Tuk tuks and taxis: Bangkok’s solution to overcharging crisis

[richard_smith237]

2 minutes ago, Liverpool Lou said:

"Nothing ever came about my reporting the drivers".

How could you know that?

A bit nit-pickey LL and overly defensive of a system everyone knows is broken.

 

IF such complaints were taken seriously & acted upon we’d all see the improvements. 

 

 

[Liverpool Lou]

3 hours ago, Bangkok Barry said:

I got a taxi from Swampy airport. The driver didn't want to use the meter. I walked away to get another taxi. He called me back and said he would use the meter. He did, but drove in such a roundabout way that the fare ended up as what he had originally wanted.

Why get into a taxi with a driver who has already demonstrated, 100%, that he is dishonest?

[richard_smith237]

2 minutes ago, Liverpool Lou said:

Why get into a taxi with a driver who has already demonstrated, 100%, that he is dishonest?

100% agree….

 

I ignore any driver who shows dishonesty… i.e. those who pull up & open the window, I just know that’s the start of a negotiation rather than the attitude of a driver who’s going to use the meter. 
 

That said, depending what on the area & time my resolve usually lasts about 15 mins before I admit defeat & take the non-meter fare because they’re all in on it & I’d never get anywhere otherwise. 
(I.e from Suk Soi 11 at midnight). 

[richard_smith237]

13 minutes ago, Liverpool Lou said:

"Nothing ever came about my reporting the drivers".

How could you know that?

Slightly different but wife reported a bus driver (caught on our dash cam) of jumping lights & nearly killing us. 
 

The response from the DLT complaint line was… “so what, they didn’t hit you do it’s ok”….

 

I think that’s a fair evaluation of how complaints are dealt with here.

[Liverpool Lou]

1 hour ago, SuwadeeS said:

If you don't pay your ticket within 3 months, your vehicle will be confiscated until everything has been paid.

Most Thai taxi drivers don't have a vehicle to be confiscated, they belong to co-operatives and are rented on a daily basis.

[Liverpool Lou]

12 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

18 minutes ago, Liverpool Lou said:

"Nothing ever came about my reporting the drivers".

How could you know that?

A bit nit-pickey LL and overly defensive of a system everyone knows is broken.

...but a 100% factual comment on his 100% speculative assertion.  And I wasn't defending the system, I was pointing out that the complainant could never know what action was taken (unless he was the recipient of the rewards that are occasionally offered), for all he knows, every complaint he made (bet there wasn't more than one, though) may have resulted in action against the driver.

[paul1804]

It is just a classic case of no discipline, no properly enforced law and the usual Thai system allowing corrupt practices. 

The authorities should draw up a set of operators rules ( Taxis, Tuk tusk etc ) that are within the current legal regulations and enforce them through the lovely honest boys in blue!

The authorities should also advise tourists to not use a taxi that doesnt want to use the meter and to report the Taxi number, install signs in the taxi stating this. 

Any taxi not using the meter has their licence suspended and the driver fined, ban from driving for a set period of time, 2nd offence double the penalty, 3rd offence, fined and disqualified. Tuk Tuks I am not up to speed with their regulations but there must be some operating guide lines! 

 

 

[richard_smith237]

23 minutes ago, Liverpool Lou said:

...but a 100% factual comment on his 100% speculative assertion.  And I wasn't defending the system, I was pointing out that the complainant could never know what action was taken (unless he was the recipient of the rewards that are occasionally offered), for all he knows, every complaint he made (bet there wasn't more than one, though) may have resulted in action against the driver.

 

Factually correct - but you seem to have slipped back into that binary world of yours where everything is either factually correct if it can be proven, otherwise is incorrect. 

 

In this case we have experience of being in Thailand for a while, some of us for many years, many of us with exposure to such circumstances, some of us with multiple examples of exposure to such circumstances - given this experience it is a very fair assumption to suggest that 'nothing ever came from an individual report made against drivers'.....  I believe, but cannot prove that this statement is more likely to be correct than it is incorrect, in your binary world you want proof which brings a degree of absurdity when given how complaint are more commonly handled here in Thailand. 

 

.... Your suggestion that 'for all he knows every complaint he made resulted in action against the driver'  would be more of a stretch of the imagination than 'nothing ever came from individual complaints'...

 

 

In Thailand, it seems the nothing ever comes from a complaint unless it it is either made through connections (i.e. to the Top and filters down to those responsible), OR, it generates embarrassing media attention...

 

Of course, you can argue that I couldn't possibly know that for all complaints ever made in Thailand, but your counter comment brings absurdity into the mix - we can discuss with a degree of likelihood based on our experiences here. 

 

[richard_smith237]

5 minutes ago, paul1804 said:

It is just a classic case of no discipline, no properly enforced law and the usual Thai system allowing corrupt practices. 

The authorities should draw up a set of operators rules ( Taxis, Tuk tusk etc ) that are within the current legal regulations and enforce them through the lovely honest boys in blue!

The authorities should also advise tourists to not use a taxi that doesnt want to use the meter and to report the Taxi number, install signs in the taxi stating this. 

Any taxi not using the meter has their licence suspended and the driver fined, ban from driving for a set period of time, 2nd offence double the penalty, 3rd offence, fined and disqualified. Tuk Tuks I am not up to speed with their regulations but there must be some operating guide lines! 

 

 

As pointed out by other....     The rules and regulations that are already in place are already good enough...  New rules on top of the old ones will make no difference. 

 

... The issue already the apathy shown towards the enforcement of existing rules in this 'sector'....  

 

With little effort, these issues 'could' be resolved, however, there is an underlying belief amongst those of this socio-educational-economic tier that authorities will always side with the Thai, this hubris often comes with a lesson hard learned, by the Thai who are caught cheating etc... but there is never enough consistent enforcement of those in such positions (Thai Taxi / TukTuk drivers et ) to have any concern for being caught cheating / scamming or just refusing the meter.... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[alex8912]

4 hours ago, marin said:

Sure they would🤣

I hope you don't think I meant the Taxi driver!!! I meant the passengers. 

[Dirk Z]

16 hours ago, retarius said:

Hope it works. It would be nice to have a decent taxi service. Tuk-tuks are vile and dirty and should be scrapped immediately. They are not in any way picturesque, they are simply uncomnfoprtalber dangerous and smelly driven by mad men.

Raise the fares in regular air-conditioned taxis, taxi drivers deserve a fairer deal for doing a tough job, but jail any driver who doesn't use a meter or has tampered with it. What I would like to see is the meter wired into the ignition, so that if the meter isn't running the ignition doesn't work, (but of course you would also need sensors in all the seats to ensure there were no passengers, and then the ignition would work without the meter. 

Agree on all qualifications, but you forgot loud, too loud, unnecessary loud.

[Jonathan Swift]

5 hours ago, cdemundo said:

I have had Bolt drivers say they want cash when I am already paying on my CC through the app.

They were ok when I explained that though.

Another Bolt driver messaged me before pickup that he wanted cash so I canceled as same problem, and I don't want to pay twice.

Has never happened to me with Grab.

There is a thing where if you get stuck in traffic using Bolt they can charge you double or more without telling you. I told a guy I would get out and walk and he tried to turn a 105 baht fare into 300 baht, tried to show me some sort of rules on his phone, but I refused and he took the 105 baht. Good thing he didn't try to drive off with my luggage. Mostly good experiences with Bolt. 

 

[digger70]

Tuk tuks and taxis: Bangkok’s solution to overcharging crisis 

 

Can be Easily fixed When the driver gets Reported and IF If the Police are Made to Arrest  the Drivers and Confiscate the vehicle for a Month and Fine the Driver THB 10,000 

Put meters in Tuk Tuks as well.

But this is Thailand and the Taxi Mafia has Control  Not the Police.

Doesn't say much for the Law doesn't it Weak as P!ss

 

There is a law in Thailand that requires taxis to always run on meters and not to decline any customer that hails them when they are available. The government opened a hotline (1584) to call in relation to customer complaints against uncooperative taxi drivers.

 

[pacovl46]

6 hours ago, Bangkok Barry said:

 

I got a taxi from Swampy airport. The driver didn't want to use the meter. I walked away to get another taxi. He called me back and said he would use the meter. He did, but drove in such a roundabout way that the fare ended up as what he had originally wanted. Of course, a tourist new to the country wouldn't know they had been cheated. 

Yeah, that's true. 

[off road pat]

11 hours ago, pacovl46 said:

There's a pretty simple solution to the overpricing: as soon as they ask me how much I want to pay I walk away and go to the next guy until I find one who either wants to use the meter or give me a fair price in fhe case of motorbike taxis and tuk tuks. 

Hm,..You should tell that driver a fair price you want to pay. He is only trying to know if you are a tourist that don't know anything and would be easy to overcharge !!

[richard_smith237]

3 hours ago, digger70 said:

There is a law in Thailand that requires taxis to always run on meters and not to decline any customer that hails them when they are available. The government opened a hotline (1584) to call in relation to customer complaints against uncooperative taxi drivers.

 

About 5 or 6 years ago there was also an DLT App on which you could report Taxi's who failed to use their meter etc... But, you had to upload a Photo of the Taxi which meant we had to have our phone on camera read whenever asking a taxi...  this would...

a) Force drivers to drive on by and ignore you (if they saw your phone on) - they were the dodgy guys anyway.

b) It would antagonise drivers and escalate a situation. 

 

Additionally, the App wouldn't accept the photo upload, as such a complaint could never be submitted without a photo of the taxi license place or (interior licence plate)... i wonder if this flaw was deliberately programmed...  of course later announcement's were 'no complaints' Thailand Taxi's are all operating with great customer service !!! 

[MangoKorat]

13 hours ago, thesetat said:

They already have a help line to report these scamming drivers. They even have an app for it. But alot of good those did when no-one speaks english and the app is in Thai. I tried to report a driver once on the app and once on the phone. I had video footage of what happened for each incident. Nothing ever came about my reporting the drivers. So these nice new little help lines is just like most of the lip service foreigners read about. It will work for a short time then it will stop. 

Which is precisely why this news report is a waste of space. As usual, lots of talk but no action.

[pacovl46]

16 hours ago, off road pat said:

Hm,..You should tell that driver a fair price you want to pay. He is only trying to know if you are a tourist that don't know anything and would be easy to overcharge !!

The fair price I want to pay is what the meter says at the end of the ride!!!

[garzhe]

So simple to deal with the taxi overcharging issue if the will is there. Do as in some other countries. Compulsory notice on the dashboard of taxis saying " NO METER - NO CHARGE" with a phone number to call for assistance. 

[drgoon]

Having visited Thailand for many years I find it quite easy to navigate the city without using taxis or a tuk tuk. There are, of course, times when it is unavoidable and I usually negotiate a price. 

 

Unfortunately, some new tourists aren't that savvy and get sucked in or just pay.

 

All well and good coming out with a 'raft' of measures but as usual, they need to be enforced.

[PingRoundTheWorld]

Ohh stickers!! That'll fix it.

 

Seriously, the only real solution is high penalties and strict enforcement. If it's a choice between losing their license or using the meter - the meter will win - but as long as it's a small fine and off they go nothing will ever change.

[PingRoundTheWorld]

On 3/1/2024 at 2:17 AM, Thonburi-tales said:

Seal of Trust sticker. lol Absolute classic Thailand 101.

Wasn't changing taxi vacancy light from red to green was supposed to indicate it's an experienced driver who uses the meter? in my experience the green light ones are WORSE with some demanding 200 and even 300 baht for a 5 minute ride. Refused of course, but stickers won't do crap.

On 3/1/2024 at 3:36 AM, Bangkok Barry said:

 

I got a taxi from Swampy airport. The driver didn't want to use the meter. I walked away to get another taxi. He called me back and said he would use the meter. He did, but drove in such a roundabout way that the fare ended up as what he had originally wanted. Of course, a tourist new to the country wouldn't know they had been cheated. 

Yeah, I usually just walk away when they are trying to scam - it's a good indication of how the rest of the ride will be. At the airport never bother with taxis - they're almost always scammers in my experience. I just use Grab or another app - it might not be cheaper, but it's safer, they won't try to scam you, and you'll probably arrive faster.

 

On 3/1/2024 at 3:32 AM, cdemundo said:

I have had Bolt drivers say they want cash when I am already paying on my CC through the app.

They were ok when I explained that though.

Another Bolt driver messaged me before pickup that he wanted cash so I canceled as same problem, and I don't want to pay twice.

Has never happened to me with Grab.

Grab has been accepting credit cards for years now, Bolt just started recently. More likely some drivers don't realize that's even a possibility and/or don't expect it so they ask for payment. As for the driver asking you to pay cash BEFORE the drive - yeah that's dodgy. Grab used to be great in Bangkok a few years ago, but has gone downhill since - probably because they charge drivers higher fees so many drivers prefer to work with other applications. Ironically this likely promoted the success of Bolt, InDrive, etc and shifted a lot of customer to those apps instead.

[tomacht8]

As a Bangkok taxi user for decades, I can only say that the taxi service has gotten significantly worse recently. An estimated 75% of taxi drivers don't want to use a meter and offer their fantasy prices through their rolled down passenger side windows. As a recognizable tourist/foreigner you have to be patient and hail many taxis until you find one who is willing to use his meter. Apparently these rip-off taxi drivers do not have to fear any sanctions from the authorities.

[impulse]

On 3/1/2024 at 10:43 AM, dougieboy said:

Not surprisingly, however these new types of app based taxi wouldn’t exist had it not been for the greed of some (a lot) of the meter taxi drivers. 

 

How do you 'splain the fact that they exist on the ultra regulated markets back in the nanny states?

 

My heart actually goes out to meter taxis all over the world who paid big bucks for their hack shields, only to find out they're pretty much worthless in the age of Uber, Grab and the like.

 

[richard_smith237]

1 hour ago, tomacht8 said:

As a Bangkok taxi user for decades, I can only say that the taxi service has gotten significantly worse recently. An estimated 75% of taxi drivers don't want to use a meter and offer their fantasy prices through their rolled down passenger side windows. As a recognizable tourist/foreigner you have to be patient and hail many taxis until you find one who is willing to use his meter. Apparently these rip-off taxi drivers do not have to fear any sanctions from the authorities.

 

100% agree...

... Yet we read all the time of crack-downs....  

[richard_smith237]

On 3/1/2024 at 8:07 PM, MangoKorat said:

On 3/1/2024 at 6:15 AM, thesetat said:

They already have a help line to report these scamming drivers. They even have an app for it. But alot of good those did when no-one speaks english and the app is in Thai. I tried to report a driver once on the app and once on the phone. I had video footage of what happened for each incident. Nothing ever came about my reporting the drivers. So these nice new little help lines is just like most of the lip service foreigners read about. It will work for a short time then it will stop. 

Which is precisely why this news report is a waste of space. As usual, lots of talk but no action.

 

Indeed... And the App itself described by 'thesetac' was unusable. 

For any report to be accepted, it needed a photo of the 'offending taxi'.... But, the app wouldn't accept uploaded photos, and thus complaints were not possible on the very platform designed for taking complaints !!!! 

 

Thailand is not really country where complaints are handled well at all. 

Even in the 'better' companies, the complaints handling is extremely poor as if a 'western team' have been brought in, but ultimately the underlying culture of 'complainants are just trouble makers' takes over.... 

 

 

 

[richard_smith237]

17 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

How do you 'splain the fact that they exist on the ultra regulated markets back in the nanny states?

 

My heart actually goes out to meter taxis all over the world who paid big bucks for their hack shields, only to find out they're pretty much worthless in the age of Uber, Grab and the like.

 

 

Thats a valid point...   While impulse uses the 'New York' example where drivers can pay up to US$1 Million for their 'shield' to the city.

 

Does such a similar 'thing' exist in Thailand ???  where drivers have to pay an inflated amount for their licence to operate and this also ensures the fare paying public are insured ?

 

(I've had a couple of incidents with taxi drivers - they weren't insured which makes me suspect they also weren't licensed, thus making the licensing argument somewhat moot).

 

I know the vest used to cost money for 'win riders'... but I'm not sure about the Shield style system, which I think some US posters projected as an example of what occurs in Bangkok.... 

 

As I understand it - a Corporation (company) will register a load of taxi's... and a taxi driver who is a licensed taxi driver will rent the car from the company for xxx baht per day.

I'm not sure what 'under the table' payments are required to register the taxi, but I'm sure there are plenty.

 

[dougieboy]

Reply to Impulse:
You have a good point, however, I still stand by my argument and even in the “ultra regulated markets” as you put it, council regulated taxis are still fiendishly expensive and this creates a space, a space for competition, and competition drives innovation and in come the entrepreneurs with their modern fancy new apps. And I must add that a lot of Thai women don’t feel safe with the Thai cabs but feel safer in a Grab. 
But the real point I’m making is that Thai Meter Taxis are also well regulated but choose to defy those regulations. 
Personally when I’m in Downtown Bangkok I prefer to take my life in my hand and use the motorcycle taxis. 

[MangoKorat]

3 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

Thailand is not really country where complaints are handled well at all. 

I agree, however, they claim to have methods where customers can get help - often aimed at tourists.

 

I guess they advertise these things in order to a). Simply make it look like there is help available - even though the reality is that there isn't and b). Part of the usual 'talking shop'.

 

I remember many years ago getting very p'd off at a hotel that had booked an extremely loud wedding party in a hall directly under my room.  The 'Thai Style' bass was literally making my floor shake - not a hope of getting any sleep.

 

When I first went to complain they said the party would end by midnight - it was still going at 3am when I packed my bags and asked reception for a refund which was of course, refused.  Instead of getting angry, I called the Tourist Police to ask for their help. I kid you not, they didn't speak English. The Tourist Police couldn't speak the International Language.

 

I wish it was possible to get them to understand that its far better to say and offer nothing rather than advertise a service that either doesn't exist or does not in fact offer any help.

 

They are clearly thinking that anyone who reads the notices in taxis will feel secure because there is a method of complaint but in fact they do the country more damage by not actually having things in place.

 

Anyone who returned to Thailand under the 24 hour quarantine scheme will know exactly what I mean.  You were supposed to get tested on arrival, download an app and wait until your results came through. Provided they were negative, you were good to go.  There was a further self test at I think 7 days and the hotel were supposed to give you that and explain what it was about.  I was just handed the kit, nothing was said and off I went.  There was a 'helpline' number with the kit, I called them, they just said 'Upload, Upload' and put the phone down. After a lot of playing around I learned that you were supposed to upload a photo of your negative self test on the App - was it something like Thai Chana??? I tried it - the app wouldn't work and I gave up.  For the rest of my stay I was sure someone would arrive at my door and arrest me or I'd be arrested at the airport when I left - nothing ever happened. Lots of people were posting about this at the time - all having similar problems. 

 

I remember some discussion on here when people realised that there were no checks - anyone could actually provide your second test sample. One member on here suggested swabbing your pet cat. 😁

 

I seem to remember a Thai minister being quizzed about problems with the App by the Thai press at the time (could have been Anutin). His reply was that everything was in hand, they'd set up a helpline where anyone having problems could get advice - yeah, 'Upload, Upload' - the extent of the advice!

 

What his answer really was is exactly what we are discussing BS!!! The whole testing thing was just BS - they just wanted to appear like they were doing something.

 

Edited March 8 by MangoKorat

[bristolgeoff]

If you use grab you see the fare,sometimes cheaper at different times.In bkk or elsewhere have and use meters everytime.No agreement don,t use.You really only need certain things in place to solve these issues.