Limo taxi driver charges tourists $100 for 3km ride, gets caught lying about card machine not working

The New Paper
Oct 31, 2023

A group of five tourists have called out a limousine taxi driver after they paid $100 for a 3km ride from Sands Expo and Convention Centre to Park Royal Collection Pickering in Chinatown.

A video of the incident and the exchange with the driver was posted on the Carl Runefelt Vlogs channel on YouTube under the heading “Exposing a taxi driver in Singapore”. 

The incident occurred during the Token 2049 cryptocurrency conference that was held at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre on Sept 18 and 19.

In the video, five men, including Runefelt, are seen trying to hail a taxi or book a private hire vehicle to take them to the hotel in Chinatown.

When the group approaches the limousine taxi driver, whose face is censored, he tells them: “It’s very jam over there. It will be $100.”

One person in the group then suggests booking a private hire vehicle. They get one almost immediately for $20.

But they put the wrong pick-up address as Marina Bay Sands Tower 1 and their ride does not arrive where they are. And although the two locations are separated by Bayfront Avenue, the men decide not to walk over as they are short of time.

Runefelt and his companions then board the $100 seven-seater multi-purpose vehicle instead. 

When they arrive at their destination, the group decides to pay for the ride by credit card but the driver is shown saying: “Card machine is not functioning.”

Runefelt then tells the driver: “I don’t think that's true, you just make less money. But this is actually the card we’re going to use for today.”

The driver then backs down, and payment is made.

According to the video, a signboard in the taxi states that an hourly booking for the vehicle starts at $100.

One of the video’s top rated comments was by someone who identified himself as a taxi driver. 

He apologised for the behaviour of the taxi driver who asked for $100: “I am sorry that such a bad experience happened to you in our country. Please note that the one driver you met isn’t a representative of all taxi drivers in this beautiful country and is rather someone who betrayed the moral values amongst us taxi drivers.”

However, another person said the group paid a high price only because they did not want to cross the road to get to the other private hire vehicle that was charging $20.