pre-booking for that reason - cos they can make more money off the rank or onthe street than on bookings (and the possibility that some people who pre-booked will not turn up and you have wasted 10-20 mins waiting for the feckers).

So while I appreciate how Lollipops23 may have seen the situation, I am sorry to say that it appears that Lollipops23 view is skewed from the reality of what was actually going on.

Lollipops23

Emerald Lass wrote: »

I don't know of any who choose to avoid a rank unless they actually have a pre-booked fare.

it was happening with almost all the other cabs that were beside him; as i mentioned before my OH did go over and offer him the approximate amount for our fare(around E50-E60) and he still didn't take it.....

blahblah06

lollipop are you for real. i am a cab driver. you said yourself the driver got onto the base controller to tell him he is taking you instead of his fare which would have more than likely been booked 15 mins after he arrived at the destination. most of the time we get a half hour to get to destination. how on earth can you say he pretty much scammed you when he cancelled a job he clearly had by ringing the base and you offered him 100. would you say no to 100 a week before crimbo. get a life

mikemac

Lollipops23 wrote: »

it was happening with almost all the other cabs that were beside him; as i mentioned before my OH did go over and offer him the approximate amount for our fare(around E50-E60) and he still didn't take it.....

Trying to take somebodys taxi when it was clearly prebooked is a low thing to do imo.
You clearly knew it was prebooked as you went back a second time and doubled the bid to 100 euro.

Saying that, nobody can blame the driver for taking 100 euro cash for that fare.

If the normal fare out to your home from the city centre is 50 euro, I think you should have looked more seriously at getting a room for the night. Saves a lot of hassle and you can go home on the Saturday morning. Maybe next time.....

amdublin

I must be missing the OP's point completely.

The Op's OH offered a taxi driver the standard fare to take him home and he said no he was prebooked. The OP's OH doubled his offer (bit crazy I think, but that's a side issue I guess!). The taxi driver accepts his offer and cancels his prebooking with the base.

Where's the "scam"?????

I would be more inclined to call the taxi situation in Dublin an outrage (ie. that you have to wait at ranks for ages to get a taxi)

But I don't see how this particular incidence is a scam.........?? Sure it was initiated by the OP's OH, how then is it a scam on the taxidrivers part?????? (Does the OP seriously think that taxidrivers sit pretending that they are prebooked hoping that someone will offer them 200% fares???)

Emerald Lass

Lollipops23 wrote: »

it was happening with almost all the other cabs that were beside him; as i mentioned before my OH did go over and offer him the approximate amount for our fare(around E50-E60) and he still didn't take it.....

lollipops you are just proving my point - he was not the only one sitting and waiting for a pre-booked fare, my point is why would anyone sit and wait for non-existent fares in the hope that someone might be desperate enough to offer 100% over the odds to get home? it doesn't make sense. they would only sit there if they HAD to. We all know Taxi men and women aren't the most patient of people, so they wouldn't sit and watch a line of potential customers get away for no reason? they could be making money there and then off the rank, they could just go and pick one of those up. why would anyone - never mind several people - sit and watch customers get away in the bizarre hope of getting 1 bigger fare??????? that is just daft.

amdublin wrote:

(Does the OP seriously think that taxidrivers sit pretending that they are prebooked hoping that someone will offer them 200% fares???)

it appears that is exactly what the OP thinks. We're all entitled to our opinion, but in this case the OP seems seriously skewed in their own favour.

Cocoon

I remember one Xmas years ago when stopped at the lights just before the rank on Dame street to yanks knock on me window and say the will give 10 pound more than the metered fare if I took them. So I said OK jump in, as soon as they hit the seat the guy turns around and says to me, where were from there's a saying "money talks and shiit walks" so its not just in Dublin this happens. Though with exemption from the Xmas season ya rarely see people queuing any more for Taxi's.

the boss of me

Lollipops23 wrote: »

we would have been getting the last nightrider number 109 to kells.

Sorry Lollipops , I don't quite understand something here, what do you think the regular fare to Kells is ?
Because if you got taxi from St Stephens Green to Kells any night of the year the metered fare would be over €100, you wouldn't get to Navan for €50, so maybe be more specific and tell us exactly where you travelled to...

Sam Vimes

amdublin wrote: »

(Does the OP seriously think that taxidrivers sit pretending that they are prebooked hoping that someone will offer them 200% fares???)

It appears so. It's seems like an awfully big gamble for every driver in the area to take. If someone is taking a 20 minute journey and offers double but the driver has been waiting 20 minutes, he's not actually gaining anything for all the time he sat there and in that 20 minutes he could have picked up a much bigger fare.


For this theory to work for all the drivers "scamming" people there'd have to be a new person offering 200% of an extremely large fare every 5 minutes or so and even that would most likely leave some of the drivers worse off than if they'd just picked people up like a non-mental person

Spook_ie

the boss of me wrote: »

Sorry Lollipops , I don't quite understand something here, what do you think the regular fare to Kells is ?
Because if you got taxi from St Stephens Green to Kells any night of the year the metered fare would be over €100, you wouldn't get to Navan for €50, so maybe be more specific and tell us exactly where you travelled to...

Lollipops23 wrote: »

it was happening with almost all the other cabs that were beside him; as i mentioned before my OH did go over and offer him the approximate amount for our fare(around E50-E60) and he still didn't take it.....

Your honour and members of the jury...

I put forward to you these relevent and essential facts....

1) The accused ( a nameless taxi driver ) whom was engaged in his lawful business of awaiting a pre-booked passenger was accosted by the accuser wanting to be taken to Kells in Co. Meath

2) The distance from St Stephens Green Shopping Centre along the proscribed route to Kells ( Co. Meath ) according to the AA is 65.2 Km
http://www.aaireland.ie/routes/

3) According to the Taxi Regulators Site it is within the rights of the taxi driver to refuse any fare that exceeds a distance of 30Km
http://www.taxireg.ie/consumer-FAQs.html

4) According to the taxi regulators site the approximate cost of such a 65.2Km journey at the aforementioned time would be €109.00

I therefore put it to you the jury that the charge against the driver be struck out and the accuser instead should be charged with trying to scam the taxi driver by offering the paltry, and indeed insulting sum, of €50 for a journey that would have cost nearly twice this.

Your honour the defence would like to allow at this time cross examination by the accuser.....