On Tuesday, 3 May 2016 at 11:14:07 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
I arrived as well. I foolishly chose to ignore this thread and
assumed taking the taxi from the airport to the hotel is a
proper choice. So I hop on the taxi and ask if he takes credit.
He says no taxi at the airport does. So I walk to an ATM and
get some Euros, then hop back in the cab. There's no driver/car
identification displayed inside and I see no meter. I ask where
the meter is, he says it's on the left (where I can't see what
it shows).
We get to the hotel, he says it's 76 Euros. I'm like, Jesus
this is high. He goes, yeah Tegel is far away from this hotel,
next time try to book the other airport. I ask for a receipt,
he handwrites me one on a standard form with no stamp and no
identification.
As I walk to the reception I ask the receptionist what's the
usual taxi price to the airport and sure enough I paid twice
the usual. I mention what I paid and to her credit she makes an
effort to call the number on the receipt and tries to figure
out what happened. They say they can't do anything without a
stamp on the receipt so she suggests I call the police and try
to get his plates off of some security cameras. I figure life
is too short to press on, but this is quite the bummer -
Germany was really the last place where I assumed this kind of
stuff cannot happen. In fact it was the reason for which I
didn't heed the non-visible meter warning; something similar
did happen to me in Romania, in a very different era.
Andrei
Sorry to hear that. The taxi fare calculator said it would be
around €40, if you take the shortest route. If the guy took the
route through the city, I suppose it took much longer.
Berlin is not Germany and it is not even representative of
Germany. Like all capital cities, it's the least representative
city of the country. Also, Berlin is Prussian, not "German".
German culture doesn't really exist. Germany is made up of many
different regional cultures that have different histories,
different traditions and mentalities (and dialects). Like most
European, so called, "nations".
But never mind, my grandpa got also fleeced by a taxi driver when
he went to Berlin a long time ago. He was even taken to some
dubious hotel and he had to threaten to call the police. So I see
Berlin hasn't really changed in this respect, except the guy took
you to the right hotel :-)
