Whew, I'm sorta glad to learn it happens to *everyone*, even those of us who like to think we're travel-savvy. By the way, I DID know to go into talk to the desk clerk about the ridiculous price, but our hotel was on the 4th floor of building downtown - we would have had to go up the elevator, find someone to talk to, etc. The driver was blocking the street, horns were honking, we'd just arrived and were a little overwhelmed. I thought even if we got the police, the driver would simply say he told us how much it was, that we could have gotten into another cab if we thought the price was too high. Anyway, if that was the worst thing that happened (and it was), that wasn't so bad :-)

This taxi scam is only in Rome. A TV programme in Italy secretly filmed taxi drivers & there was an inquest & the culprits were taken to court, but it's still going on. the problem is that these are official taxi's they're all into it. In Milan this doesn't happen, you pay what's on the meter.

"This taxi scam is only in Rome."

What, Clark? Surely that was a typo and you meant to say it ISN'T only in Rome. It is found in many if not most cities in Europe, as even some of the other posts here will acknowledge.

Don't feel bad. A taxi driver tried to scam us in my hometown (NYC). We live in Queens, not far from La Guardia airport, and we got a cabbie who insisted on taking us home a different way from the way we knew was the shortest route. My husband only gave him the amount it should have cost, without a tip.

How much SHOULD it cost from the airport to the Villa Borghese area? Read all the comments, but not one person said how much it SHOULD cost.
Thanks.

duchesswilliams,
Well, a pre-booked car service from/to FCO costs ~50E including all luggage. There maybe a surcharge for very early moring (before 6am) and late night (after 11pm) trips. Plus we tend to leave a 10-20% tip.

Deja Vu! This same thing just happened to us! We're pretty travel savvy and this still got us. I had just read a warning about the taxis in my travel book on the plane. Once we had gotten off we had to wait awhile for our luggage. My husband had gone up ahead a little bit while I was helping my daughter get her things situated (my mom was with us as well). When we met up with my husband this taxi driver (with the "official badge") had already talked him into taking his taxi. When he was told the address of the B&B he even checked with another "official" in the airport. He tried to grab the suitcase I was lugging but I refused and so he grabbed the one from my husband away. When we got into his unmarked van without a meter I pretty much knew then we were being scammed but it was an awkward situation and with everyone being tired and a little overwhelmed I just kept my mouth shut. It cost us 96 Euros and I counted it as my one and only valuable lesson learned in Rome.

We made sure we booked our taxi through our B&B for the way home and that taxi only cost 55 Euros. The funny thing was, the taxi was the same type of unmarked van as the first one we took!

I used to live in San Francisco and now live in Germany and I've never had this experience before.