Taxi Mafia

Let's take a break from the heavy DALI issues series for a while. I did a lot of travel in the past 2 weeks (and a half). First it was LEDucation - the best lighting trade show in New York, followed by factory visits in China and the Bluetooth Asia event in Shenzhen. Was about to return home but then chasing an important business development I ended up detouring home through Australia.

As always tons of lessons and experiences. I love being close to customers, as this really helps get down to Earth and understand their contexts, motivations, and - most importantly - what we should be doing to address them well.

Also being a global traveler  has increasingly made me sometimes too confident. Take China - once you travel there once or twice, it becomes really easy to navigate there. And as everything is so overwatched (cameras everywhere!) and therefore safe, your vigilance drops.

And this was the case when I ended up in Shenzhen / Shekou ferry terminal. This ferry is BTW super convenient - without entering Hong Kong, it takes you directly from a HKG arrival gate to the heart of the 20-million Shenzhen metropolis. They even take care of your checked luggage. So arriving at Shekou terminal, normally from there you would take a DiDi (the Chinese equivalent for Uber) to the hotel. But as I emerged from the immigration, a nice young guy approached me offering a taxi ride.

I was after the 6 hours EWR-SFO flight followed by the 14 hours SFO-HKG, followed by the 1-hour ferry. Taxi mafia? Naaaahhh... not in China. Everything here is so proper. And I agreed. The driver did not have the meter running, so that elevated my suspicion, but mentally I was prepared to pay him up to 100 RMB (~$15 USD). This 40-minute trip on DiDi would normally cost half of that. Byut when we arrived he demanded 500 RMB. That is still way less compared to a trip from Newark to Manhattan, but outrageous by Chinese standards.

So you have it. Turns our taxi mafia is international. And this really is the point why the world has fallen in love with app-based ride sharing: total price transparency. Be it Uber or Lyft or Bolt or DiDi or Grab, you know the charge up front and no one is going to rip you off. Just because you are not local.

I ended up paying 150 RMB after fierce negotiations with the guy. He even attempted to hand me a fake 500 RMB receipt arguing my company would reimburse the amount. Lesson learned: never ever trust a "taxi, sir?" guy. Trust a ride hailing app, whichever is your favorite.