How we get cheated by taxi in Hong Kong

How we get cheated by taxi in Hong Kong

This is my fourth time visiting Hong Kong since 2011 and I love Hong Kong. There are some incidents here and there in Hong Kong like rude waitress and China tourists but it never fail to disappoint our holiday in Hong Kong.

Yesterday, my mother and get cheated by a taxi in Hong Kong. This is my first time bumped to such scum taxi after taking taxis in Hong Kong for so many times.

For this trip, we stayed in Central and we were having dinner at Jamie’s Italian at Harbour City so after dinner we took the taxi back as we had a long day. We went to the taxi stand and hop on to a taxi.

Shortly after we moved, the taxi driver told us that there will be additional charges as it was over 9pm. He told us we had to pay double. I thought there were such rules until I checked online with my phone and only then I knew it was a scam. However, since my mother was in the taxi (sitting at the back) and I thought I don’t mind paying double as it was a short distance as long as we are safe back to our hotel. We were staying at Mini Hotel Central near Lan Kwai Fong.

I couldn’t find his ID on the dashboard but since we were moving, we had no choice or do we? I am just worried that he will dropped us somewhere unfamiliar to us.

Reaching the hotel, the fare was around HKD 90 and he asked for HKD 295 and no receipt was given. Right after we stopped near the hotel, we went out and open his back boot. My mother noticed him acting weirdly and he told us his boot was malfunction.

For my mother safety, I just paid him HKD 295 and he drove away hastily. Well, the main reason he opened his car boot so I can’t take picture of his number plate.

The driver is a fair and thin looking man wearing a spectacular with soft tone voice. He knew what he was doing so there was no ID, no receipt given and he opened his back boot so we can’t capture the number plate.

We walked into a perfect taxi scam and we hope by posting and reporting this to the authorities will helped other tourists aware of such situation. Of course, he was targeting tourists as we were not familiar with the taxi fares and rules.

We were angry of the incident but we were glad that we are safe.

I wanted to confront the taxi but I was worried that the driver could hurt my mother or do something crazy to us. We are visiting Hong Kong as tourists for holiday and we do not want any bad incidents happened to us. Well, he cheated us around HKD 200 but it didn’t spoil our mood for this holiday.

Every trip is unique and this is one lesson we learned for a fee. I have taken taxis in many cities such as New York, Barcelona, London, Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Tokyo, Taipei, Sydney and we have seen and experienced many taxi scams. That’s why people are resorting to Uber or GrabCar because of such incidents.

We hope this story will help other Hong Kong tourists to be aware in taking taxis in the country. This is one bad apple spoiling the image of the taxis as whole in Hong Kong.  To complain about taxi scams in Hong Kong, visit this website at http://www.info.gov.hk/tcu/taxi/

We lodged our complaint and hoped they will respond and punish the culprit properly.

Wilson Ng