# Taxi scam?



## FatBoyFoodie

Hey everyone! A couple months ago my brother and I agreed to save up and plan a 2 week trip to Tokyo, and here we are! We laned yesterday. We took a taxi to my f
friends house where we are staying (next to yoyogi park) from Haneda.

The fare on the meter was 8300 and something yen so we paid and the cabbie opened the back door to get our luggage. My friend's friend met me outside to let me in and quickly told the cabbie to give me the correct change after noticing the meter. He said it should not have been 8300 but 7000, quite a difference. They were both laughing with each other in japanese though while the cabbie was giving me my change so I just got a bit confused.

Was the cabbie trying to scam me or was this a genuine mistake? I heard taxis are quite safe in Tokyo. At the same time its in no way shocking to me (apart from the idea of losing cash!!) or new, seeing as how i sort of expected something like this to happen as ive been able to travel nearly all over the world and quickly learned how tourists are easy targets if you are too overly trusting / unaware etc.

Also, if any of you have any tips on common scams / traps a tourist might run into od greatly appreciate it just as a heads up.

Other than that, i've only been here 1 night so far and i'm loving it!


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## larabell

Taxi meters measure both distance and time so things like getting stuck at a traffic signal for longer than normal can affect the fare. The difference between 7000 and 8300 strikes me as reasonable for a metered fare, possibly due to differences in traffic or between two similar routes. The meters on cabs are reliable, as far as I've seen, and it should be impossible to make the meter read more than it should have. But there's the issue of whether the driver took a circuitous route intentionally in order to run up a larger fare.
I've only had one incident in 18 years where I thought that might be the case but, in that case, the reason was because I knew a better route and not because the route my driver took was intentionally deceptive. I can believe ending up with a slightly higher fare when a driver doesn't know an area well and doesn't take the shortcuts. I've never know one to deceive their rider in that way. It's always possible, I suppose... but I don't think it's very likely.
Taxi drivers, like most people in Japan who deal with the public, are generally honest and those kinds of tricks are largely unheard of, from what I can tell.


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## BBCWatcher

I completely agree. I too had only one experience similar to Larabell's. The driver simply took a wrong turn, unintentionally. He volunteered to reduce the metered fare without my even asking. His suggested reduction was quite fair, and that was that.

But just ask your friend's friend for the real backstory.


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## FatBoyFoodie

Thanks for the replies! I have another question.

I went to kabuki cho tonight and was approached by many people asking if i wanted to go to a strip club and whatever. I immediatey felt from past experiences that this was a pile of bull, and wed probably be robbed somehow. The guy was so persistent that I yelled at him, telling him i already said i dont want to go to a strip club and he acted all shocked and all the other dudes doing the same kind of work all turned round. My brother told me I was wrong for yelling at the guy as he probably wasnt a scammer. But guys, my gut feeling and being street smart brought my instinct out. He kept trying to take me to a bar or strip club offering free shots. 

I know being loud / openly aggressive isnt acceptable in japan but how else am i meant to set a boundary if they dont stop? 

So, was this a potential scammer or unlikely like my brother mentioned?

sorry for all the paranoia i really am loving tokyo this is a very very minor inconvenience to me but would appreciate advice,

Thanks!


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## larabell

Robbed is possible... every now and then you hear of that sort of thing but it seems to center around Roppongi more than Kabukicho. Overcharged is more likely, as some of those places have a reasonable cover charge but the once you're there the girls, assuming there are any, will talk you into buying them drinks at two or three times the normal price. But in my experience, what happens most of the time is that it's just a dive place that you wouldn't even consider on your own but you don't find that out until you've already paid to get in.
You're instinct is more-or-less correct. The good places shouldn't need to deploy touts on the street to bring people into their club and they aren't making their profit by giving away free drinks. There's always a catch. Most people ignore the touts, even when they're persistent... or they engage them in useless conversation until they realize you're not going to fall for their ruse. It would be unusual to for a Japanese person to blow up like that but I doubt anyone seeing you do it would even give it a second thought and most would even sympathize, since those guys can get pretty annoying.
Just ignore them and keep walking. They'll soon give up and move on to bother someone else. And when visiting places like Roppongi or Kabukicho, stick to the places that someone you're with knows or that you've read about in respectable magazines or online. Don't follow a tout to their club. You'll almost always end up wishing you hadn't.


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## BBCWatcher

FatBoyFoodie said:


> So, was this a potential scammer or unlikely like my brother mentioned?


Probably not as such. Plenty of people agree to and pay for such forms of entertainment, and they're usually nothing more than expensive drinks with hostesses encouraging you to keep drinking. You get drinks and companionship (really no more than that, usually), and the club and staff get some money. (The touts get a "landing fee" of some sort, and the hostesses get a share of each drink typically.)

That's not when you have to get confrontational. You received an offer, repeatedly, but nothing bad was going to happen. Whether you define that offer as a "scam" or not, no scam was going to occur unless you agreed to it, which you didn't want to do. So the protocol is to politely but firmly decline the offer ("No thank you") and walk away (or continue walking away). Or have some fun with it if you wish, like saying loudly to your friend that you tried going to their establishment last week but their hostesses were ugly and their drinks tasted awful.

Welcome to Tokyo.


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