In Reply to: book a driver. posted by hooter on Thursday, 6. March 2014 at 20:31 Bali Time:
I think that it starts the moment they get into the car.
Every time we venture down south (we live on the mid north east coast of Bali) and use taxis around Kuta / Legian / Seminyak, seems 1 in 5 try something on these days ... trying not to put the meter on, Saying meter is broken, trying to come up with a fixed price, trying to go the long way around ... etc etc ...
And a new one that was done to someone that had a few days in Seminyak before coming to stay up here, was that a taxi driver asked her to change 1 of the "new Rp100,000 plastic notes" that he had for 2 Rp50,000 noted as he needed some smaller money. There is NO new plastic money in Indonesia, what he had was some of that "play money" that you can buy around the place (you can buy packets of it in all denominations) which LOOKS like Rp, but it's a bit smaller than the proper money, and printed on shiny / glossy paper.
She should have known better, as she has ben to Bali a few times, but got ripped off like that on the first day here.
(I may even post that story separately - as stupid as the story sounds, she may not be the only one stung by it)
So, just another scam to watch out for ...
If I get one of these guys, that tries something on, I give them a big blast, and tell them that they just make people angry about Bali, that they will think it's all just a big rip off place, and that they will never come back, and they will tell their friends not to come because its just a rip off place. Sometimes I threaten to report them and take a photo of their cab number - then slam the door .... my hope is that they may back off with their rip off methods (at least for a while).