Never take a taxi in Oslo, especially if it's Christiania Taxi…read more
Our next stop after Oslo was Göteborg, and instead of flying, my sister and I were taking a train. Even though we could have easily taken a tram to the train station, after our experience at Alexanderplatz in Berlin, we wanted to cab it. We asked the staff at Ellingsens Pensjonat to call a cab for us, and they called Christiania Taxi. (Tip--if staying at Ellingsens Pensjonat, call a cab yourself; they have some sort of "deal" with Christiania Taxi which supposedly gives you a discount on your fare if you're a guest at Ellingsens Pensjonat, but it's a scam.)
The cab driver arrived in a timely manner, took our luggage and loaded the cab, and seemed normal and friendly--at first. Then he asked where we were going after Oslo. This may seem like an innocuous question, but his tone wasn't of a friendly, making chit chat kind of manner; there was something off about the way he asked. The way he asked the question made me very suspicious and uneasy, so I reluctantly answered, "Sweden..." He then tried to pressure us into having him drive us to the airport, not the train station, because it would be a longer drive (and thus a higher fare) to the airport. The problem with his little scam was we were taking a fucking TRAIN to Sweden, not flying. Also, if someone asks you to drive them to XYZ destination, do your fucking job and drive them there! We are under no obligation to explain to the cab driver our itinerary, modes of transportation, or why we want to be driven to a certain destination. Just drive us to where we tell you, and STFU.
So we got into the cab (yes, we weren't even in the cab yet!), and after a minute, I notice that the fare was much higher than what it should have been for that length of time (we had already taken a cab with another company the previous day, so we had some frame of reference). So I asked the cab driver about the rate, and he was clearly avoiding answering my simple question which was, "What is the initial base rate?" (There was no language barrier; he was just scammin'.) He mumbled something after I kept asking (my question was reasonable, and as a customer, I have the right to know what the base rate is), and I directly asked, "So, the initial base rate is XXX NOK?" He then admitted that the initial rate was XX NOK, and the time from when we got into the cab and distance driven at that point did not account for the difference between the current rate and the base rate. So I outright asked him, "Was the meter on before we got into the cab?" Caught in a scam, the driver angrily replied, "Well it's not my job to carry your bags!" Aside from that having nothing to do with starting the meter before the ride starts (while I don't know the laws and standard practices of taxi companies in Norway, the other company did not start the meter until after we had gotten in the cab, nor did any other cab we used while in Europe), we never asked him to carry our bags--he just grabbed them right away when he arrived.
I had to pay with credit card as I was out of cash, and after he ran my credit card (I didn't tip him of course--I'm not sure if you're supposed to tip in Norway, but he wasn't going to get an extra krone out of me), he tried to avoid giving me my Visa receipt (I am one of those people who insists on getting all my credit card and debit receipts, no matter how small the purchase). He started getting out of the cab to open the trunk after running my card, and I demanded my receipt. I had to ask him about three or four times, and he finally gave it to me in a huff, after I told him that I was not leaving the cab until I had my receipt. We got out of the cab and he opened up the trunk, glaring at us like a child, as my sister and I struggled to pull out our large and heavy suitcases.
