A Parisian taxi driver was caught red-handed on camera trying to charge tourists 5 times the regular amount to travel from CDG airport to the capital of France.
Travelling to a foreign country can be pretty daunting for many reasons. If you have never visited there before, then you are not going to know your way. That unfamiliar feeling is further enhanced by a vast amount if you’re visiting a country where you don’t speak the local language either.
If you get lost or you discover that you need something, not being able to speak with locating someone who can talk the same language as you, or crudely attempting to speak in a foreign tongue that you simply don’t know. In more tourist-heavy spots, there are also those on the prowl to take advantage of people visiting their city.
This happened to a couple from Thailand, who visited Paris earlier this month, as reported by The Independent newspaper. After touching down at Charles de Gaulle airport, the pair went and searched for an airport taxi cab to carry them into the city, as many of us would. They found one, but upon their arrival in Paris, they were stunned to be told that the taxi driver was demanding they pay him €250 (nearly $300).
Luckily for them, the Thai couple were savvy enough to film the whole experience, which you can watch for yourself. As you can clearly see, the taxi driver angrily demands that the two of them pay the crazily inflated fee, continually claiming that taxis from the CDG airport to Paris are not fixed in price. Which is a lie. In fact, taxis collecting passengers from Charles de Gaulle and travelling to Paris are supposed to charge a standard fixed price. Nothing more than €55 is allowed, so this driver was illegally demanding almost 5 times the legal amount.
What made the entire situation even worse was when the nasty driver decided to continue on driving and refusing to let the couple exit out of the car. It resulted in them having to pay €200 just to be allowed out of the car. The couple has since flown back to Thailand and didn’t have the chance to report the incident with French authorities, but it is currently being investigated by Boers, the specialist French taxi police brigade.