“We were picked up at the airport and told the driver Don Meaung Airport. He confirmed it and drove us to the wrong airport even though we told him another 5 times. Now we’re here and he wants the 500 shown on the meter, but he drove us the wrong way. The fair should be 150 bath, 200 tops. I’ve offered him a fair price 3 times, even went up to 300 bath and he refuses anything but the full amount.”
He is not on your side. Try to deal with tourist police instead if you can.
We were now becoming extremely late and had just checked our bags in. Our plane was leaving in 10 minutes and we still had to clear security. This whole thing was taking up a stupid amount of time and we had to go. After a couple of precious minutes the officer came back to me and said “He says you just said airport. If you don’t pay he wants to file a police report. This will take an hour. Or you can pay 400 bath and I’ll make sure it goes away.”
At this point the option was pretty clear, and I think they all knew it. Our flight was worth 20 times that amount and we couldn’t afford to lose it. So, I gave up and threw the money at them and wondered how this would of all laid out if the tourist police were actually there instead of sleeping in. Luckily to our advantage we were in a small domestic airport and we cleared security super quick, making it onto our plane just moments before the doors closed.
This whole situation really pissed me off while we were on the plane. We had blatantly been ripped off, the taxi driver absolutely going the wrong way to get a higher meter. There is no chance we only said “airport” to the driver multiple times and we could tell the officer knew that himself but didn’t care. Feeling very frustrated, I fired off an email to Suk 11 (thanks to my iPhone!) and their reply back was that we shouldn’t have taken that taxi! The guards are supposed to call in a taxi right to the door as the ones on the street have been known to cause problems.
Just goes to show you, you do have to be on your toes at all times. But what else can you really do? Have you been scammed in a taxi? What did you do?
We experienced similar trouble dealing with taxi drivers in Thailand. The price we were quoted at the airport doubled once we arrived at our accommodation (and once he had our money in his hand) – apparently the quoted price was per person.
Luckily we weren’t faced with the same time pressures as you or with any involvement from the Thai police so I could prevent him getting new fares by sitting with the door open, one foot in, one foot out of the cab until he gave back the change.
We had more hassle and rows on our first day in Thailand than we did in five months in South America and, sadly, these things do leave a sour taste in the mouth and affect your feelings about a place.
Dono, I think that’s the best bet to just sit tight and argue with the driver if you end up getting overcharged. We were doing that but I think the driver knew he had us in a bind and wouldn’t give. I think I was more surprised/upset that this was happening as it was the first time we’ve been ripped off by a taxi driver who was so blatantly pulling a slow one on us, and for double the price it should have been!
Thanks for the comment and welcome to the dream!
Tourist Mafia Blog, Thailand.
http://thailandtouristmafia.blogspot.com/2009/02/thailand-tourist-mafia.html
Great post about the tourist mafia for sure. We were surprised that standing right outside the guard box at the Grand Palace we were trying to be scammed by these well dressed guys. Thanks for that insight.