Good on you for the effort, cant hurt trying that's for sure.

hehe, nice job
thanks for doing something about it and standing up... the problem is that most tourist just pay what they are asked... thinking it's still cheaper in their home country... wrong mentality... (well at least for the farang working and living in Thailand, haha)

I went few weeks ago, thought to myself lets try the "official" taxis, should be much cheaper than the online advertised rates by Taxi shuttle services (750 to 850 baht to Patong),

apparently the taxi meter in Phuket starts at 50 (I live in BKK, here starts at 35), and it goes up FAST! (at least 2x times faster than BKK, capitals are normally not cheap...)
Ended up paying around 850 baht, +100 airport fee to go to Kata beach...
well at least they did not make a fuzz about using taxi meter, funny thing was that the sign on the dashboard with the drivers pic and name, was empty...

going again in 2 weeks, will book trough...

https://www.phuketshuttle.com/

Hope it goes well, their website says it's 850 baht to Kata, and 750 to Patong, which are normal prices for Phuket (to my knowledge), and they wait for you with name sign, much faster and easier than those rip off taxi's (even when on meter...)

Wish me luck

take care!

You need no luck. Phuketshuttle is good. Tried them 2 times in the last week and everything was fine. Driver was 10min before the pickup time at my house and this at 6 am. Airport late pickup was also hassle-free.

I forgot to mention, I came through HKT a couple weeks ago and used the metered taxi with no funny business (other than a fare that is 3 times a bangkok metered taxi). It was afternoon, not late night like in FM's case, which I believe makes a difference. I think the meter was around 700b so 800 with the airport surcharge. The limosene guys were asking 1200. And I also learned that the 200b shared van does not operate to Rawai.