Arrived at Beijing International Airport last night at 11:45 p.m. Was headed to the Crowne Plaza Wangfujing. Hadn't been to Beijing in a while and understood that the taxi should cost 100-150 yuan.

Noticed a delightful absence of touts inside the terminal building.

Walked out exit door 7 and saw the public taxi line. Taxis are now blue and gold instead of the blue and white public taxis I remember.

The entrance to the taxi line is right at a desk labeled "Information." There was a woman working behind the desk and a man standing in front of it. As I attempted to enter the taxi line, the dude stopped me. I thought I might be violating protocol because in some airports there's a "taxi starter" who takes your destination info and then gives that to the driver or gives you a piece of paper or taxi assignment.

Anyway, as the guy stopped me he said "Driver does not speak English."

I said "No problem, I have the hotel name and address here on this printout." He and the lady looked at it. She had other blank forms on her desk that said "Take me to ..." where I guess she would write the destinations in Chinese for non-Chinese people.

She looks at my paper, and then I thought she said "thousand two hundred eighty." I gave her an incredulous look and said "I don't understand" and she said "Two hundred eighty." I probably misheard the "thousand" part.

I told her "I just want to use the meter." She then immediately pointed to the taxi line and said "meter" with an apologetic/guilty look on her face. The guy persisted and said "Meter cost three hundred to four hundred fifty."

Got in taxi, showed driver destination, the 30-40 minute taxi ride from airport to Wangfujing cost 94 yuan.

I know enough to avoid taxi touts in airports, and I'm sure most posters here know that as well, but I just wanted to point out this scam as it's being operated from the taxi "information" desk which should be assisting people in how to get a taxi, and which can be confused as a legitimate taxi "starter."

In retrospect, I don't think they were stopping any Chinese people who approached the taxi line, it seems the scammers working the information desk at the entrance to the taxi line just single out foreigners and offer them a taxi at a grossly inflated rate under the guise of "helping" them.