Young woman calls out illegal act by city cabbies in Australia: ‘You have to take me where I need to go – that’s the law’

A woman has criticized taxi drivers in Sydney for 'ripping off' passengers after she was told she would have to pay $95 to get home after a night out on the town.

Carla Efstratiou, a social media commentator who runs the popular website 'Go Woke Go Broke', decided to take a taxi from the city to her home in Sydney's eastern suburbs just after midnight last Sunday.

Ms Efstratiou, who was at a Christmas party earlier that evening, said she was unable to find an Uber after several drivers canceled her booking.

She took to Instagram to hit out at the 'insane' price of the taxi ride.

“(It's a) 20 minute ride max, about $30… and he thought that would be $95,” she said.

Ms Efstratiou was in disbelief at the price of the ride and said she tried to confront the driver about the cost of the ride.

“I was like, 'Sorry, what?' and he seemed to be moving slowly at this point and trying to get away from me, I thought “what… stop!”.

“$95…are you sure?”

She said she was confused when the driver asked her where she was going.

“I thought, why are you even asking that, you just have to take me everywhere I want to go.”

She hailed another taxi where she said the doors were also locked and the windows open, claiming the driver was charging $100 for a ride home.

“Legally they are not allowed to do that and refuse a ride because of the distance,” Ms Efstratiou said.

The enormous cost of getting around Sydney by taxi left her stunned and she said those with no other way to get home would end up paying the high fares.

“Either they didn't want a short ride, or they were trying to find someone who would pay a stupid amount of money to travel short distances,” she said.

'The unreliability is insane'

Ms Efstratiou said she had “no sympathy” for taxi drivers who were “inflating prices” during a cost-of-living crisis, with many drivers complaining that taxi services were taking away their business.

Her post was flooded with dozens of comments from users who said they had also received outrageous prices from drivers, while some said they had spent a lot of money for a taxi ride in the past.

'The same thing happened to us on Saturday evening after the Fooies (Foo Fighters) concert. We had to get back to Parramatta, Uber quoted $65 and then we found the taxi line, the first one wanted $90, the next in line wanted $120!!!,” one user wrote.

“I was fined $80 to drive 15 minutes further from Newcastle Airport,” said another.

Some said taxi services were not responsible for the exorbitant prices, while others accused taxi services of making taxi fares more expensive.

“Taxis operate on a rate set by the government, yes they can rip you off but they are not taxis, they are individual drivers,” said one user.

“If you're wondering why a driver charges the same as Uber, it's because the government allowed Uber into the country,” wrote another.

CEO NSW Taxi Council Nick Abraham told Ny Breaking Australia it is illegal for drivers to set their own taxi fares and they must use the meter to charge passengers for their journey.

He said passengers would normally pay up to $40 for a ride from the city to the eastern suburbs.

Mr Abraham urged authorities to do more to crack down on those who set their own prices.

“We want them (drivers) to be dealt with and we want them to be completely removed from the industry,” he said.

'We are calling on the Government to go back to issuing a single authority for taxi drivers to ensure that when they are removed… they lose their ability to stop a taxi.

'Right now they are being removed from the network, they go on the road to another taxi company, apply for another ID and get behind the wheel of a taxi again and we want to prevent that.'

He urged customers to provide a taxi's vehicle number and driver details to the Taxi Fare Hotline if they receive a higher taxi fare from a driver.

Taxi drivers will be fined $1,000 if they charge customers more than the amount shown on the meter during a ride.

More than 520 taxi drivers were reprimanded between late 2022 and June 2023 for overcharging customers and not using their meters.

The Taxi Fare Hotline handled more than a thousand complaints from drivers who also refused shorter rides and demanded advance payments from passengers worth hundreds of dollars.