Volvic...
Your experience sounds like what happened to me once in Paris. I let the hotel call the cab for me and it showed up with the equivilent of about 17 bucks on the meter when it showed up.
No thanks@ I waited about five minutes for another cab to show up....this time with "zero" on the meter.
I don't use cabs very often, so I'm not familiar with local protocols. But in Paris, apparently the deal is the meter starts running as soon as the cab is dispatched to your hotel.