Warning!! Took a black taksi with yellow taksi light sign which looked like a regular cab that costed us 80€ for 16km from Santa Claus village to our hotel. It turned out to be some company called A&L VIP Taksi. Driver was very unfriendly when questioned.
We avoided a €45 fixed cab offer to choose the metered cab and got the first shock of our new year.
We had a great experience with a similar looking metered black taksi the day before, hence why we opted for the same. Didn’t know these practices still occur in such a beautiful country.
Any suggestions for reporting this to prevent others from facing the same misfortune? Thanks in advance and happy new year!!
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1q159cl
Posted by thelosthideout
30 Comments
Use only taxis from bigger companied. Check what they are in your specific city.
ALWAYS check the price before getting in the cab. Even If you don’t take fixed price, you can ask for an estimate based on the distance.
Rovaniemi, like many tourist destinations worldwide, unfortunately suffers from scammy taxi services. Like anywhere you go, do research on what are considered the proper/official taxi services in that area. Never respond to someone offering you a taxi, go to the regular queue and grab one there.
If you are being scammed, don’t pay. If you agreed to the price then it was just a poor choice by you. Finland is a country, where if you had to call the cops, they are just not automatically on the side of the “locals”
Unfortunately our taxi market these days is full of people who’d rather cheat their customers than do a decent job. Many, like yours by the name of the driver (by the company info), likely brought these customs from their MENA homelands.
Gotta use the apps
This time of the year there are a lot of taxis coming from different cities, and some have come just to basically rip off tourists :/
As a local, just before the season I had used two different taxis, and I talked with drivers. Both had come from Helsinki just to drive for the peak season. Though both were friendly, and weren’t overpriced.
But with the season there are a lot of drivers, so they are competing with each other. And even though there are a lot of tourists, also because of lot of drivers, it can sometimes be hard to get rides. Some outside drivers may have expected easy money, so when their own rent is pricey and not getting that many rides, they opt to try get their moneys off from rides they get.
But these are just my assumptions, I don’t really know the actual situation, as I usually just drive my car. But the city centre is awful to drive during the season 😅
Use Bolt, Uber etc.
Lesson learned, check the price beforehand, or get a fixed price, or be “ripped off”. According to the second picture you paid the right sum.
You didn’t look at the price list before agreeing to the ride? I don’t think they are really scamming you, if they have their price list available and charge accordingly.
It’s an extortionate price, but it was information that was available to you. I rarely take a taxi but when I do, I always get a price estimate beforehand.
The taxi literally has an example of a price list on the dashboard. In my opinion the steep price shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
Like others said i would use either a large local taxi company or bolt/uber in app. So you’ll get the price before you take the ride.
In Finland we had working system but it was destroyed by right wing government.
Use the apps (for example menevä, in Rovaniemi’s case also use Taksi Rovaniemi), use only taxis with taxi company logos on the car side panels etc. Also ask the driver before you leave what it will cost and don’t take a taxi that doesn’t have a receipt machine.
Once took a taxi without the receipt machine, got slightly ripped off and now I only take local taxi company taxi or menevä.
It was NYE, of course it was going to be expensive. I used Uber yesterday night and it was 30e for 6km. Bolt was even more expensive.
Same in Helsinki. It’s wild west in Finland with taxis since some sort of reformation a few years back.
Taxis in Finland have always been expensive. After deregulation, there is a wider variation in price, because taxi firms are free to choose their price. They charged you exactly the marked rate on their sign, so their isn’t much to dispute.
10€ starting cost. This is close to what other companies charge
19 minutes at 2€ per minute =38€ This is about double what a lot of companies charge
16km at 2€ per km 32€ Probably 1.5 times a more standard Finnish company.
Total 80€.
If your group size was 4 or under and you went with Taksi Rovaniemi that has more industry standard pricing, you would have paid:
8€ starting price, 1.43€x 16= 22,88€ 0.95€/ min x 19 =18.05€ = 48.93€
You’ve got some good tips in the thread about choosing taxis, but don’t expect affordable taxis.
How is it a scam? Given the information in the receipt, everything is exactly as the price list in your own image says.
I mean, yeah, it’s expensive sure and I’d never have taken that ride seeing the price list, but you can’t really say it’s scam if you still decided to go with it.
A lot of taxi scammers here. Only use taxis from Lähitaksi, Menevä and Taksi Rovaniemi.
Check for proper teipings since some scammers try to emulate the look of the official taxis.
The prices are taped to the side of the car, if you get in the car you approve for the prices they have listed.
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Yep, total ripoff, in other words “questionable business practices.” Taxis are free to set prices any way they want as long as they are visible.
Never go into a taxi in Finland without agreeing on the price ahead of time.
They literally have the price showing on the dash. What about this is “rip off”?
Enjoy the taxi sector liberalization. Lobbied by the best, fucking up the rest.
Use uber/bolt or known taxi companies/brands. Never ever go into an untaped random taxi which has no known company logos on it. If you have to use an unlabeled taxi, agree on a price beforehand instead of using the meter.
You probably know this but if not, you can go into any of the taxis at a taxi stand. No need to go to the first one in the line.
In Rovaniemi only use taxis with Menevä or Taksi Rovaniemi stickers on the sides. Those are legit and trustworthy companies. Most taxis here currently are unfortunately fake ones or ones from the south looking to make easy money.
Was he a local?
Always ask what it will cost. The app bolt doesn’t rip you off as far as I know in Helsinki.
Driver offered you 45€ and you chose km+time. No rip off here. Expensive ride.
Just for the people outside of Finland: if you don’t want to get ripped off like this, ask from locals what taxi they’d use. The bigger firms have apps, the apps have prices to what things cost really. This aholes are just ripping off tourists, as no local would pay those prices no matter what.
Well it literally shows the exact composition of fare in your second image and it matches the sum on your receipt given the time and length. What would you even report, there is nothing wrong here? I mean I understand your feelings and I’d be pissed too but if the pricing is clearly visible you really can’t complain..
Sadly most taxis are expensive in Finland, especially at heavy tourist areas.
According to the price chart, though, that 80€ is about right price, and there’s little to report to anyone about this.
You can make a complaint about the prices, but the driver took payment accordingly. I’m not surprised if he got unfriendly when questioned, as he was just doing his job and asking for the right price as payment.
Lesson learned, use other taxi company next time.
Hi, taxi driver here. You can easily sort out overpriced cabs by looking at the price of the standardized “esimerkkimatka”. In your case it was 60€. For a “regular” taxi it’s in the 30-40e range.
Expensive as fuuuck, though it is pretty much in the ballpark of the example price, which is 60€ for 10km. Your trip was 15 km so 70 eur makes sense.