Today I was having my car serviced whilst in Chiang Mai, so while it was being serviced I got a Tuk-Tuk over to Central Airport Plaza shopping mall. I did some shopping and had a bite to eat, whenthe time came to get a taxi back to the Toyota dealer I found that the Taxi drivers operating outside the shopping mall are operating a price fixing scam, and that included the so called “Meter Taxis”

There were 5 meter taxis there, all claimed that their meters do not work and wanted 100 baht to take me just over 1km, I declined and asked to be taken “on the meter” they just laughed at me, but not just me, they were cheating all the people both Thai and foreign visitors alike.

The Tuk Tuk drivers were in on the scam, they refuse to accept less than 100 baht even for a 1km journey.

Of course not all Taxi drivers in Chiang Mai are thieving scumbags, and the ones working from the Airport Shopping Plaza are giving them all bad name.

In Chiang Mai as in Bangkok you should stubbornly refuse to get into a meter taxi that won’t switch on the meter, if you accept their “offer” you can be sure it’s at least double the correct price.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 11:44 am and is filed under Thailand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.