Mainland Chinese tourist accuses Hong Kong taxi driver of overcharging by nearly 300%
- Visitor from Shenzhen complains on Xiaohongshu about being ‘ripped off’ after paying HK$600 for a trip from Tuen Mun to Hong Kong airport
A Shenzhen-based tourist has complained about being “ripped off” by a Hong Kong taxi driver for being asked to pay HK$600 (US$77), nearly three times the usual fare, on his first day in town for the Dragon Boat Festival long weekend.
The complaint on Friday came amid the government’s wider drive to crack down on cabbies’ bad behaviour.
The tourist took to the Instagram-like Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu to complain about his HK$600 trip from Shenzhen Bay Immigration Control Point to the Hong Kong International Airport.
A search on three different ride-hailing platforms – Uber, HKTaxi and Fly Taxi – showed that the route of about 28km (17 miles) cost between HK$228 and HK$278 at about 6pm on Saturday.
“Not only is the integrity of Hong Kong’s service industry worse than Singapore’s, it’s also lagging behind second- and third-tier cities on the mainland,” the user said in a post.
“The distance was not shown on the receipt, and I asked the driver about it, but he switched to Cantonese to confuse me. The moment he tried to snatch my receipt, I knew I was ripped off,” the post read, showing a receipt that detailed a surcharge of HK$573.
