Korean Job Discussion Forums

[furtakk]

actually on second thought. my parents were severely ripped off when they arrived. they took the arex to seoul station and ended up paying 20K for the guy to take them to gwanghwamun. couldn't believe it when they told me. should have been like a 5K ride max. they must have gotten in with one of the guys who wait outside arrivals.

[Jake_Kim]

[bbud656]

swapping out, like switching the bills a bit like a magician doing a trick with cards, but not very well in this instance. I handed him 30k and I saw him bring up some notes, which I thought was weird because i gave him exactly right amount, no change was needed. Its kind of hard to call them on it if you cant speak Korean well enough and they would have to be willing to lose face terribly to admit they were trying to rip you off so thats not going to happen. I have some friends of friends who are police and I have their business cards, so after I showed him that and pulled out my phone (total bluff, Im not calling a cop at 3 am unless its really serious) he just motioned for me to get out and acted like I was getting away with a free ride.

[northway]

[bbud656]

I always thought the black cabs were more for longer distances. They start out around 5800, but you the prices dont seem to be too astronomical. Also, Ive heard they are less touchy about stupid things like picking and dropping you off on the wrong side of the street or crossing city boundaries. Korea is the first place Ive been where the taxi drivers had such crazy demands. 'Im paying you to turn around, whats the problem?'

[cj1976]

I was in Hongdae looking for a cab home to Sookmyung Women's Uni Station. The driver quoted me 30k. Naturally, I laughed at his cheekiness, and got in another cab. The fare was 7,000.

[jammo]

Learn Korean.

[bbud656]

[jammo]

fair enough. I didn't mean to fluency though

When I first got here I had a couple of similar situations with drivers but after learning even the most basic stuff you can avoid a lot of shit.

Not exclusive to Korea

[daunting]

To be fair, I've had some surprisingly good experiences with taxi drivers here. For example, I find that the taxi drivers in Daejeon often round the fare down. Here are two specific instances of kind drivers that stand out for me:

(1) When I first arrived in Korea at ICN airport, I was very confused and desperately needed to contact my boss. I couldn't get the pay phones at the airport to work. A random taxi driver handed me his phone to make a few calls. I offered to pay him, but he refused.

(2) About one week ago, I had to go to a specific building in Daejeon in an area I had never seen before. When the taxi driver arrived at the address I had given him, there were no real signs for the place I needed to be. I looked a little confused and nervous, and I'm sure the driver sensed this. He then ran around the street (for free) and asked 4 or 5 locals if we were in the right place.

[hapkido1996]

[cdninkorea]

My taxi experiences in over 6 years in Korea have usually been fine (nothing especially good or bad), sometimes good (e.g. getting out and helping me with groceries), and rarely bad. Very rarely bad, actually.

[World Traveler]

[bbud656]

[nate1983]