Taxi company - £24 quid for a 2 mile journey

vaio

dizzybuff wrote: »

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"

Using mobile phones is indeed against the law and probably dangerous, the point I was making is that if it bothered you then a quick “please don’t use your phone when driving” when it was happening would have been the way to deal with it. In your post it comes over as you are mentioning it to somehow add weight to your fatuous argument that you’ve been overcharged.

Please report back on the response to your letter to the licensing officers

I’d put £10 on “thanks for your letter, private hire fares are not regulated so we can do nothing.” And an extra gold star for them if they add “but £24 is the correct fare for an 11 mile one way trip in a taxi”

If you mentioned the phone use I’m sure that warning letters will be sent to the firm and the driver will get a warning or maybe even the sack.

dizzybuff

Tried talking to the manager , he wouldnt listen to me, talked over me , sounded like he had already decided I wasnt getting any sort of refund.

athensgeorgia

pm'd you dizzy.

Tin and Pot is springing to my mind but i am a bit biased.

derrick

athensgeorgia wrote: »

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.

Thats about what I said,and I live in the same neck of the woods,(don't know where vaio lives but wherever, they seem to do things differently).
If the price is pre arranged that is one thing, but if it's on the meter, as most are round here, then the bold in the quote stands.

athensgeorgia

What i was also trying to say is if this company does do metre fares why pre- arrange a set fare put your metre on then have a moan to your operator and turn your metre off??? Sounds very suspect to me.

Would not be tolerated in our borough.

ceebeeby

You could always start by the company on here as a fair / fare warning to others of us who equally don't want to be ripped off.

derrick

athensgeorgia wrote: »

What i was also trying to say is if this company does do[STRIKE] metre[/STRIKE] fares why pre- arrange a set fare put your[STRIKE] metre[/STRIKE] on then have a moan to your operator and turn your [STRIKE]metre [/STRIKE]off??? Sounds very suspect to me.

Would not be tolerated in our borough.

metre is a measurement of length
meter is what measures the fare/gas/electric etc :rolleyes::D

Sorry;)

vaio

athensgeorgia wrote: »

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 www.2090.co.uk . I'm not advertising honestly just thought you might be interested.:D

Athensgeorgia, I can see that if you are running round in town centres then on the meter is an easy way to go. The OP mentions dark narrow county lanes and getting on for ten miles from the nearest taxi office so I guess she’s out in the sticks.

Nice web site your firm has, looking at where you are what would you say if a punter wanted to be picked up at Tame Lane in Denshaw and be taken to Ogden Lane in Milnrow?

That’s the same sort of distances that the OP trip was, would you do that on the meter starting when you got to Denshaw?

Speaking to the LA licensing officer is pointless (apart from maybe the mobile phone bit) as the law doesn’t allow them to set or regulate PH fares.

ClareEmily

Firstly yes £24 does sound stupidly expensive for a 2.5 mile journey and talking on a mobile phone is unacceptable. However what taxi driver is going to get out of bed for less than £24, unless town taxi companies, most drivers are in bed by 11/midnight?

My hubby is a taxi driver and I have learnt that he scratches around to make any kind of living and I must stick up for all those who think double time, time and a half (on bank hols) etc is unfair.

My hubby is is under Waverley Council and the fares are from them (he doesn't make them up, which some people actually think he does), they are set on the meter and he cannot tamper with them.

He obviously sets prices for airport and London run's as putting this on a meter would run into hundreds of pounds.

Double time at unsociable hours is also set by the council, if he does a pickup from a nightclub at 2am in the morning for example, then he potentially losing out from doing an early morning airport run.

The outgoing's to be a taxi driver are massive, the purchase and upkeep of the vechicle to the council's standards, can also only run his car for a set amount of years, he has to pay a higher insurance obviously, cost of petrol, council tests etc etc.

In return he has to contend with waiting in line at the taxi rank for hours on end, just to get to the front and get someone who can't be bothered to walk a hundred yards and so earns £2.60 to sit at the front of the queue again.

He also has to deal with people running off without paying, people booking airports then cancelling at the last moment, drunk people, rude people, and yes he has taken non payers to the police station with success everytime.

derrick

ClareEmily wrote: »

My hubby is a taxi driver and I have learnt that he scratches around to make any kind of living and I must stick up for all those who think double time, time and a half (on bank hols) etc is unfair.


Double time at unsociable hours is also set by the council, if he does a pickup from a nightclub at 2am in the morning for example, then he potentially losing out from doing an early morning airport run.

The outgoing's to be a taxi driver are massive, the purchase and upkeep of the vechicle to the council's standards, can also only run his car for a set amount of years, he has to pay a higher insurance obviously, cost of petrol, council tests etc etc.

In return he has to contend with waiting in line at the taxi rank for hours on end, just to get to the front and get someone who can't be bothered to walk a hundred yards and so earns £2.60 to sit at the front of the queue again.

He also has to deal with people running off without paying, people booking airports then cancelling at the last moment, drunk people, rude people, and yes he has taken non payers to the police station with success everytime.

Boo bloody hoo, if he doesn't like it, change jobs, no one has a gun to his head forcing him to be a taxi driver