Originally Posted by
Eastbay1K
In 15 years of travel to Chile, the only bad taxis I've ever had have been in the past few years in the Bellavista barrio at night. I either won't get in them when they try and give me a fixed ripoff price, or call them out when they have a phony meter or don't turn the meter on altogether. Of course, I know where I'm going and what the approximate fare should be, so a couple of times they've told me not to pay (for fear of me notifying the police).
Unfortunately, I have seen quite a bit of tomfoolery firsthand. A good friend of mine, who was quite the yankee from Indiana, would often ride with me in taxis back from Las Condes/Providencia. The taxistas would automatically see him and get dollar signs in their eyes, but he knew the game better than they did, so as soon as they'd try to charge him 20, 30k pesos for a simple ride, he would flag down the nearest carabinero, and suddenly the price would be a normal one. Or a shouting match. This happened to us, I would say at least 5-6 times very conservatively speaking between 2009/10 and 2013ish. I can rattle off many more stories, like for example a very gringoish friend of mine who came to visit from N. Carolina. I watched him like a hawk while he was here, and the minute he gets in a taxi by himself, the taxidriver tells him the 20k peso note he gave to pay was only a 5k or somesuch nonsense and soaks him for more. Anyway, I know far more, including one tragically expensive event with Japanese visitors. You can guess how that went.
Anyway, I am not trying to scare anyone at all. Just saying there are a lot of really unethical taxis out there in Chile, but mr. friendly carabinero will be on to them the second they see the situation is clearly fraudulent. I mostly avoid them because I am 1) antisocial and 2) buses/metro goes almost everywhere anyway, and I am just flaite like that.