Wow I got ripped off.

testicle · 19-12-2005 05:49PM

City Centre -> Bray : €52
City Centre -> Shankill : €24

Distance from Shankill to Bray : 2.18 miles.

Go figure!

Tar.Aldarion · 19-12-2005 06:00PM

It's amazing that you can be in a taki for half an hour( the last day) and be charged 11 euro and be in a taxi for ten minutes and be charged twenty euro. Ya right ****er. I might have been wearing a tux but come on we were not going to pay that...

YeatsCounty · 19-12-2005 07:52PM

Nightwish wrote:

i would never take a taxi to or from the airport as I know how much they rob people blind on that route, I always take the aircoach from O'Connell st, its only 7.50 and its really nice.

€7.50 for the Aircoach? It was only €5 the when I took it this summer and in 2004.

A local taxi driver in my area (rural West Sligo) charges €10 for a one mile journey. Why don't we, the people of that area, report him? Because we're too friggin' nice and non-confrontational.

19-12-2005 07:54PM

Never tip taxi drivers, they earn more than 90% of their customers.

stormkeeper · 19-12-2005 08:05PM

NeMiSiS wrote:

Taxi from Naas to the airport is about 60 euro..
TK

I thought it went up... that would make the airport to Naas 120 Euro?

Either way, it's a ripoff.

JohnCleary · 19-12-2005 08:09PM

YeatsCounty wrote:

€7.50 for the Aircoach? It was only €5 the when I took it this summer and in 2004.

A local taxi driver in my area (rural West Sligo) charges €10 for a one mile journey. Why don't we, the people of that area, report him? Because we're too friggin' nice and non-confrontational.

a 3 mile run in sligo only costs me a fiver

Woden · 19-12-2005 08:12PM

a good story:

a few years back was out with my girlfriend at the time on xmas even in my local pub we'd exchanged gifts and all that jazz and looked to get a taxi. a taxi driver stopped who wasn't on duty has just been dropping off some presents to his mam and took her home. plyd him

data

Civilian_Target · 19-12-2005 08:54PM

Nightwish wrote:

i would never take a taxi to or from the airport as I know how much they rob people blind on that route, I always take the aircoach from O'Connell st, its only 7.50 and its really nice. I was rightly stung when I first moved up to Dublin, by a taxi driver who was bringing me fom Camden St to Whitehall who brought me up the Malahide Rd and through Coolock.

Sometimes there's no choice - I've been stung a little on the airport route - but never particularly badly, always traffic related rather than taxi related. The only times I've ever been ripped on a Dublin taxi is when with a girl and therefore not talking to him or watching the meter, so they can do what they like. But after many international taxis - my standard par-for-the-course is to simply give them what I know the route price to be if they try to overcharge by more than about 20%, and if they argue, tell them where to shove it. They generally accept their lot.

ferdi · 19-12-2005 09:23PM

garred wrote:

You'd be amazed how snotty some people can be when you do this, "your the taxi driver, you should know" and all that crap

they might have a point, dont you think? in london cabbies have to take the knowledge test before they can take customers, here any cowboy (no offence) can set up taxiing without having a ****ing clue. i work in a chemists, if someone came into me and said "can i have a bottle of suncream please" and i said "sure, could you show me where it is?" would i get away with it?

therecklessone · 19-12-2005 09:46PM

Was out in Dublin the October bank holiday weekend (Sunday), had a bit too much to drink. Wandered the city looking for a taxi for an hour and a half but couldn't get one for love nor money (was told by a mate he'd had to walk to Stillorgan from the city centre cos of the same)

Anyway, I'm on O'Connell St at 5am and I see the Aircoach. Living in Swords, I jump on it and pay my €3 (airport staff :cool: ), then when I get to the airport I go to the taxi rank and hop in the back of a car. He pulls off, then asks me where I'm off to. "Swords" was the reply. You should have heard him...

Stinking taxi driver: Ah jaysis, thats only a tenner. If I'd known that I wouldn't have taken ya.
Me: Whats the problem, won't you be back in ten minutes?
Stinking taxi driver: Did ya see the queue up there, there'll be 80 cars in front of me.
Me: No wonder I couldn't get a taxi in town then.
Stinking taxi driver: I find that hard to believe, jaysis, I'm waiting for a fare for 2 hours so I am.

Anyway, he mouthed off all the way to my place, snapping at me for directions. Then it dawned on me...the EI104 had just landed and he'd been hoping for an American tourist he could fleece into town. Result!

Got to my place...

Me: (sarcastically) How much do I owe you again?
Stinking taxi driver: Its €10, ya know that already.
Me: Oh yeah, right. I won't tip you cos you're an ignorant wa*ker, next time you want to mouth off remember its your customers who pay your wages. Night now...

:v: :v: :v:

Sam Vimes · 19-12-2005 11:44PM

the_menace wrote:

Personally, I'd have contacted a solicitor and had the c**t done for kidnapping. :rolleyes:

kidnapping lol

Sam Vimes · 19-12-2005 11:52PM

D wrote:

Never tip taxi drivers, they earn more than 90% of their customers.

my girlfriends dad's a taxi man from the pre-deregulation days. he paid 80,000 give or take for his plate that's now worth 1000-2000 (or whatever it is now). he was planning to retire on the money from selling his plate but now he has to work 7 days a week and effectively can never retire.

the government "compensated" some of them but whether or not a driver got compensation was based on their age, not how long they'd been working. so even though he'd been a taxi driver for 25 years, he was 10 months too young to be compensated. basically the government told him that his 80,000 wasn't worth as much as someone else's who was born a year before him.

even if he was compensated he wouild have only got about 20,000 for his 80,000 plate. he's trying to fight it in the courts but he can't really because he has to work all the time

him having to work 7 days a week can have its advantages though. me and the gf often have the house to ourselves

:cool: :v:

Capt'n Midnight · 20-12-2005 12:28AM

Ruaidhri wrote:

It's a pity you know,I've only seen Dublin taxi drivers slated here.
I live in galway,and the exact opposite happens. My route home is usually 6/7euro's. But i'm always let off on 5euro. Taxi drivers down this end of the world rock! Once you're not stupidly drunk (ie fishing around in your pockets for 5 mins for change) the will be cool to you :v:

Never had any problems with taxi's in Galway, Kilarney or Cork. About half of Dublin taxi's are rip off merchants.

There should be some people who are paid to act like passengers ( job for some foreigners ?

) and when overcharged blatently the taxi driver should loose his license and be barred from applying forever + 24 Hours. Judging by my personnal experiances and those of everyone I've ever heard a good few taxi drivers are breaking the law on a daily basis.

testicle wrote:

City Centre -> Bray : €52
City Centre -> Shankill : €24

Distance from Shankill to Bray : 2.18 miles.

Go figure!

The boundry of the Dublin Taxi zone is at the bridge at the start of Bray. A lot of people used to (and probably still do) get out at the bridge and walk or get a local taxi the rest of the way. - Been going on for years.

Capt'n Midnight · 20-12-2005 12:36AM

Commander Vimes wrote:

my girlfriends dad's a taxi man from the pre-deregulation days. he paid 80,000 give or take for his plate that's now worth 1000-2000 (or whatever it is now). he was planning to retire on the money from selling his plate but now he has to work 7 days a week and effectively can never retire.

Just rotten luck, if his timing had been better he could have made a packet. That's the problem with speculation.

The question is why the plates got so expensive - that would have bought a house back then.
The answer is that people saw them as a license to print money or at the worst a golden goose that would provide a steady income and you could get a cosy ( cosie ?) or two to to keep it chuning 24/7

The govt' or the council didn't see any of that £80,000 yet we the tax payer still had to buy them out. Nice to know that everyone in the country has had to part with money to pay for the Dublin taxi monopoly.

garred · 20-12-2005 01:01AM

ferdi wrote:

they might have a point, dont you think? in london cabbies have to take the knowledge test before they can take customers, here any cowboy (no offence) can set up taxiing without having a ****ing clue. i work in a chemists, if someone came into me and said "can i have a bottle of suncream please" and i said "sure, could you show me where it is?" would i get away with it?

Hardly the same thing. Even the guys who are doing it years do not know every street in Dublin, not north/south/west Dublin but Co. Dublin. Its only the minority who go on like this but even if they do have a valid point there are ways of putting things.

For the people going to Bray from Dublin, get the driver to drop you to the roundabout at the top (should be about 18-20 quid on the meter). When you get there offer him another 10 to drop you to your house, tell him its 2 minutes up the road. After driving all the way out there I'm sure he'd take it.

the Guru · 20-12-2005 01:06AM

Taxi drivers are all bastards,

Zaph · 20-12-2005 01:12AM

Worst rip-off by a taxi driver I've ever seen was surprisingly not in Dublin. I was in Italy in September with 4 friends, and when we got off the train in Rome we split into two taxis, with the two other guys in one, and me in the second taxi with the two women. This meant that there was at least one person in each taxi who knew how to get to where we were staying. When we got to the hotel the two lads were out front waiting for us, and one asked me how much the taxi was. I told him it was €11, which was followed by a torrent of swearing. Their guy had charged the lads €26, and to make matters worse, they gave him an extra couple of euros tip!

garred · 20-12-2005 01:16AM

the Guru wrote:

Taxi drivers are all bastards,

Yeah, thanks for that.

Savman · 20-12-2005 01:35AM

the Guru wrote:

Taxi drivers are all bastards,

He's not right, but he's not wrong!:D

Superman · 20-12-2005 02:00AM

some are alright and can be ok to talk to but its brilliant taking the piss out of them especially when they start talking about "blaeden nigerians", they get really annoyed if you compare nigerians to northsiders!
Got ripped off one night headin home o'connell st. to rathfarnham, detour in churchtown was €27, usually about €17, I was gonna pull a legger but decided not to bother, I really don't see why more people don't do it tho!

Worst experience with a taxi driver was ariving back at the airport at 6am one morn from a bogie flight from malta, and I walked down to get a taxi, queue was empty and went up to a driver he got really annoyed at me for not queuein and started trying to square up, I was in no humour for him and riled him up loads.
It was brilliant cause he was about 5ft and was actin all hard!

but yes they are mainly scum!

Tusky · 20-12-2005 02:55AM

I make a point NEVER to tip a taxi driver. Even is hes nice. They make fine moneys...more moneys than me. Tipping is for good service & for people who are on bad wages. Taxi drivers are not. Taxis home from town cost me around 23 euro each time. 20 minute journey. Youch

Capt'n Midnight · 20-12-2005 03:00AM

I wanted to be a taxi driver but my parents were married and I didn't want to be circumcised.

patzer117 · 20-12-2005 03:57AM

the Guru wrote:

Taxi drivers are all bastards,

LOL! I've had taxi drivers try to give me the wrong change a few times, which is just plain annoying, especially if you've been nice to them or they have seemed nice to you. Had a great experience one night though, was coming back from Clontarf to Stillorgan with a few people and nearing the city centre we noticed the meter wasn't on. Fearing a scam we said 'Eh, what do you think you're playing at, you're meter isn't on', 'Ah, ****, sorry i didn't realise, no worries, our policy is not to charge unless the meter is on!' he replies, turns it on and only charges us the fare from town! Couldn't believe it. Some of them are nice guys it seems

interested · 22-06-2006 10:23AM

testicle wrote:

City Centre -> Bray : €52
City Centre -> Shankill : €24

Distance from Shankill to Bray : 2.18 miles.

Go figure!

You probably know at this stage but the round about at the north end of Bray is the current county boundary between Dublin and Wicklow. As a result Taxi drivers can legally knock off the metre when you get in and take you to the cleaners for the fare. I used to state my destination as St. Brendan's roundabout on the shankill road, get the metre price and walk / stagger the last bit.

interested · 22-06-2006 10:31AM

First off Im not generalising about Taxi Drivers but merely stating facts.
Im commuting for work to the Uk at the moment and for the last 3 fridays Ive arrived back in Dublin at around 8pm and headed for the Taxi rank to ensure I catch the second half of whatever world cup match is on. I live in Beaumont.

Week 1: When I got into the cab and stated my destination I got mutterings of 'that sh*thole, f*cking hell ...etc' and then after a pause 'Would you not get the bus down there' - my response was along the lines of 'is there any chance you could just do what Im paying you to do and drive the car please'

Week 2: Similar, the guy managed to supress his anger verbally but managed about 3 episodes of road rage on the way home which were dangerous and totally his fault.

Week 3: Same again, and a nice tour of the M1 before I asked him which particular route he was bringing me on and was there any chance he could take me to Beaumont before 8.45

My question is: is it less hasstle to head upstairs and pick up a lift from a taxi thats dropping someone off at the airport

Maybe Ive had bad luck and those 3 taxi drivers were an exception at dublin airport.

ergo · 22-06-2006 12:29PM

have to say, i haven't had problems with the majority of the many taxi journeys I have taken (especially being a local)

there is nothing worse though than, while, already slightly depressed at being back in cold bleak miserable Ireland at 6am (eg. for me in December 2001 after coming back from Florida to be greeted by the scum of the earth praying for a windfall in the guise of some unwitting American tourist just off the red-eye from Boston or NYC)

then he proceeded to gruffly give us an extensive tour of the old Ballymun, us kind of looking at each other nervously, aware that our worldly goods are safely locked in this fecker's boot and sure God knows where he'd bring us and to who if we objected

that's some welcome home

generally if I can at all I'll get the 747/ Airlink or whichever is available, the tickets you buy at the airport double as 1 day ramblers on Dublin bus so you can go into town and hop on the 15 or whatever for no extra cost

or very early morning would get a taxi to Leeson St birdge and the Aircoach, has never let me down

I'd be all for that above suggestion of foreigners posing as customers in a "secret shopper" type of mode, might protect some tourists from this disgracefuleness

thelordofcheese · 22-06-2006 12:48PM

The best taxi driver I've ever had was a few weeks back, early on a Friday night, I flagged one down on O'Connell St.

I was in the Taxi all of 30 seconds when the driver started giving out

"THAT Fu(kin' disgraceful!"
I was expecting some rant about "dem foreigners stealin' our jobs" but instead

"that ****er infront of me drove right past you and didn't pick you up, his light is on an' everythin'. **** the lot of them!"

and proceeded to rant about how terrible taxi drivers were, and how he'd never trust them, and recounting how another taxi driver had tried to rip him off when he was on a night out with his missus..

bloody hilarious, and very informative, and he didn't overcharge me either.

wish I'd had the presence of mind to take his name, the man is a legend.

Duckjob · 22-06-2006 01:21PM

A couple of years a friend of mine from Laois was living in Ranalegh with his Finnish girlfriend. They had been to Finland visiting her family and brought her mother back with them for a holiday in Ireland.

So they got into a taxi at the airport, and she got into the front and he and the mother got into the back. In broken english asked the taxi driver to go to Ranelagh. The taxi set off and she and the mother were yapping away to each other in Finnish, while my friend said nothing.

The taxi route went something like -this:

Airport - M1 - Santry - Coolock - Clontarf - Marino - Annsley Bridge - East Wall Road, East link! - Sandymount - Stillorgan - Donnybrook - Ranelagh.

They pulled up in Ranalegh and the taxi driver cheerfully presented the bill which IFAIR was somewhere in the order of £40 (pre-euro), at which point my friend leaned forward from the back seat and said, in a broad Laois accent:

"you know something, thats the wierdest ****in route i've even seen from the airport to Ranelagh!"

, at which point the taxi wanker went pale and starting pleading with my friend not to report him and offered to waive the fare. So they got out, noted his number, paid him nothing and reported him the next day anyway.

nesf · 22-06-2006 01:29PM

Why was this thread dragged up?

Wow I got ripped off.

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