Taxis ! will things ever change ? - Meter car or Taxi Apps or others - Still a scam ?

[CharlieH]

 

The story of Taxi meters in Bangkok and other areas is an age old story of scam rip-off etc and of course this is carefully balanced at any opportunity for a press shot of some cabbie finding a stash of cash and handing it in.

But will things change ? or will they just find other way ?

 

Take a look at this........just another story from the unsuspecting punter......

 

 

Hello - today, I was overcharged by a red & yellow taxi, which was booked via app
This is the third time this has happened to me with a local taxi booked through an app.








I agreed to a charge of THB 264 for the one-way trip from Bangtao to Patong.
When I entered the car at 1.35pm, my card was charged the THB 264 that was agreed.
Half way through the trip at 2.18pm - AND WITHOUT ANY DISCUSSION OR AGREEMENT - the driver charged an extra THB 100 to my card.
This charge only showed up after I left the car, walked away, and the bank app sent the total charge.






Clearly, the taxi mafia members have found yet another way to cheat people, by exploiting a loophole in firms "conditions". As follows:



I did complain to companyvia their app, but am not getting my hopes up.





If I venture a guess, then the driver will claim he asked and I agreed. WHICH I DID NOT.

Let's see if they are serious.

Thank you for publicising this to help others not to get cheated by Taxi drivers.

[MalcolmB]

Apart from in Phuket I find taxis in Thailand very cheap, especially in Bangkok. 
Much cheaper than in the UK.

364 thb from BangTao to Patong sounds quite reasonable to me even with the 100 thb surcharge.

[Liverpool Lou]

9 minutes ago, CharlieH said:

The story of Taxi meters in Bangkok and other areas is an age old story of scam rip-off etc

The story of Taxi meters in Bangkok is an age old story of scam rip-off etc by a small minority of drivers.  

[Liverpool Lou]

27 minutes ago, CharlieH said:

I did complain to companyvia their app, but am not getting my hopes up.

Perhaps his waiting until a resolution with company had been found, or otherwise, would have been better idea?   There may have been no "scam".

[pomchop]

use bolt and pay in cash at end of ride??

 

....i have had several problems with uber in various places in usa mostly where driver claimed i was not at pick up point and charged my credit card a cxl fee...i contested everytime and the charge was quickly removed...i suspect lot of drivers give it a shot and hope u are too busy or don't care to contest the charge as it is usually less than $10....very easy for them to say u were not there at busy pickup points like airports....i like bolt where no credit card required....

[rough diamond]

Can you book rides like Grab, Bolt etc. to take you somewhere and then wait for you, say 20mins, and then return home?

 

[georgegeorgia]

4 hours ago, MalcolmB said:

Apart from in Phuket I find taxis in Thailand very cheap, especially in Bangkok. 
Much cheaper than in the UK.

364 thb from BangTao to Patong sounds quite reasonable to me even with the 100 thb surcharge.

Obviously you don't use Uber in the UK  they are cheaper than taxis 

[georgegeorgia]

Among my complaint letters written this week,and yes I keep a list 

Dynamite,Agoda , Trip ,and a few companies in Australia I also have  Grab on the list !

I was overcharged too and wrote to them ,at first they sent me out a generic email in reply denying my refund of 100 B

It was a taxi I ordered from Grab not a normal car ,he the driver added 125 b too after I left the car 

 

I wrote to them ( Grab HQ) the second time with the office  person name in Grab HQ asking them how many sick days they took this year and if they had medical certificates

 

Lo & behold they accredited my account with 200 B with an apology 

Moral of the story is , DON'T order a Bolt or Grab TAXI just order a "normal " car 

 

 

 

[jimn]

I always use Bolt and always go for the cheap economy car option. Most of the time the car you get is excellent. Also this is one of the only services that I prefer to pay Cash. Payment by card and they can add anything they want.

[hotsun]

16 hours ago, MalcolmB said:

Apart from in Phuket I find taxis in Thailand very cheap, especially in Bangkok. 
Much cheaper than in the UK.

364 thb from BangTao to Patong sounds quite reasonable to me even with the 100 thb surcharge.

The taxi drivers all wish they were suckers like you

[ChaiyaTH]

I thought that within the Grab application both users always need to first agree to make changes before being able to do so? Like if you want to change your ride, mid-ride, that is possible too, but the driver usually would need to accept that first.

 

Not sure how they could change the ride to have a higher or extra custom charge instead? That means the entire ride would have changed? Maybe this is the actual scam and that tourists accept that part, not knowing it also costs more.

So someone books a ride to X destination, the driver accepts and the customers gets in. The driver now says he needs to fix the location and shows your location which you nod to yeah that is the one. You then get a small pop-up again with destination, perhaps not showing the price now also changes, and then it is charged once you arrived and review. 

Or how would this work? In Hanoi they were way more aggressive, they would just ditch you half way and not care about the grab ride at all, knowing you are then either paying them cash a lot or stuck in the middle of nowhere in some suburb of hanoi.

 

I use grab daily since it exists so I would not know how a taxi could scam me with the actual fare of a ride I already booked.

[ChaiyaTH]

Update: I just see these screen shots again but this tourist has booked a metered version taxi, that is based on estimate prices. So what is the scam even? That is not a fixed price fare booking at all. Just a minor construction drive around and traffic jam could justify the extra 100 already.

[ChrisKC]

17 hours ago, MalcolmB said:

Apart from in Phuket I find taxis in Thailand very cheap, especially in Bangkok. 
Much cheaper than in the UK.

364 thb from BangTao to Patong sounds quite reasonable to me even with the 100 thb surcharge.

That's very little to do with the OP.

 

It is NOT very (or quite) reasonable to be charged more than the agreed fare!

 

Try to address the nature of Charlie's post!

 

 

 

[buick]

21 hours ago, MalcolmB said:

Apart from in Phuket I find taxis in Thailand very cheap, especially in Bangkok. 
Much cheaper than in the UK.

364 thb from BangTao to Patong sounds quite reasonable to me even with the 100 thb surcharge.

 

i paid 500thb for that route quite a few times via private car taxi.  364thb is a bargain. 

[PattayaParent]

Pay cash

[BexMan]

I did a timed prebooked Bolt airport trip recently in Malaysia. I saw the driver was paying for motorway tolls and thought I'd give him a large tip to cover the tolls as well.  Shortly after I got a message with increased charges from Bolt. As I was leaving the country, I just left it.

[Straight8]

On 3/13/2025 at 8:11 PM, MalcolmB said:

Apart from in Phuket I find taxis in Thailand very cheap, especially in Bangkok. 
Much cheaper than in the UK.

364 thb from BangTao to Patong sounds quite reasonable to me even with the 100 thb surcharge.

GTFO with this "it's cheaper in the UK" nonsense. We are not in the UK. There is a reason people choose to live in Thailand, one of which is to avoid paying UK prices.

 

This kind of rip-off BS can get out of hand quickly once more cabbies clue in. This time it was 100 baht extra. Next time it will be 120 & spiral out of control.

 

 

[scorecard]

On 3/13/2025 at 4:11 PM, MalcolmB said:

Apart from in Phuket I find taxis in Thailand very cheap, especially in Bangkok. 
Much cheaper than in the UK.

364 thb from BangTao to Patong sounds quite reasonable to me even with the 100 thb surcharge.

 

But you don't recognize that 90+% of taxi users in Thailand are Thai who could never pay the typical costs in the UK. 

[FolkGuitar]

On 3/13/2025 at 6:05 PM, rough diamond said:

Can you book rides like Grab, Bolt etc. to take you somewhere and then wait for you, say 20mins, and then return home?

 

Yes. There is a Grab page where you can add in stops along the way, with the taxi waiting for you. There are a dozen different options these days, but not so clear in the English translations.

[Red Forever]

Phuket is rip off central. 
Thailand has many more places deserving of our money.

I’ll repeat my recent Bangkok taxi fares:

Central Bangkok to BKK 311 baht.

BKK to central Bangkok. 315 baht.

Dunno how they do it.

[The Old Bull]

I was staying in a hotel on the outskirts of Bangkok and needed to go to an ATM. By the time the taxi got me there he had B 100 on the meter. After I was done I thought he would turn around and go back the same way , instead he took off in the opposite direction. Down a couple of back alleys across a field and back to my hotel with a total of B 150 on the meter. They are not all crooks.

[PattayaParent]

On 3/16/2025 at 8:38 AM, The Old Bull said:

I was staying in a hotel on the outskirts of Bangkok and needed to go to an ATM. By the time the taxi got me there he had B 100 on the meter. After I was done I thought he would turn around and go back the same way , instead he took off in the opposite direction. Down a couple of back alleys across a field and back to my hotel with a total of B 150 on the meter. They are not all crooks.

 

Then why wasn't it B 50 to get there?