NEWS: Notorious Taxis Take Mayor for a Ride, page 1

Prague mayor Pavel Bem has promised he will intensify crackdowns on Prague's greedy taxi drivers when he got the same bitter treatment many tourists experience while in the Czech capital. Acting on a request from a local journalist, Bem put on a fake mustache and a goatee with dark glasses. He then took a taxi between two of the cities major attractions, the Old Town Square and the Prague Castle. Upon his arrival, the cabbie charged him 785 koruna (euro26; US$34) for a three-kilometer ride (1.9 miles) - that is roughly 6 times the regular fare.

story.news.yahoo.com
Prague Mayor Pavel Bem got a close-up look at how the city's notorious taxi drivers operate this week when he went undercover for a ride and was overcharged by some 500 percent.
Bem, at the request of the daily Mlada Fronta Dnes, wore a disguise and pretended to be a foreigner when he hailed a taxi from Old Town Square to take him to Prague Castle, a route commonly traveled by the city's tourist masses.
Upon arrival, Bem could not believe his eyes when the three kilometer (1.8 miles) trip cost a whopping 785 crowns ($34.17) about 500 percent over the official rate.

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On the surface this looks just like another odd story; however we all can learn a very good lesson from it. I highly recommend before you take a trip, doing a google search using keywords Taxi, rip-off, ripoff followed by the city name, also when traveling in cities where they do not have meters I highly recommended you ask what the fare will be first. If you think the fare is too high, try getting the driver to lower the fare or just ask another driver what his fare will be. Most cities that do not have meters, will have a standard fare or drivers will haggle over the price, so it never hurts to ask. In addition, you can also do a google search of average taxi/cab fares followed by the city to find what is normally charged.

Since this forum has so many posters from various countries, I would like to ask you this; do you know of any taxi rip-offs in your city? If you know of some please share them in this thread. That way if and when someone uses the keywords I have given above they should come up using a search engine. This is turn may give ATS more hits where the adds appear which in turn may help revenue for ATS.

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