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Outrage after cabbie rips off foreign passenger for $560
A taxi driver refuses to take a woman holding a child in the Myeongdong area in Jung-gu, Seoul. Korea Times file
By Ko Dong-hwan
By Ko Dong-hwan
A receipt, spread online, shows a taxi receipt for 630,000 won.
A Korean taxi driver who allegedly charged a foreigner 630,000 won ($560) for s trip has aroused public outrage.
A receipt (picture and partially modified to hide personal information), shows the Seoul-registered vehicle was a privately owned taxi, not a corporate property. Payment was made at 4:46 p.m. on Dec. 28, 2018.
The receipt shows “0.00 Km” for the distance. The time the trip began is also missing. The slip shows payment was made by “foreign AMEX card.”
The driver most likely erased the travelling distance and boarding time from the rate-calculating terminal and demanded the money from the cardholder, evidently from overseas.
The receipt is widely seen as proof of a swindle because people know it is impossible for a trip to cost so much. A one-way trip from Seoul to Busan, the farthest city from the capital, is 400 kilometers away and trip usually costs about 350,000 won.
Taxi drivers and other employees from the public transport industry gathered in front of the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul, protesting against the launching of Kakao T Carpool, Dec. 20, 2018. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
An online comment said the fare was “impossible unless the driver travelled along the entire coastlines of the country's peninsula.”
Other citizens and news reports criticized the rip-off as one of the offensive practices often committed by Korean taxi drivers.
Other notorious practices include drivers refusing passengers if the fares to their destinations were considered not lucrative enough or too far.
Dangerous driving, such as traveling too fast and changing lanes abruptly without signals in order to complete trips as quickly as possible to increase earnings has also aroused the ire of passengers and other drivers, who feel threatened.
Grievances like this led to people being upset about at a recent massive rally by taxi drivers protesting against the launching of a smartphone carpool app. About 100,000 people from four major taxi workers' unions blocked the major Uisadang-daero Road in front of the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul, Dec. 20, demanding that lawmakers ban “Kakao T Carpool” and claiming the service available only during rush hours in morning and evening by private vehicles as illegal.
Some people suggested the drivers would do better to improve their own driving standards and overall service.