Taxis

[trinn]

During the half term I have been talking my son to his asd holiday club now as I don't drive and DH is working miles away I rely on taxis, the firm I use are pretty cheap and as I'm a regular they normally charge me 'mates rates', so Monday phones for a taxi to take me there and back got charged £6 good going I thought as the journey is about 20 mins round trip, come Monday afternoon charged me £7 which I paid, Come wednesday they charged me £8, which I am very pissed off about, phoned them to book for Friday morning to be told the prices I paid on Mon and wed where wrong and it will be £10.

Pissed off is not the word, told them I would find another company who is cheaper my MIL has told me to stick with them as we are loyal customers AIBU for looking else where?

I mean how can they justify charging different prices for the same fecking journey, it's like they are plucking a price out the air and charging what they like.

Do they put the meter on when you start the journey? They should and then you would have some idea of whether they really are charging mates rates.

no, it's a taxi company which don't use meters, the ones that use meters are more expensive for example to get from town to my house it costs me £2 in a metered taxi it's £3.50, most of the firms don't use meters it's only the ones in the town centre that do.

Ah right, that's a difficult one then. I would ring round for the best quote.

YANBU to look somewhere else but that sounds pretty cheap to me tbh, I always ask how much it will be before I book/get in

YABU. They can charge what they want because they are an illegal firm. All licences taxis are fitted with a meter.

how are they an illegal firm? they are issued with a taxi license from the local council offices, all the taxi firms are set up like this in my town, the hackneys only run from the town centre and you can only book these for a price.

suad, I always ask when booking and they normally say ask the driver ./sigh

Right, so it's a minicab that does not have a taxi sign on the roof then?

In that case I suppose you could try negotiating with the driver before you travel, otherwise you have only have to choice of accepting or declining.

Agree the price beffore you get in.

The minicab company I use gives you a quote and then sends a text when the car has arrived telling you the reg and description of the car and quoting the price.

That sounds very cheap for a 20 minute journey.
I worked for a women's only cab firm. Minimum charge was, IIRC a fiver then so much per mile after.
They were able to give you a bang on price due to a piece of software they had.