Travel Journal: A Story from When I Was Scammed in Peru by a Taxi Driver
This is a story about the time I tried to take an Uber from Lima Airport to my hotel, and I didn’t realize I did not have cell service until it was too late. I wound up having to take an illegal taxi which was preying on dumb tourists right outside the terminal. Hopefully, you can learn from my mistakes!
Usually, I recommend taking an Uber from the airport if you have the option because you get a set rate you can track your trip. In Peru, Uber picks up outside the airport. Uber is actually technically illegal in a lot of countries – only government-licensed taxi cabs are allowed inside the airport terminal.
This is no problem if you have cellular service, but what I didn’t realize was that I didn’t have service in Peru. My phone called an Uber off the airport’s wifi, and I didn’t realize I had no cellular until I had bypassed the licensed taxi drivers and left the airport. I had to bypass a checkpoint to leave the terminal by foot and the guard at the gate said I would have to go all the way around to get back into the airport.
So, I did which I would not recommend anyone ever do, I took one of the sketchy illegal taxis that wait right outside the terminal to solicit passengers.
You know they’re illegal because 1) if they were a licensed taxi they would be inside the terminal and 2) once you see the state of their vehicle… you’ll know.
I had taken a few of these unlicensed taxis in Mexico with no problem, but never from the airport.
I found a driver who spoke decent English and showed him my destination on a map on my phone (always download maps offline wherever you’re going!) and showed him the rate Uber was going to give me. The guy said no problem immediately without bargaining back (a bit of a red flag, very infrequently will your first offer be the right price), and off we went.
Taxis you take from airports and bus stations usually are more predatory towards foreigners, and I knew I had gotten myself into a bit of a situation when the first thing out of the driver’s mouth once we left was ‘Do you have a hotel?” – I said yes.
He said, “but did you already pay?”.
Always watch out for taxi drivers trying to take you to a hotel they recommend or a restaurant or store they recommend, they’re only doing it because they get a commission from bringing in people. As we were walking to his car this suspicion was double confirmed when he was talking to his friend in Spanish right in front of me about how they could get me to a hotel.
Later on, an hour into our journey, he tried to get me to go to a hotel he recommended again by saying, “Oh this area, this area is very bad very dangerous – you should listen to me and let me take you somewhere safe” (meanwhile he had known the area the whole time).
I had to put my foot down and practically yell “TAKE ME TO MY DESTINATION”.
The taxi ride that followed was supposed to take no more than 20 minutes but wound up taking over two and a half hours.
What followed was the most absurd taxi ride of my life. The driver first asked me if I was married. This is a common question you’ll get asked in countries all over the world as a solo female traveler, sometimes people (nice people) ask me my marital status before even asking my name – you get used to it.
But when a guy asks if you’re married, especially one you’re alone with like a tour guide or taxi driver, you say YES. You’re SUPER married.
Doesn’t matter if you’re only 25, you’ve been married for 30 years, and have 3 kids. So I lied and told him I was married, and that my husband would be joining me later in Peru.
The following conversation went as follows:
Taxi driver: “You’re married?”
Me: “Yes”
Taxi driver: “Why don’t you wear a ring?”
Me: “I don’t travel with jewelry, it is not smart”
Taxi driver: “You’re not married. You’re lying.”
Me: “Yes, I am! (Brings out a photo of me and my little brother) “Look, my son. He’s 8.”
Taxi driver, *thinking* – “You are divorced?”
Me: “No.”
Taxi driver: “You are….how do you say…..”
At this point the taxi driver, while we were driving through crazy Peruvian traffic, googles something on his phone and brings up a photo of a casket with a woman crying over it.
He proudly pointed at the crying woman and said “You” and then pointed at the casket and said “Your husband”.
This was getting too out of pocket for me so I kindly told him the word he was looking for was “widow” and that no, my husband was joining me in a few days in Lima as I had said before. I then put in my headphones before he showed me more widows on his phone.
About 45 minutes in, we still hadn’t located an ATM and he motioned for me to take out my headphones. This man was probably mid-50s, and he urgently told me “My father has passed away. I am my own father now”. That was it. That was the whole statement.
I gave my condolences for this biologically incorrect declaration and we rode in silence until we finally reached an ATM.
ATMs in many countries have a 50/50 shot of actually having cash, Peru is no exception.
There were tons of banks on the street he took me to and I motioned for him to stop at Scotiabank because it’s partnered with Bank of America and won’t charge me for using it, and then we found out that the Scotiabank ATM was out of cash. I said it’s fine we’ll just go to another ATM on the street, and the taxi driver said no no the lines were too long and he knew a place.
What followed was over an hour of driving through crazy traffic to look for ATMs, I’m pretty sure he was doing this on purpose because I asked him to just go to the Hotel (usually hostels/hotels have ATMs inside of them, that you have to pay a fee for higher than a bank ATM but I didn’t care at that point, or your host could give you a cash advance to pay a cab), but he pointedly refused.
Even though the cab wasn’t metered, he was making sure the trip took a very long time so he could pull his next move. Once we finally found an ATM and got cash, he demanded to be paid immediately, instead of upon arrival like you usually do with taxis.
It was now night-time and over two hours into our trip, I just paid him the 100 sol to get it over with so we could get out of there. He looked at the bill, looked at me, looked at the bill again, and said “What is this?”
I said, “The fee we agreed upon…”
He said – oh no, madam, (now I’m “madam”), you misunderstood me. The fee was in DOLLARS, not sol.
This was a lie. 100 USD in sol would be 400 Sol or about 8x as much as this trip should have cost per our original arrangement. He tried this scam first on me and I blatantly refused, I was not paying 100 USD for this awful scary cab ride. Then he tried a different technique and pulled out a very very very dirty laminated piece of paper that listed the “official prices”.
I’ve encountered this scam in Mexico as well – the taxi driver brings out a piece of official-looking laminated paper and tries to pass off certain locations as being flat-rate, meanwhile, it’s about 2X the price it should be.
THIS taxi driver on the other hand wasn’t even trying.
His official flat-rate sheet of paper looked like it had taken a mud bath, and it said “Government Certified Taxi” on it in English, which I already knew this cab was not. But, the “official” piece of paper said the trip I wanted to take should only be 80 sol, not 400 like he was trying to get out of me a few minutes before. I bit my tongue and gave him another 50, since I didn’t have small bills, and tried to laugh off the whole thing like “Ohhhhh I thought you meant 400 sol! 80! Sure! 80 is so cheap! Let’s just go”.
I just wanted to get out of this cab.
For his part, he laid it on super thick and was like “Oh no! 400 sol??? You would call the cops on me! No no, I am a fair man a very fair man.”
Once we got to my hotel, he accidentally drove past it by 5 blocks. Once he realized his error, however – instead of turning around, he drove the car in reverse, SPEEDING backward down a one-way street for 5 blocks.
I didn’t even care – I was just happy to get out of the car once we arrived.
The driver took my bag from the trunk and then carried it up the stairs for me, which was nice but I heard him muttering “to himself” “Oh yes she’ll give me a very big tip, this is a nice lady, she knows how hard I worked for her and how long the trip was and all the traffic. Yes, I can expect a very big tip from her”.
Once we reached the top my host overheard this and put a stop to it fast, and dismissed him. The guy had the nerve to ask for a “big tip” when he had scammed me the whole way, and never even gave me my change!
So, that is the worst taxi ride I’ve had (so far).
