Telegram’s reporter pretended to be a tourist to see how much the taxi drivers would charge her for rides. One driver charged HRK 70 for a two-kilometre ride.
Taxis and their integrity when you’re a tourist is the first thing everyone warns you about when you’re visiting a foreign country, so Telegram’s reporter Andrea Božić decided to check what the situation was like in Zagreb. Disguised as a Greek tourist, she went on 13 taxi rides and was overcharged in five cases, and in one case, there was no invoice, so it was undeclared work, which, of course, is illegal.
The worst case was paying HRK 70 for a 2-kilometre ride. Eight rides were properly charged, with the meter running and an invoice, while the scams included turning off the meter, setting their own prices and adding fake kilometres to the invoice.
If you take Cammeo, Eko Taxi, Zebra, or Radio Taxi, you can count on the same start price and price per kilometre, which you can find online. However, independent drivers can set their own price and change it whenever they feel like it, which she actually witnessed happen – the prices were different when she checked them on two separate occasions.
Let’s start with the positive examples.
- Cammeo
The 2.8-kilometre ride cost HRK 23, the meter was on and the driver issued an invoice. - Radio Taxi
The driver was the only one of the 13 tested who opened the door for her and charged her HRK 55 for a 5-kilometre ride, the meter was on, and she got an invoice. - Eko Taxi
The driver was pleasant and charged her HRK 26.20 for a 2.8-kilometre ride, which is what the online price list stated. - Zebra
The same as Eko, the price matched the online price list, so it was HRK 25 to get to the Main Bus Station.
Independent Taxi Drivers were a completely different story. There were two positive examples of honest drivers, but most of them tried to overcharge her.
- Main Railway Station
The reporter had a series of bad experiences here. First, the drivers sat on the curb drinking beer, and after she’d asked one of them to take her to the National Theatre, his friends shouted that he can’t charge her only HRK 20, so he charged her HRK 70 for a 1.7-kilometre ride and wrote the invoice by hand.Next, she came back and spoke Croatian to one of the drivers and no one wanted to take her to the National Theatre because the ride was too short, so they said it was not worth it. One of them offered to do it for HRK 50, but when she said she needed an invoice, he started shouting, drove back to the station and told her to get out. When she started writing down his plate number, he shouted that his number was 1414, which, in reality, is the number you call to get Eko Taxi.
Finally, she and her colleague pretended to be tourists and asked for a ride to Avenue Mall (which is 4.3 km). He said it would cost HRK 100 (more than double than what it should’ve cost) and they got a handwritten invoice.
- Črnomerec
She paid HRK 50 for a 7.19-kilometre ride, which is fair, but when she googled the driver, he wasn’t in the system, which means that it was undeclared work. - Kaptol
The only independent driver who charged her the correct amount and gave her an invoice, took her from Bakačeva to Hotel Astoria – HRK 22 for 2.3 kilometres. - Gajeva
She asked a driver to take her to Arena Shopping Centre and was charged HRK 66 for a 9-kilometre ride, which would be ok if she hadn’t used an app on her mobile phone that showed that it should have been 6.7 and not 9 kilometres. - Mihanovićeva
She was charged HRK 35 for a 4.1-kilometre ride, which was what the online price list stated, so she was pleasantly surprised.
Excerpts taken and translated from Telegram.hr.
