Taxi company - £24 quid for a 2 mile journey

Rockporkchop

In the OP you stated that your friend said that it was a bad line and she didn't hear properly. Then your further post said that your friend was sure she didn't agree a set fee. Did your friend hear what they were saying over the phone or not? Don't get me wrong, I think the fee is extortionate but it does sound like your friend might be a bit confused about the actual conversation.

vaio

derrick wrote: »

The distance to pick up does not! ! A fare begins when you pick up the customer and ends when you get to the destination, at least it does in this neck of the woods, the distance to get to the customer is irrelevant.

The only way they could legitimately charge this amount for a 2.5 mile journey would be IF the customer agreed the price on the phone, (this is disputed)!
Why did the taxi driver turn off the meter? And why did the OP not ask why they turned it off?

Certainly complain to the Council LA, I am pretty sure that fares via the meter are regulatd whether black cabs or private hire!

A taxi fare begins when you get in the cab, a private hire is booked by phone and is entirely different. Advice is to agree the fair in advance as private hire fares are NOT regulated by the local council.

Re the meter, private hire can use any method they like for working out the fare, ideally it is agreed in advance although our council that taxis can (not must) use the meter if they want to when on private hire

It now turns out that it was about a 22 mile round trip for the driver so £24 doesn’t sound so unreasonable. I live out in the sticks and on the rare occasion I go out clubbing my ride home is the same sort of distance and takes about 20-25 mins to get from club to home so about 45 min round trip for the driver. Last time I did it it cost me £20.

OP……I’d be tempted to ring and enquire about booking the same or similar trip again and see what they say. If they quote you less then they are ripping you off, if they quote the same amount then it’s probably their rate for that trip.

Having said that, even if they are ripping you off it’s your word against theirs about whether the fare was agreed in advance and I suspect there is nothing sensible you can do about it particularly as it wasn’t you who made the booking.

Bleating on about the mobile phone just makes you look petty, if it made you uncomfortable you should have mentioned it at the time

derrick

vaio wrote: »

A taxi fare begins when you get in the cab, a private hire is booked by phone and is entirely different. Advice is to agree the fair in advance as private hire fares are NOT regulated by the local council.

Re the meter, private hire can use any method they like for working out the fare, ideally it is agreed in advance although our council that taxis can (not must) use the meter if they want to when on private hire

It now turns out that it was about a 22 mile round trip for the driver so £24 doesn’t sound so unreasonable. I live out in the sticks and on the rare occasion I go out clubbing my ride home is the same sort of distance and takes about 20-25 mins to get from club to home so about 45 min round trip for the driver. Last time I did it it cost me £20.

/QUOTE]

Well round here it does not matter where you come from, (black cab or private hire), the fare starts when the customer is made contact with, (I did some black cab and PH a few years ago so have experience the way they work), there was one fare they did,(as PH), which involved a journey from the office of about 5 miles, and the fare was only a distance of about 1.5 miles, and that is all we could charge, can't remember why they continued to do the job,(it was a regular one), but no one liked doing it, they use meters and the meter was always turned on once we had made contact with the fare.

It could be when a PH fare is taken the nearest vehicle could be round the corner, or if a quiet night at the office, you cannot charge to make the journey to the customer, unless you arrange so at the time of booking, personally I would never agree that, and the times I have called a PH to my house, (and the last time was about 4-5 weeks ago), the fare starts when I get in the vehicle.

Sneezy

On a Sunday (in the South) the fare is time and a half (this i've learnt through bitter experience) - some companies can/will charge a fee before setting off - when i was staying in Essex a couple of years ago the place where we were staying for the night was about a mile away from the venue - i asked to call a taxi and was told it would be at least £20 as the taxi (PH) company was located in the next village.

If there were a few of you can you not split the cost and next time double check?

PasturesNew

It's not just the distance, but the from/to and time that is taken into consideration. I've been turned down for taxis at 1am because I was only going 1.5 miles and the taxi drivers were looking for longer trips as it was their busy time and they could take me 1.5 miles and miss out on taking 3-4 people home from a club for the next 45 minutes, for a bigger fare and tip.

How long was it between when the taxi arrived and when he drove off? You pay waiting time with a taxi - and you would have been fitting/releasing the childseat you mentioned... that is time/money that goes on the bill too.

movilogo

You can often bargain to a good extent with private hire cabs. I use cabs very rarely, but when I do, I ring multiple cab companies and get quote from each of them. Then take the cheapest one.

vaio

derrick wrote: »

.......Well round here it does not matter where you come from, (black cab or private hire), the fare starts when the customer is made contact with, (I did some black cab and PH a few years ago so have experience the way they work), there was one fare they did,(as PH), which involved a journey from the office of about 5 miles, and the fare was only a distance of about 1.5 miles, and that is all we could charge, can't remember why they continued to do the job,(it was a regular one), but no one liked doing it, they use meters and the meter was always turned on once we had made contact with the fare.

It could be when a PH fare is taken the nearest vehicle could be round the corner, or if a quiet night at the office, you cannot charge to make the journey to the customer, unless you arrange so at the time of booking, personally I would never agree that, and the times I have called a PH to my house, (and the last time was about 4-5 weeks ago), the fare starts when I get in the vehicle.

That’s fine if you live near to a PH office, what if you lived 10 miles away? 20? 50?

Ask a London firm to come up here and take me a mile down the road to the pub whilst only charging for the 1 mile and 2 mins I’m in the car rather than the 2 hours & 100 miles they’ll take to get to my house and back to base and it’ll be a different story.

I’m sure councils don’t have the power to regulate PH fares so they can basically charge what they like and you can accept or decline. Our council say that taxis can use the meter when on PH fares (but that is can not must) if they want to

So a town centre firm on a town centre job might well use the meter even on PH jobs as it makes life easy for everyone.

At the end of the day it’s a matter between the PH firm and the customer, most PH firms agree the fare in advance to avoid just this sort of argument. I suppose if they don’t then you could refuse to pay anything in excess of what you consider to be reasonable.

In this case £24 for a 22 mile round trip doesn’t sound unreasonable

In Sollihull the regulated taxi fare is about £2 a mile one way. So that the 11 mile one way trip would have cost £22 plus the extra £2 paid on flag drop

www.solihull.gov.uk/Attachments/TableofFaresApri20081.pdf

dizzybuff

Thanks for the replys , the time was 7:30 , my freind is sure she didnt agree to anything . If it was a bad line the controller should not have taken advantage of this and confirmed it with me when the cab arrived..

I hqave sent a letter to the licencing officer. I was not being petty about the mobile phone.. If youa re aware of any laws using it whilst driving is against it.. He put our lives in danger using it .. frank,ly i dont see that as being "petty"

athensgeorgia

I work in a Cab office and most of our fares go off the metre unless pre arranged in advance to be cheaper that what the metre would say iyswim.

I think what the OP was charged is extortionate and in our area it doesn't matter if the driver had to drive 100 miles to get to you the fare is from making contact to dropping off. Its up to the operators discretion if the booking is 'worth' taking for their area.

If you were one of my customers i'd be passing your query onto the manager to deal with who normally speaks to the driver to arrange a refund. I work in quite a high-tec company though so we use PDA's to dispatch bookings which includes mobile tracking and exact logs, we also use voice recording so we could double check exactly what was said between the telephonist and customer.

If the manager couldn't resolve it and you had further problems he'd be telling you to speak to licensing (the local authority).

If you wanted to double check you can have a nosey at our website https://www.2090.co.uk . I'm not advertising honestly just thought you might be interested.:D

athensgeorgia

Just to add if you want to pm me the exact pickup and dropoff i can put it in our computer and tell you roughly how much ours would charge but it does go off the metre :rotfl: