wow a lot of different responses form what I would expect
I visit friends in london a couple times a year- we use minicabs at night formt heir house (Nr Kilburn Park) to whatever hotel we are at - they have a couple of companies they use and they are always reliable esp late at night or for airport runs. I would never get in a cab on the street but to call a service has always worked well for us.

Maybe I should feel lucky.

When we went to Paris last Fall, we exited Gare du Nord and the line for a cab was really long. We were approached by a taxi tout and, sort of reluctantly, we followed him. One hand on the luggage, one hand on the wallet.

Out some other door and we waited while he hustled across the street. Seconds later, a cab shows up and we get in.

It turns out, the cab was metered, and he went directly to the hotel, so we came out OK, but reading this thread makes me think we might have been ripe for a rip-off

Let's face it, stut, SW8 is south of the river whichever way you look at it, and it's going to take more than some fancy technology to get a cabbie over there... http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/wink.gif

Joking aside, while it's always worked for me in the West End, my friends in the provinces (say, Fulham) do report problems. According to some of the cabbies, this is because they haven't recruited enough yellow badges yet, something they're currently rectifying.

Also, while the driver gets the full fare (the £1.60 going to the zingo people) he does also have to pay £20pcm (or similar) to rent the kit.

So I grant it's not perfect yet, but it's getting there...

The Zingo problem is this.....

The average London Taxi driver earns something pathetic like 11,000 GBP per year. This is up significantly from a decade ago when it was just over 6,000 GBP.

This of course is ridiculous, but true. Black cabs are one of the last great cash trades in the UK. Some Drivers took up the "computers" in order to get big juicy corporate jobs. Generally these had either a booking fee, or they were able to start the meter from when they were called etc. even if these incentives were not good enough, the average wait of 20 minutes with the meter ticking in the City in the later evening made declaring a portion of earnings worth it for these guys.

Many did not want to go with Zingo partially due to this angle. That being said, the soft economy is convincing many to do it.

Remember: there are Merc transfers available to/from LHR for as little as £25. Curteous, professional drivers, clean Merc - far nicer than a Black Cab (at half the cost). See: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum15/HTML/005111.html

Regards,
Alex