Istanbul Prosecuters are demanding up to 10 years jail time for a taxi driver who cheated a tourist from Saudi Arabia by unnecessarily extending a journey and thus charging him extra.
The prosecutors accuse the taxi driver of committing “aggravated fraud.”
The taxi ride began in the Kadıköy district (which is on Istanbul’s Asian side) to go to the Sabiha Gökçen Airport, (also on the Asian side), so as to take a flight back to Saudi Arabia.
According to the prosecutors’ indictment, the taxi driver realized that the tourist was not familiar with Istanbul so took him over the Bosphorus to the European side via the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, before returning to the Asian side. He then further extended the trip by taking a longer route to the airport.
To those unfamiliar with Istanbul, The Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge is nowhere near the requested stop at Sabiha Gökçen Airport.
The extra distance travelled for the “tour” could have perhaps made the taxi fare 5 or more times what it should have been, depending upon the traffic (which is notably bad at any hour).
I hear you all saying… But don’t taxi drivers all over the world do that, take the unsuspecting tourist on the longest route possible to the destination? Well, it is generally suspected that yes that is probably true, taxi drivers like to take us on unrequested “tours” if they think they can get away with it.
Is it right for a taxi driver to do that….NO.
OK so back to the news…
The longer than necessary trip caused the Saudi tourist to miss his flight, and the fare ended up being way more than it should have been for the airport destination.
This is unacceptable, the tourist probably thought (but said a lot more perhaps?)
After the tourist decided to sue the driver, prosecutors are now demanding a jail sentence of between 3 and 10 years for the driver.
Who reading this thinks that the punishment sought is excessive, maybe a fine, but jail time?
The driver has denied the charges, claiming that he got confused and took the wrong exit to the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge.
Hmmm, likely story. What Istanbul taxi driver doesn’t know how to get to one of just two Airports from a major part of Istanbul?