What to do in this situation?

[pesty]

Not a motoring problem but I thought Id post it and see what the people of pistonheads would do/think.

A work aquaintance of my misses was staying at the same hotel as her recently.(awaits inevitable posts )

my misses watched as 2 policemen came into the bar and escorted him along with the manager of the hotel off to another room.

later she asked what it was all about. now obviously this is 3rd hand by now but I think my gf would have conveyed the story fairly accuratly...

the guy and his freind booked a taxi from the hotel to a resterant and the taxi firm charged him £15

they had their meal and phoned the same taxi firm up which then came to pick them up.
on return to the hotel the taxi driver demanded £25 pounds for the same journey it was still early no special rates were in operation.

the taxi driver said that it was £10 extra because they were picked up in a Merc!
so this bloke gave him £15 only and went back to the hotel he didnt ask for a special car just a taxi like before.
Taxi driver calls cops.

according to this guy the police gave the guy the option pay £10 or spend the night in the cells. This would have meant that he missed many thousands of pounds business the next day so he payed up. My GF recons he was so angry he actualy did turn red


now not sure about the rights and wrongs of this case but I would have thought that this was purley a civil matter as the guy did pay something towards the service he recieved. do the police have these kind of powers or should the taxi driver have gone to the small claims court to get the extra?

can the taxi driver charge whatever he likes?

this isnt an old bill bashing thread by the way I realise a report had been made so they had to follow it up.
Just seems a little odd to me.

[westy04]

I think its law that guy has to supply the taxi driver his name and address, incase the taxi driver wants to take him to small claims court for the extra £10.
I was in a similar situation once, in a curry house

[supraman2954]

pesty said:

can the taxi driver charge whatever he likes?

Of course, he can charge whatever he likes, but IMO, the driver would not have a leg to stand on unless there was an agreed contract between the driver and the customer: i.e. the driver/firm should have warned that there would be a premium fare in force (I assume there was no such warning).

I can't believe BiB would have threatened an overnight stay for something as trivial as this! Did this occur in the UK?

[minimax]

supraman2954 said:

pesty said: can the taxi driver charge whatever he likes? Of course, he can charge whatever he likes, but IMO, the driver would not have a leg to stand on unless there was an agreed contract between the driver and the customer: i.e. the driver/firm should have warned that there would be a premium fare in force (I assume there was no such warning). I can't believe BiB would have threatened an overnight stay for something as trivial as this! Did this occur in the UK?

are you sure cabs can charge what they like? I thought it was all done on metered rates set by the council. it's like that in nottingham and newcastle anyway...

[Plotloss]

What business do the police have in contract law?

[pesty]

Yes it was in the UK.

of course we only have the word of our aquaintance as to what happened.
He is an extremely wealthy guy. You can never be sure but I cant imagine he would try and stiff the guy for a few quid but strange things do happen.

I get the impression that maybe the Police didnt want the hastle and tried to scare him into just coughing up for an easy life for eveyone involved.

[wolf1]

Taxi drivers CANNOT charge what they wish. Fares are set down by the local licencing and are reviewed with the taxi firms anually. You are charged a set fee for the first mile and then for every tenth of a mile thereafter. If the journey is less than a mile you still pay for the first mile. I worked for a firm where a minibus driver kept charging customers minibus rate when they had just rang for a normal taxi. Most told him to shove it but some felt they had to pay the extra for some reason.

Sounds to me like the driver was trying it on as he was staying at a hotel and may not have been aware of the fares charged localy. Driver was caught out and spouted the crap about it being a merc (as if that would make any difference). Can't believe he had the bare faced cheek to call the police though. I'd ask for his fare card details and the exact mileage for the journey so it can be worked out exactly. Then I'd tell him again to stuff it the cheeky barsteward

[parrot of doom]

I'd sue the taxi driver, as your friend now has irrevocable proof of his deceit.

[LRdriver II]

I had this happen to me when getting picked up from a Hotel in Bruxelles. We get to the GA terminal and he asks for a higher fare. Reason was that it was a higher class merc limo. I told the handling agent (who ordered the transport from the hotel) that he could stuff it as we, the flight crew, hadnt ordered this "upgrade" so either he should accept the same we spent going in or get stuffed. He grumbled and accepted and the handling agent have since kept the taxi firm in check with this scam.

I also had a nutcase taxi driver in Budapest try to triple the fair back to the hotel, and the ensuing confrontation almost ended up in a fight/firefight.
AND the he tried to fob us off with Romanian money instead of Hungarian (look very similiar, the notes).

[ledfoot]

In Cyprus Taxi drivers are only allowed to have Mercs, but they do not charge extra

When you just want to get from A to B, who cares what make of car the taxi is.

[Zod]

If true, then it's time for a complaint about the Policemen, unless they Were drunk and acting up.

[lanciachris]

Once I got a taxi back up to campus at uni. after a small dousing in the sea. with a couple of mates. we were blatantly soaked and expecting the taxi driver to say not a chance. He looked us up and down, took us back to campus then suddenly exclaimed 'oh my god, youre all soaking. im going to have to take the cab off the road for the rest of the night, thatll be 40 quid each'.

We ran away and paid precisely all bloody students

[kevinday]

LRdriver II said:

I also had a nutcase taxi driver in Budapest try to triple the fair back to the hotel, and the ensuing confrontation almost ended up in a fight/firefight. AND the he tried to fob us off with Romanian money instead of Hungarian (look very similiar, the notes).

Always insist on the meter, I have had no problems in Budapest, but then, I have a concessionary fare card for one of the taxi companies.

[streaky]

A colleague of mine overindulged himself on BA's complementary wines on a flight to Prague. Despite explicit instructions not to pay more than 600 Korun (I usually negotiated down to 300 or 400 if a car wasn't sent to collect me) he ended up with a bill for 2,000 - which he paid without question.

I only signed off 600 on his expenses claim though .

The taxis in Prague were 'interesting'. Lots of Skodas, many Ladas, some Zils and at least one Tatra. I recall an occasion when a Zil turned up to collect a 'clerical officer' over from London. He refused to take the taxi after he saw the waiting driver cleaning a pistol - probably a Makarov 9mm ... all the cabbies carried one! Ah, the innocence of (that) youth .

Streaky