$930 for 5-minute taxi ride
A Scottish tourist charged $930 for a five-minute taxi ride in Wellington is returning home today seriously out of pocket.
To add insult to injury John Barrett tipped the driver for good service.
He is angry about the financial loss, and frustrated that authorities and his credit card company have, so far, been unable to help him recover the huge bill for the short trip from Wellington Railway Station to a Johnston St apartment.
The case is no surprise to Taxi Federation executive director John Hart, who receives at least one complaint a week about overcharging.
‘‘We’ve had many other instances of this sort of thing but none at this level. These are the ones we’re hearing of, but I think there are probably a whole lot more, and the concern would be that visitors from overseas are being ripped off.’’
Hart said deregulation of the taxi industry made it difficult to track down independent taxi drivers even when customers had an eftpos receipt.
Barrett and his wife Susan arrived by bus on January 21 and jumped in the first taxi parked on the rank outside the train station.
It was a white car with ‘‘Wellington’’ on the roof sign, and the male driver displayed a photo ID.
At their apartment, the meter reading was under $10 but Barrett said the driver’s hand obscured the top of the card reader so he did not see the amount he paid, and he did not get a receipt.
Later that day, he was shocked when his credit card was refused at a supermarket, and he discovered the $930 charge from ‘‘Taxi Wellington’’.
If the driver had accidentally put the decimal point in the wrong place, Barrett said the error should have been rectified by now.
He has approached several Wellington taxi operators and a company that supplies eftpos units to independent taxi drivers, all to no avail. The matter was now in the hands of the credit card disputes team.