thursdaysd

I had a similar experience with a taxi driver from Termini my one and so far only trip to Rome. He went the long way. Fortunately, my hotel was next to a police station...

Dave_Ohio

The sad thing is, I know better. I really do. And pride myself on it.
I just wasn't thinking at the time.

The good(?) news is that other things -- some good and some not so -- happening on the trip completely pushed this mishap out of my mind. And 30 € was a mere drop in the bucket compared to other expenses, if you know what I mean.

xcountry

When this happens to me I immediately try and rip someone else off for an equivalent amount. It’s a variant of “what comes around goes around”.

Dave_Ohio

XC: I had heard that about you.

DaveJJ

Two weeks ago I had taken a taxi from our hotel to the Circus Maximus excavation site. Just as the cab left I realized that I had left my collapsible cane in the car. I don't always use it always have it with me just in case. What am I going to do now? Where to hell am I going to find a replacement? Well I made it through the day OK. When I ordered the taxi that morning the hotel made the arrangements (Uber I think) and had given me a 'ticket' that showed the cab number. The hotel called the company and tracked down the driver. He confirmed that he had found it and offered to return it to me as long as I paid the fare. He said he was at the St. John Lateran Church. Twenty minutes later he was at the hotel and charged me 20 Euro. Now I gladly paid it however wondered how many times he had been near our hotel that day. Our hotel was close to the Vatican. He probably could have dropped it off rather than holding it hostage.

massimop

I am just amazed someone thinks that if they are responsible for leaving items in a cab that a cab driver ought to take it upon themselves to figure out to whom it belongs and to where it should be returned (you think you were the only customer that day?) and then, when the driver is ready to return the item exactly where specified and only asks to be paid for his time -- since this is how he makes his living -- is derided on the internet as being some kind of hostage taker who is being unfair.

If you use Uber, you agree to pay surge pricing.

NewbE

Well, massimop, prepare to be amazed, because not only did I see this happen to a colleague of mine in NYC, a friend who lives there (and takes cabs daily) has had it happen several times: drivers will return lost items at no charge because they happen to be in the area anyway.

Perhaps the situation would be different if the owner of the item lived in a suburb, or another borough, or what have you.

I think this behavior on the part of Italian cab drivers, if typical, shows a true dedication to making their living, to use your terms. Put another way, it's perfectly defensible, but not very nice.

dweislaw

Massimop - the point I was attempting to make and that DaveJJ made much more clearly - "holding it hostage" - stems from the simple notion that having made a mistake by leaving a valuable item in a cab, we would like to be treated fairly in seeking its return.
Yes, I understand how a taxi driver makes a living and I also understand that asking for the item's return may, but doesn't have to be, an inconvenience. So, the driver could drop it off at his company office and say come get it; I'd be obliged to do so and wouldn't hold it against him/her. The driver could at some point be in my area, quite likely given he picked me up there in the first instance, and come by and drop it off. Is this a compensable act? Sure, when you're nearby come on over and I'll pay the meter rate (and I'll tip you too since I think that's fair on balance).
What doesn't pass the smell test is when the driver, after some delay in my case, happens to call when he says he is at the airport and wants 50 Euro. Not only does the cynic in me say that is likely not true, but the circumstances support that conclusion - he could've called at any time when he was close to the hotel or, as mentioned earlier, dropped it off at the company office. In DaveJJ's case his hotel was close to the Vatican which means the driver was probably nearby at some point.
Nobody disputes that when we make mistakes we have to pay for them. The question is how much and in my case, it was simply too convenient for the driver to claim, or wait to claim, that he was at the airport and a 50 Euro charge would solve the problem. I can live myself for thinking he was trying to make a buck off my misfortune.

bvlenci

Going back about a dozen posts, there's no flat fare from Termini station. And a trip from the station to the Pantheon should be about €10, a little more if it's late at night, very early in the morning, or on a Sunday or holiday. An additional €3 if you call the taxi.

ticino

Me too, I am completely amazed that someone would expect a taxi driver to return items without charging for the ride plus some extra time for the inconvenience.

It's probably a cultural thing. Last year a colleague that forgot her phone on a cab had to pay some 430 Swedish crowns (45 EUR) to get it back, the normal fee for deliveries I think. We work downtown in a very central address.

DaveJJ

massismop...when my driver picked me up from my hotel at 8:30am I was walking with my cane. He saw me and the cane. He dropped me off at the Metro station by the Circus Maximus. The next person getting in his cab would have found the cane if he had not already noticed it himself. How many people had he picked up that morning that was walking with a cane. Surely he would have remember which hotel. Surely he would have realized that the cane had some importance to an individual with a mobility impairments. Surely he could have been considerate and made an attempt to return it to the hotel if he was back in the area later that morning which was highly probable. That's all, a simple courtesy.

I would like to give a 'tip of the hat' to him too. When my wife went out to get the cane from him he did point to his meter to show the actual fare of 18E, we gave him 20. So he wasn't trying to scam us as it were but still, a simple courtesy.

massimop

Your assumption that the next person whom he picked up would have noticed the cane or that he would has little basis in reality -- YOU didn't noticed you'd left your own cane in the taxi!!!

Your collapsible cane might have gotten lodged somewhere not easily noticed, or someone might have set a bag on it, or people might have sat on it or moved it aside. Even if a subsequent passenger did notice, they might not have brought it to the driver's attention -- either because their thoughts were elsewhere, or they assumed it belonged to the driver, or because they didn't speak Italian. Maybe they tried to communicate to the driver in some other language.

The driver might have seen it -- and then completely forgotten about it. Not his fault. Probably a busy guy. He also might have forgotten you walk with a cane ir been unusre.

All your assumptions that everybody else is thinking & remembering more carefully than you do or were is silly. Your idea that "simple courtesy" puts all these burdens on other people needs a rethink.

Simple courtesy would be for you to pay more attention to not creating problems for other people, and when you do, acknowledging you did and be grateful anybody else is willing to stop what they are doing and pick up the pieces for you.

The cab drivers looks like an honest working guy who showed you no end of simple courtesy. He refused a big tip -- why make him out to be some kind of inferior person on the internet?

massimop

something else you didn't consider: You weren't the first customer he had that morning who was carrying a cane.

autodidact

In Rome last June, we got a taxi for a short trip to Borghese Gallery. We could have walked but we were tired. The (female) taxi driver took us on a round-the-houses voyage which took about 3 times as long as it should have. I was following her progress on Google Maps, and when she tried to charge us €15 I showed her the route she had taken, and ostentatiously took a photo of her license plate. She hurriedly changed the price to €6. Needless to say, she didn't get a tip.

bilboburgler

Dave, thanks for posting, a great warning and we probably have all done this one way and another.

maitaitom

"You have challenged me to make new ones of my own."

It looks like you're doing very well at it, too

maitaitom

Dave, I just had an idea...We could open up a company and be Trip Mistake Mentors.

"We could have walked but we were tired."
autodidact, I find many of the mistakes I make while traveling (and there really are many) occur when I'm tired.

annhig

Needless to say, she didn't get a tip.>>

I'm sure you could have thought of a non-monetary one. like "try not to be too greedy when you want to rook the tourists".

We had an incident like that in Cuba. Guests in the same Casa as us recommended a restaurant down the road so on our first evening we wandered down there, ordered the special that they had mentioned was so good, [remembering the price they said it was] and duly enjoyed our food. We were a little surprised when the waitress said that there was no menu for dessert but we chose from the list she gave us, and enjoyed those too. However when we asked for coffee we were told there was not, and she immediately asked us if we wanted to pay. When we ask for the bill, she said that there wasn't one, and just told us a very inflated price - about twice what we had reckoned on. This sounded strange as we had seen other people with coffee and with what looked like bills. She then scuttled off and we grabbed the next person to come past and said could we have the bill please, which duly arrived. As we suspected, it was for about the amount we had imagined, and ½ of what she had asked for. We could also see her hiding behind a pillar watching, and making a hasty exit when she saw she'd been rumbled.

Her mistake was being too greedy. Had she inflated the price even by 20%, she'd have got away with it. Ours was being too trusting, which we never were again.

dweislaw

I will happily be a customer of the Trip Mistake Mentors so that I can be taught the "simple courtesy" of paying "more attention to not creating problems for other people" and, if I do still make an innocent mistake, I'll "be grateful anybody else is willing to stop what they are doing and pick up the pieces for" me.
I will be appropriately disabused of my notion that common decency suggests that others may actually want to help someone in need simply because that's the right thing to do. Yup, next time someone needs me, they're going to pay for I've learned that lesson from the folks on here who apparently never made a mistake in their life, never sought help form someone and, surely, never offered that help without a hand out for compensation.
Good grief.

Dave_Ohio

D_O & MTT team up to become TMM!
Ever the entrepreneur, Tom!