imre, the wait has been 20+ minutes at 5p +/- 1 hour. as such, i've used touts 3 times in the last month (had never done so before) and all worked out well. however, a colleague -who is less pushy than myself- had a bad experience on my advice two weeks ago; basically, they threw an extra guy in his car, went to wudaokou, AND tried to extort him for more money when he got to his destination. fortunately, he called me in the midst of all this and i had the police meet him at the hotel; total fare = zero.

as scary as all that may seem, i remain confident that it's possible to play the touts and win as long as you aren't clueless (i can't even venture to imagine how i would have reacted when the second passenger was onloaded, let alone the wudaokou detour). bottom line, i will continue to use those guys during rush hour, in spite of the fact that many are not good people.