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PostPosted: Thu Aug 01, 2019 7:58 pm 
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Nice bit of publicity for Uber here :roll:

Never heard of Taxicode myself, but obviously this kind of thing makes Uber's surge-pricing seem like chickenfeed :-s


Retired police officer's rage at being quoted £250 for three-mile taxi ride to Bristol Airport

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bris ... ng-3163617

Bryan Brice branded the email from Taxicode 'absolutely disgraceful'

Image
Image: Michael Lloyd Photography/Bristol Post

A retired police officer has hit out after being quoted £250 for a three-mile taxi journey.

Bryan Brice, 83, booked a £27 ride through the Taxicode website on Sunday evening (July 28).

He and his wife were due to be picked up from their Backwell home at 5.30am on Monday and taken to Bristol Airport for a 7am flight to Newcastle.

The couple were travelling to the funeral of their son’s mum-in-law later that day – but they almost missed it when the cab did not turn it up.

Mr Brice received an email from Taxicode offering a £250 replacement ride with another taxi firm, which he described as “absolutely disgraceful”.

'A bit on the high side'

He said: “I thought the initial booking for a £27 ride was a bit on the high side, but that was OK.

“On Monday morning I got up and ready. I was waiting out on the road, but there was no sign of a taxi.

“My wife looked at our emails and found that at 4.04am we had a message from Taxicode saying the taxi company couldn’t cover the job.”

The email told Mr Brice the cheapest possible replacement ride could be booked with Southwest Taxi Hire Ltd, a firm based in Hambrook.

Mr Brice continued: “The email said ‘please click the button below to re-book’ - but if you didn’t look closely, you would miss that the cost was £250.

“You could quite easily have booked it without seeing that ridiculous price. The public needs to be aware of this sort of thing.”

Image
Image: Michael Lloyd Photography/Bristol Post

'We could have missed the funeral'

The pensioner was also unhappy to have been told of the cancellation so close to the scheduled pickup.

He said: “When you make arrangements you don’t expect them to change last minute. We could have missed the funeral.

“Not many of us would be looking at our emails at that time of the morning. It was lucky my wife checked.

“Fortunately my son-in-law was up, and had the Uber app on his phone. We booked a ride with Uber for £11.41 and made the flight.”

Shabeer Ahmad, director of Southwest Taxi Hire, told Bristol Live the issue arose because of a fault with the Taxicode system.

Southwest Taxi Hire is one of 10 operators used by Taxicode for Bristol Airport jobs.

'It's not a con'

Mr Ahmad said: “It’s not a con. It’s just that if a Taxicode booking gets cancelled and no other provider can do the job, it gives people the option of a ridiculous price with us.

“We wouldn’t have even been able to cover that job anyway. It’s a quirk of the system.”

Asked if he thinks the system should be changed to stop this option appearing, he said: “Definitely.”

He added: “If there isn’t a provider available, it should just say, ‘Seek an alternative company to book with.’”

A spokesman for Taxicode said it does not decide on the prices which are shown to customers.

He said: “The price that is shown is the price of the next available operator. All pricing is set by the operators that are on the system.

“The customer is advised their booking is cancelled on the email and if they wish to re-book they can. There is a completely free choice to do so.”


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 01, 2019 8:06 pm 
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Location: Stamford Britains prettiest town till SKDC ruined it
probably offered a stupid high price in the belief that the customers were so desperate they would take it

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PostPosted: Fri Aug 02, 2019 10:44 am 
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But why can't these people just book with a local company? :sad: :sad: :sad: :sad: :sad:

Why spend time fannying around on the internet when you can just ring a local firm. And surely the alarm bells must have been ringing at the £27 charge for three miles.

I get that people shop around, but at his age it's not the first time he has gone to the airport, so why change from the last driver?

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PostPosted: Fri Aug 02, 2019 11:24 am 
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Location: Stamford Britains prettiest town till SKDC ruined it
perhaps this is the first time they have used a PH :wink:

unlikely to be any hackneys on a rank nearby except maybe in city centre

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