Bad taxi experiences from the airport?

[Fantomette]

I've just heard of a new (well, to me) type of scam at the airport: you get in the normal line-up at Pudong, get a good cab, but he stops right away and picks up another guy. They ALMOST take you to your destination, then extort a huge amount of money out of you (weird sentence... sorry!). For the sake of clarity, I'll copy-paste the email i got at work:

"Something happened this past weekend that I think the word should be passed around. A dear friend of ours came to Shanghai on business. This is his second time in Shanghai. When he arrived at Pudong Airport, he knew enough not to take the taxis offered by the touts in the airport. So he went and stood in line. He got into one of the good taxis, those turquoise ones with the telephone number on it. As the taxi pulled away from the curb, it went by the terminal and then stopped and another Chinese man got inside. He looked back at our friend, and chuckled and said are you not lucky that you get two taxi drivers for the price of one? Our friend knew he was in trouble. He was going to the Sofitel on the Pudong side. The taxi stopped one block away from the hotel and told him to get out but that he had to pay them 1500 RMB. He knew enough to argue a bit, but the one man grabbed his arm and the other man got in his face and started yelling. So our friend handed the money over and they gave him his luggage in the trunk and our friend walked up the street to the hotel, there they called the police. OUr friend was too shaken up to get a license plate number or could give a lot of information.

"I thought this was an isolated case, until I talked to (...). She said the exact same thing happened to her son when he arrived. She lives at Somerset, across from Hua Shan Hospital. The cab stopped outside her apartment gates on the street and the guys in the cab threatened her son and he handed over the money and shaken made his way to her apartment. Again, police called but what can one do? Might pass the word around since I have not heard or seen about this problem anywhere."

Is this totally new? How would you prevent this? Do you, like me, tend to keep your luggage on the seat so that you can exit quickly, if need be? Bring on the taxi stories!

[acjade]

Good thread but I got taken for the big ride on my first entry into the Middle Kingdom. I'm a real sucker. For that reason I check the price of EVERYTHING here from knickers to soap.

[con's fly is open]

Shivering with rage as I post this. Crooked cabbies should be tortured in front of the others.

[Fantomette]

Yeah, it's so hard when you don't know the ropes... My bf and I were taken for a ride (well, a shorter, more uncomfortable one than we'd planned for) in Vietnam as well. They packed us about 25 to a minivan, bags around and under us (for a 2 or 3 hour ride), and then stopped a few km short of our destination in Saigon, in a garage, and rolled the metal door down... There were guys on scooters waiting inside, in the dark... We thought, "And this is where we die a stupid death". But the driver was just scamming us on the price of the ride (we had paid extra to get all the way in the city), and the guys on scooters were hoping to sell us a ride. Ha. We ran for our lives, after I yelled at them (not too much, I was still uncomfortable!), and rested for a little while before getting into a nice, expensive taxi for the rest of the way.

[Fantomette]

Oh, another story, if you care: Once, my bf got into a cab late at nite to come home from work, realized he had no money so asked the driver to stop at an ATM, and then they drove home. When Dan paid, the driver examined the 100 kuai bill suspiciously. Dan knew it was real, it had just come out of the ATM. He got out of the taxi (without the fapiao, bad habit) and then the driver called him back, making him understand that he didn't want the bill. Dan thought, "whatever, they're all good bills, i can exchange it" (he was also really tired from work, that's his best excuse). So he did.

When he got home and told me the story, I said "Show me the bill! I'm sure it's a fake!" Sure enough, it was a (very good) counterfeit bill.

In case you're as naive as we once were, what happened was the driver exchanged Dan's perfectly good 100 kuai bill for a counterfeit one. NEVER leave your money out of sight!!! And ask for the fapiao if you have any doubts.

[Lotus Eater]

Taxi drivers and airports are classics in every country. In Oz I frequently flew into Brisbane and needed to head to the other side of the city - never once did a driver take me the same way. Scenic route every time - prices varied from $40-$50 for the trip.

Here the worst experience I have had was when I returned from Chengdu with my daughter and her boyfriend. I negotiated with the driver for a fair price, went over to the cab and put all our gear in the boot - went to get in - another foreigner in there. She wanted to go to the train station - so we talked about that a bit, but our stuff was already in the boot. So I figured, gotta go past where I live to get to the train station - it's OK. Nope - she was driven to the station first.

We figured we were being ripped off, so tried to talk to her about splitting the cost - and therefore all of us still paying a fair price. She was French and wouldn't talk with us except to insist she had to make the train station.

Dropped her off - she paid her full fare. Then we headed for the 17Y trip from the station to my place. My daughter was really stirring in the back seat. I waited until I figured we were close enough to walk if he tossed us out of the cab and then started in on him in my best Chinese - first he tried to say he didn't understand, but from the look on his face he understood exactly the meanings of the words I was calling him.

We still had to end up paying the price we had negotiated because he had the key to the boot. But I was pleased with my command and fluency of the language.

Other taxi story I have was in Cambodia. I caught the boat from Phnom Penh to Siem Riep and at the beginning arranged for a motorbike taxi to pick me up from the disembarkation point - 5 kms or so away. Got there - guy holding an interesting variation of my name up, but I could recognise it. I expected to be led over to a motorbike, but was instead taken to a taxi with driver sitting in it. Told no motorbikes. Started negotiating price - I wanted the same price I had negotiated earlier for the bike. They agreed.

Got in and headed off, but the whole way they argued that I should pay more. In the end I refused to talk at all and when I got out at the hotel they started arguing again. I held out the money I had agreed and they didn't want to take it. I finally told them take it or I pay nothing! I then called over one of the bellboys from the hotel and told him these guys were annoying me, so they finally left.

But generally taxi drivers are pretty good. Coming back from Beijing last week, I ended up I one of the fancy taxi because it was late and night and very few normal taxis were working the airport run and I couldn't be bothered catching the bus and then another taxi. So chatted to the driver, discussed the variation in prices between the normal green taxis and his fancy one - almost double per km after the initial 5Kms on the metre. He agreed it was expensive, pointed out tat the taxi was much newer and way more comfortable but also took me a pretty quick way home so it was only 50Y more than I usually pay. But we had a very companionable chat.

And taxi drivers are really happy to give free Chinese lessons.

[acjade]

I'd have to say that always in Xi'an I've had fair deals with the taxi drivers.

This might be that the son has put the word around that if any of them rip me off he'll personally serve their balls on a platter straight to their eyes.

Which is I suspect the metaphysical reason a taxi swiped me last summer. Only joshing.

I go every where here by cab and I'm treated well.

[George61]

I have never had any bad taxi experiences in China in 4 1/2 years. Once just after coming back from Boot Camp, my driver pulled over and told me in Chinese that he was sick and I should get another cab. He spoke so clearly and slowly that I was able to understand him, which made me believe that he was truly sick.

[Mr Nobody]

I have had two, sort of. One in Shenzhen where a cab driver told me 300 rmb for a ride to the airport, told him to m'kay off, and then when he tried to sucker another one, showed her where the bus to the airport was also.

The other was in Shanghai as I recently reported. Both places have a bad rep for rip offs of bignoses, and I used both examples for bad business ethics in class.

[Newbs]

The only gripe I had with taxi drivers in Hangzhou was they would sometimes be sitting in their cab, with the red light on, showing they were for hire, but when you went up to them they just weren't at all interested in you, because they were eating their lunch or something. Okay, you're allowed to eat, but how hard is it to turn your damned red light off?

I recall Con, I think, describing being ripped off coming in from Beijing airport. I'll take some of the credit for suggesting to the Great Helmsman that airport websites be in the links page, as they have some advice on getting from the airport to the city.

[Mr Nobody]

That happens a lot about 6pm.

[Lotus Eater]

Change over time - 4:30 - 6:00pm - really bad time to try to catch a taxi. They only want to go in the direction of where they do the shift swap. A lot of the Xi'an taxis now have signs up at that time telling you what time it is and which direction they want to go. Helps if you can read enough Chinese.

[Nate M]

Those of you who went to the 1st May Day trip have probably already heard this one from me. Some of you were even active participants helping me out, (thanks, Raoul). However, for those of you who haven't heard this one already, here is a lesson in how NOT to get from the airport to any destination, (especially Suzhou)!

Most of the following has been copied from letters I sent back home, so that's why some of the explanations of holidays and whatnot seem kinda basic.

Here goes:
Suzhou has been pretty good so far, but getting there was, we'll say, an "interesting" experience.

I wasn't able to get a train ticket to Suzhou. I kept getting told that I "couldn't order today", and must come back tomorrow. The 3rd time I came back, they told me "no more tickets". So I had to buy a plane ticket to Suzhou. On Friday night, we went to this really cool party on a boat in Tianjin. There were a couple of DJ's, a lot of beer, and around 100 people cruising up and down the Hai River in downtown Tianjin until 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning.

Once we got back, sometime after 3, I had around 3 hours to sleep before I had to wake up and start getting ready for my 8:00 class. My second class ended around 3:00 or so, and from there I got packed and was at the airport by 4:30.

The plane left at around 6:00 and I got to sit next to one of the smelliest guys on the plane. It has also been incredibly hot the past few days, (91 the day I left), and the plane was no exception. This was, without a doubt, the hottest plane ride I've ever experienced.

Arriving in Shanghai at around 8:00, I was pretty dead tired, and was just hoping to get to Suzhou and go to sleep sometime soon. I found out that I just missed the last direct bus to Suzhou, and so had to get myself to the train station.

Talking to a guy at the airport travel both, he told me that I could catch the 941 bus to the train station. After wandering around for about half an hour trying to figure out where the hell it took off from, I was finally able to find the bus stop, around half a mile away from the airport. Just as I got there, the 941 bus pulled up to the stop, and I and a couple of girls moved to get in. The bus driver stopped us from stepping on though, and said that this route was done for the night. Using a combination of broken Chinese and very basic Chinglish, the girls were able to explain to
me that we should take the 925, (right next to his), to the light rail
station and take that to the railway. Fine.

Once we got on the light rail, the girls asked me where I was going, and when I told them Suzhou. They said that's where they were going, so now I knew that at least I had some people willing to help me that I could latch onto. We got off the light rail at the train station stop and made our way out to an area behind the train station, where there was a ticket window for the train
stop. We were in line and I phoned my friend in Suzhou to let him know I was at the train station and was on my way. The area around the train station was crowded. This is quite possibly the biggest of the Chinese holidays, and it was packed. Thousands of people were camping out in an area around the train station so they could try and get the tickets they wanted. I already told you about my difficulties getting train tickets, so you should have an idea. The line took forever, and just as we got to the front of the line, they shut the window down, said they were closing up,
and to try again tomorrow. We were gutted. One of the girls, however, suggested going around to the front of the station, where the ticket windows should be open 24 hours.

In order to do this, we had to go back down into the light-rail area, (it was actually subway here), and walk underground about 1/4 of a mile to get to the other side of the train station. Once again, the area around the train station was completely packed with people. Squeezing our way into the lobby, we were again greeted with the oh-so-not-comforting sound of a man on a microphone notifying everyone that they were shutting down the ticket windows because tomorrow was May Day. It was unbelievable.

Talking to the girls, it seemed as though neither of us knew what to do. I asked if they'd be interested in taking a taxi, even though I knew it would likely be extremely expensive and that they wouldn't be able to afford it. However, they said they didn't think they had much of a choice and so we started looking around for taxis.


As we walked around the jam-packed square surrounding the train station, we were approached by a skinny looking guy with bad teeth, and inquired as to how much a taxi to Suzhou would cost. He told us he could get us one for 300. A train ticket would have been 22 RMB, but seeing as how it was either that or find a hotel, we decided to take it.

As it turns out, this guy was not a taxi driver. What he did was walk around finding black-market, (unofficial) taxis for people. The first guy we went to already had some people, so he had to search around for another 5 or 6 minutes before he found another. We haggled again over the price a bit before he acquiesced to our 300 kuai deal. We got in, and off we drove.

Things were going pretty well. We had gotten onto the highway and were making our way out of the city. Then, for some inexplicable reason, our driver decided to take a "short cut" which promptly got us stuck in horrible traffic for about 45 minutes. We moved on though, albeit painfully slowly.

We had moved out of the main part of Shanghai and were just about to move on past the toll gates and onto the main highway to Suzhou when the driver pulled off the road unexpectedly near a gas station. We thought maybe he needed gas but then he drove past there around a corner onto a dark side-road. The driver stopped the car and got out, walking back towards the gas station.

At this point in time I first started to sense that something was wrong. I had a really uneasy feeling but I didn't know what to do. A few minutes passed and I kept asking the girls "what's going on?" and they kept saying "wo bu zhidao", meaning "I don't know". By this time, I was fairly certain in my head that this guy was getting ready to rob us, but I didn't say anything to the girls. The thing that worried me most our bags were all in this guy's trunk and we had no way to get them out.

Finally we saw the guy move back towards the car. As a precaution, I got me keys out and held them between my fingers in case I needed to fight my way out.

The driver opens the trunk, takes out the bags, and then walks over to rear door and opens it. He mumbles something to the girls in Shanghainese and then we all got out of the car. We then walked up an embankment to the guard rail on the other side of the toll way. I asked the girls once again "what's going on?", and one of them told me. The driver had informed them that he would not take us any further. We were to pay him 200 yuan right then, and then another car would take us the rest of the way. As he said that, I saw a van approach us from the direction of Suzhou. It pulled around and came to a stop about 70 meters away from us. About 5 or 6 somewhat burly looking guys get out of the van and start walking towards us.

At this point, I realized that I was somewhat off on my initial assessment. The taxi driver wasn't going to rob us, he was merely going to extort money from us! The guys in the van were the ones who were going to rob us, and maybe do a little bit more than that...

My game plan at this point was pretty simple. Bash our taxi driver in the face a few times, maybe headbut him for good measure, and then take off running. I had just finished informing our driver in the most impolite way possible that he could go m'kay himself, and was about to carry out the rest of my plan, when one of the girls saw a police car traveling slowly down that side road our taxi had pulled onto. One of the girls started shouting towards the car and waving her hands. The taxi driver grabbed her arm and tried to stop her, but once the police car drove about 20 meters past us, it rolled to a stop and an officer got out. As soon as he did that, our driver took off running, and the thugs approaching us ran back into their van and took off.

The police officer approached us, and the girls explained what had happened. We then walked over to the taxi, and the police took down his license plate number. I'd like to think that they had it towed, but I don't really know because we didn't stick around that long.

So now we were out in the middle of nowhere with no ride and no apparent way to get there. Luckily, we still had money for a taxi, because we hadn't given so much as a jiao to the first guy. There were cars lined up at the toll booth and even a small dingy gas station nearby, but all the cars driving through were packed full. The girls asked the police officer if he could help us get another taxi to Suzhou, and he said that he actually had to leave on another assignment right now, but that we should go talk to his supervisor, who was parked over on the other side of the tollbooth. So we walked over to his supervisor and the girls once again explained the situation. Once we told him our story, however, the officer decided that his time would be better spent by berating the girls and telling them why they shouldn't be using black market taxis. After he'd done that for another 10 minutes or so, he finally said he'd walk us back down an entrance ramp about a mile or so away, and that there were some shops and houses around that area, so getting a taxi shouldn't be too difficult. We walked back towards that area, and when we were about half way there the police officer turned around, headed back to his car, and disappeared into the darkness.

We were finally able to get a legit taxi that was able to take us to Suzhou. They said they would only go by the meter though, and since we had no choice, we hopped on in. Because we had been taken out as far as the toll booth, that actually wasn't all that bad of an option. We ended up spending only slightly more (about 325 yuan), to get to Suzhou. Once we got there, I gave Raoul a call to get his exact address, parted ways with the girls, hopped in a taxi, and was over there sometime around 1:30 am or so, which was pretty good time given all that had transpired. Then I had a seat and drank beer with the gang, (I believe Raoul's Tequilla supply had been used up by that point, and we had to re-stock the next day).

[Stil]

See Nate, hotel with 2 girls is always the best option!

[Lotus Eater]

Hey Nate did get a hotel with two girls in Suzhou!! Woza and I looked after him VEEERRRRYYY well!

[Stil]

As i said, best option!

[woza17]

Taxi driver early this morning refused my tip, the bastard.

[ilunga]

That's a horror story Nate. Well, almost.

Finding taxis at airports always fills me with dread. Rip-off merchants all over, just waiting for unsuspecting laowai to come along. I don't think I've come across an honest driver at an airport here. Train stations can be just as bad.

I've only really been ripped-off/slightly scared once, and that was my own stupid fault for falling asleep. I woke up to see 40 kuai on the metre (10 kuai journey) and the driver stopped at a gas station. I decided to leg it, fell over, and dropped my bread (I used to stock up at the western bar). In my drunken state flagged the next taxi. Didn't realise until he's set off that there was a dude in the back. No metre. When he finally got ot my school he wanted 100. I tried to fob him off with 50 but his mate got out to block my exit. The school guard was 5 metres away sound asleep the useless m'kaywit. I had no choice but pay or he was going to drive me away to god knows where.

There are some cool drivers though. I met one last week who spoke fantastic English ('What's your nationality?' as opposed to 'Where are you come from?'). He's taught himself, as he wants to work in Beijing for the Olympics. Maybe you've seen him around Lotus.

[Lotus Eater]

Not yet but he sounds cool. The funniest one I have driven with (given other members of this forum kissing taxi drivers I wasn't brave enough to write "have had") was a guitar playing one - every stop light he would pull out his guitar and play until the lights changed - he didn't care how long traffic hold-ups were.