Prices for the roughly 28-kilometer (17-mile) route ranged from HK$228 to HK$278 as of about 6 p.m. on Saturday, according to searches on three different ride-hailing platforms — Uber, Hong Kong Taxi and FlyTaxi.
“The health of Hong Kong’s services industry is not only worse than Singapore’s, but also lags behind second- and third-tier cities in mainland China,” the user said in the post.
“When I asked the driver about the distance as it wasn’t written on the receipt, he switched to Cantonese to confuse me. As soon as he tried to take my receipt I knew I’d been ripped off,” the post said, showing a receipt showing an additional HK$573 charge.
“I was furious and disappointed,” the traveller wrote. “This HK$600 trip ruined my cheerful mood on the first day of my holiday.”
The traveller said he filed a report with airport police, including a receipt and a photo of the taxi’s license plate number.
The Post has contacted police for comment.
The Little Red Book post received over 160 comments, many of which were about people’s own experiences of being overcharged by Hong Kong taxis, while a post with the hashtag “Hong Kong taxis are ripping passengers off” has received over 301,000 views and counting.
A tourist in Shenzhen posted a receipt claiming he was “ripped off” by a taxi driver. Photo: Xiaohongshu
Taxi passengers, both at home and abroad, have long complained about a variety of poor service provided by taxi drivers. In addition to overcharging, some of the most common complaints include refusal to take passengers on certain routes, speeding and rudeness.
The ride-hailing service Uber has become popular in Hong Kong despite questionable legality due to the bad reputation of the taxi industry, where it is illegal to provide ride-hailing services without a for-hire permit.
The city’s taxi drivers have accused Uber of hurting their business and campaigned for the government to ban it.
The government has been taking steps to improve taxi services, including introducing a points demerit system in September and installing premium taxi fleets across cities.
Minister of Transport and Logistics Lam Caixiong said on Saturday that the five taxi operators selected for the city’s new taxi fleet plan will be monitored by requesting data from their managers on how they handle complaints and how customers rate their services.
Lamb noted that this data will be used as part of the mid-term review.
“If they perform poorly, we will issue a warning in some cases and ask them to improve before a certain period of time,” he said, adding that the government would also consider reducing the scale of services or suspending licences if no improvement was seen.
Hong Kong’s taxi industry on Wednesday launched a three-month courtesy initiative to encourage drivers to treat passengers courteously by placing ambassadors at taxi ranks, including at the airport and border crossings, in a bid to improve its reputation.
According to official statistics, complaints and suggestions about taxi services rose 52.8% in 2023 from 2022 to 11,096, with taxi drivers refusing to give rides and overcharging passengers being the top complaints.
The Hong Kong Taxi Association said the initiative was primarily aimed at educating drivers and its success was difficult to measure.
