An Irishman was forced to pay a huge amount of money for a 37-minute trip by taxi in St. Petersburg. Getting from the Hermitage museum to the Crowne Plaza hotel cost him 27 times more than expected.
As Fontanka.ru website reported, a tourist hailed a taxi and was transported to the hotel by a black BMW. At the moment of payment, he was surprised by the fare of 16.000 rubles (nearly $267) and refused to pay. That’s really too much for a 17 km trip which lasted about 40 minutes. But the driver blocked car’s doors and didn’t let him out. The Irishman finally paid and delivered the story to the Crowne Plaza hotel’s staff who called the police.
As media reported, the police started investigation into the case. The police will surely find the driver as he gave his passenger a ticket (we’d be happy to have a look at it).
It remains unclear if the Irishman used a taxi company by booking it by phone or through a mobile app (some taxi operators use) or he hired an «uber». We think that he just hailed in the street to stop a car with taxi signs which hardly belongs to any registered company.
If this so than it was a very harebrained idea. Read our posts about taxi in St. Petersburg and about real taxi fare from Pulkovo to avoid such situations which regularly occur.
If you have any questions about St. Petersburg taxi, drop us a line in comments.