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A woman has slammed taxi drivers in Sydney for “ripping off” passengers after she was told she would have to shell out $95 to get home after a night out on the town.
Carla Efstratiou, a social media commentator who runs the popular ‘Go Woke Go Broke’ website, decided to take a taxi from the city to her home in Sydney’s eastern suburbs shortly after midnight last Sunday.
Efstratiou, who was at a Christmas party that same night, said he couldn’t find an Uber after several drivers canceled his reservation.
She took to Instagram to slam the “crazy” price of the taxi ride.
“(It’s a) maximum twenty-minute ride, about $30… and he said it would be $95,” she said.
Efstratiou was incredulous about the price of the trip and said she tried to confront the driver about the cost of the trip.
‘I was like “sorry what?” and he was like moving slowly at this point trying to get away from me, I was like “what… stop!”.
Carla Efstratiou (pictured) slammed taxi drivers in Sydney after she was told she would have to pay $95 to get a ride home from a night out on the town to the eastern suburbs.
‘$95… are you sure?’
She said she felt confused when the driver asked her where she was going.
“I thought, ‘Why do you ask? You just have to take me wherever I want to go.”
He hailed another taxi, which he said also had its doors closed and windows open, and claimed the driver was charging $100 for the ride home.
“Legally they are not allowed to do that and deny transportation because of the distance,” Efstratiou said.
The huge cost of getting around Sydney by taxi left her stunned and she said those who have no other way to get home would end up paying high fares.
“Either they didn’t want a short trip or they were trying to find someone who would pay a stupid amount of money to go short distances,” he said.
‘Evasivity is crazy’
Efstratiou said he had “no sympathy” for taxi drivers who were “marking up prices” during a cost of living crisis and many drivers complained that ride-sharing services were taking their business away.
Their post was inundated with dozens of comments from users who said drivers had also quoted them incredible prices, while some said they had shelled out a lot of money for a taxi ride in the past.
Efstratiou (pictured) said he had little sympathy for taxi drivers who were “marking up prices” during a cost of living crisis.
‘The same thing happened to us on Saturday night after the Fooies (Foo Fighters) concert. We needed to get back to Parramatta, Uber quoted $65 and then we found the taxi line, the first one wanted $90 and the next in line wanted $120!!!” one user wrote.
“They charged me $80 to travel 15 minutes from Newcastle airport,” said another.
Some said taxi services were not to blame for the exorbitant prices, while others accused ride-sharing services of driving up taxi fares.
“Taxis work with a rate set by the government, yes, they can scam you, but they are not taxis, they are individual drivers,” said one user.
“If you’re wondering why any driver could be charging the same as Uber, it’s because the government allowed Uber into the country,” wrote another.
NSW Taxi Council chief executive Nick Abraham told Daily Mail Australia it is illegal for drivers to set taxi fares themselves and they must use the meter to charge passengers for their journey.
He said passengers would typically pay up to $40 “on a good deal” for a trip from the city to the eastern suburbs.
Abraham urged authorities to do more to crack down on those who set prices themselves.
Customers detailed their experiences of shelling out a lot of money for a taxi ride.
NSW Taxi Council chief executive Nick Abraham has made it illegal for taxi drivers to set the taxi fare themselves and said prices for taxi rides should be charged based on the meter.
“We want them (drivers) to be dealt with and we want them to be completely removed from the industry,” he said.
‘We call on the government to reissue a single authority for taxi drivers to ensure that when they are expelled… they lose their ability to drive a taxi to the end.
“Now they are removed from the network, they go to another taxi company, they ask for another ID, they go back behind the wheel of a taxi and we want to avoid that.”
It urged customers to report a taxi’s vehicle number and driver details to the Taxi Fare Hotline if a driver quotes them a higher taxi fare.
Taxi drivers will be fined $1,000 if they charge customers more than the amount indicated on the meter during a trip.