- You are here:
- Home
- Blog
- Taxi Issues
- Conflict Between Colombian Taxi Drivers and Uber
After a long day of traveling to Colombia, you finally arrive at night to the international airport in Bogota
Upon exiting, you find a bunch of taxis offering you a service
But you find that perhaps they are trying to overcharge you or you suspect that you can get a better deal elsewhere
Plus you don’t want to risk dealing with a taxi driver that could try to scam you some other way as I have written about in this article
Especially given that taxis in Colombia don’t usually have the best reputation when it comes to scams or safety in general
So what do you do?
Well, like anyone else in the modern 21st century, you pull out your phone and order an UBER
But perhaps you didn’t realize that there is a strong distaste for UBER among taxi drivers in Colombia?
I mean, after all, how else are they going to fuck you over if you decide to go with a better service that charges less and involves less games and scams?
When you arrived to Colombia, you might have been thinking about fucking some of the hot Colombian women
Not necessarily getting fucked on prices by some overweight dude with an eye to overcharge or even possibly scam you
So you order an UBER and some taxi driver perhaps gets wind of the fact that you are ordering one
Now the fun begins…
Once the UBER driver shows up, you get in the backseat of the vehicle
And now to your destination!
Right?
Not so fast, gringo!
All of a sudden, a bunch of Colombian taxi drivers swarm your vehicle and block it from moving
They get hostile and aggressive with the UBER driver
And eventually the UBER driver has to let you go and can’t take you to your destination
All because a bunch of random Colombian taxi drivers despise any real sense of market competition
And can’t compete well with a better service for better prices as evidenced by a very similar story posted on Tripadvisor by a traveler to Colombia
Welcome to Colombia!
Explaining the Conflict
In Colombia, we have had this conflict for quite a while
There have been numerous cases of Colombian taxi drivers straight up beating up or even shooting at UBER drivers from what I have heard
The reality is that UBER has done a great job at offering people here a better service for a better price
But Colombian taxi drivers don’t like competing with that and have resulted in sometimes taking even physical violence or acts of intimidation against UBER drivers
In fact, from what I have heard, UBER is technically illegal to use in Colombia
However, in practice, quite a few people use UBER without problem
They mainly have to be quiet about using it and not saying too loudly that they ordered an UBER
Especially in front of any nearby taxi drivers that might get upset that they can’t compete with what UBER offers
And funny enough…
While there is so much negative attention targeted towards UBER in Colombia, other similar services are being offered here as well
According to the news that I read here, there’s a Chinese company called DiDi that is competing with UBER with its own service in this country down here
In the end, despite Colombian efforts to prohibit UBER, it likely won’t ever go away
With smart phones and the internet, it’ll simply be too easy for someone to offer a better service than taxi drivers
A service that involves smaller prices, better services, less scams and less of a chance of being kidnapped or even killed by a rogue taxi driver involved with organized crime
And when you want to go somewhere, don’t you want to pay a smaller price for a better service that is less likely to set you up to get scammed, kidnapped or killed?
Kinda sounds like a cool idea!
But here’s what I think about it….
Main Thoughts on This Issue
Over nearly a decade of living in Colombia, there’s one thing about living in this country that always has pissed me off
And that is the issue with Colombian taxi drivers
Now not all taxi drivers down here are scammers or trying to kidnap you
Most are just trying to earn their paycheck like anywhere else
But it is true that Colombia has more bad taxi drivers than most places
There’s a few countries in the world that I have been to where taxi drivers are notoriously bad in my experience – Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, etc…
While in other countries like Chile for example, taxi drivers are not as bad there from my experience and more reliable
In Colombia, I have simply have had to play way too many games with Colombian taxi drivers
Way too often a taxi driver down here will pull some trick out of his ass to scam you in some way or somehow increase the price
For example, one time I went to a taxi booth in Barranquilla and got the next taxi in line
There was a guy that wrote down the price for my ride on a small piece of paper based on where I said I was going
I gave the paper to the taxi driver as I got in
About 5 minutes into the ride, the taxi driver looked at the paper and with a dumb look said “hey! This 6 is actually an 8! You messed with the ticket somehow!”
Now keep in mind quite a few Colombians can be ignorant and think that all foreigners don’t speak Spanish
So most likely this guy assumed that I would just play “dumb gringo” and go “si si si, no problem. I pay whatever you want.”
But I called the guy out on his lie in a sentence or two and he immediately stopped with his tactic to increase the price
He looked at me in a weird way in the mirror like “he speaks Spanish?”
And just dropped the topic there and I paid what the price was intended to be.
With most Colombian taxi drivers, it’s simple – you play it cool and call them out when they try to play games
And most of the time they will stop with their games when they see you can actually handle your own in their language
But that shit gets tiring after a while if I’m honest
In countries like Peru or Chile, that isn’t as common though there are bad taxi drivers anywhere
But in countries like those, it doesn’t feel like I have to be on my toes all the time ready to stop a dumb scam like that from happening
While in Colombia, it’s been common enough that it’s one thing that I dislike about this country
Despite being a great country with many benefits, it’s not perfect obviously as no country is
But to be fair, the amount of scams and cheats that occur here depends on where you are in my experience
The worst parts of Colombia for finding scammers and cheats are in the Caribbean Coast and Cali
In Medellin, there’s a healthy amount of these folks too but not as much as the other two areas just mentioned
In Bogota, there’s even less of these folks and is one reason why I like Bogota a bit more than other cities – people here are more honest overall in their business dealings
Then you have some cities like Pasto, Ibagué or Popayán for example where I find people to be much more honest in their dealings
Again, you can find bad people in any part of the world but these are simply some of the differences I have noticed across various points in Colombia
Finally, I like what UBER does overall in Colombia.
One major issue this country has (similar to other Latin American countries) is that the quality of service you get in some industries or services can be lackluster
Especially when compared to similar services in the US
One reason for this is because Colombians are simply more accustomed to things not working
And accept it more frequently as there isn’t much they can do about it in their eyes
Another reason is that there is a certain “lag time” that happens down here where it takes a while for things to progress and improve when compared to the US
Where things do improve over time but it takes a little bit longer
UBER is just one example out of many of Colombia improving itself as new companies are offering better services here
And that’s evident by the fact that UBER and similar services stay strong here with plenty of clients despite the opposition to them
Because the market wins in the end – those with better services and better prices win in ultimately
And so I don’t feel as bad for most of the taxi drivers in Colombia – offer a better service or lose your customers
Because in the end, more companies offering better services will improve Colombia overall
Especially as the quality of services in different industries like transportation offer a better living experience in this country for those here
Of course, there is some downside to all of this. UBER does hurt the few honest taxi drivers in this country and it does encourage more of a “race to the bottom” when it comes to prices
But you most likely aren’t going to stop that by making it illegal – with the smart phone and the internet, this service will continue to exist and outcompete the local taxi drivers
Especially those that are more dishonest in their business dealings
And with that happening, I overall find it more or less an improvement to this country because of the better service it offers for more competitive prices
Which, in the end, is something Colombia needs to make sure the quality of living here improves also
Overall, those are my thoughts on this particular conflict in Colombia between taxi and UBER drivers
What do you think on the manner?
Leave in the comment section any questions or insight of your own on this topic
And thanks for reading
Hasta luego parceros,
Seth
Join the Newsletter to discover the best cities to date sexy Colombian women!
__CONFIG_colors_palette__{“active_palette”:0,”config”:{“colors”:{“cf6ff”:{“name”:”Main Color”,”parent”:-1},”73c8d”:{“name”:”Dark Accent”,”parent”:”cf6ff”}},”gradients”:[]},”palettes”:[{“name”:”Default”,”value”:{“colors”:{“cf6ff”:{“val”:”rgb(140, 0, 0)”,”hsl”:{“h”:0,”s”:0.99,”l”:0.27}},”73c8d”:{“val”:”rgb(85, 4, 2)”,”hsl_parent_dependency”:{“h”:1,”l”:0.17,”s”:0.95}}},”gradients”:[]}}]}__CONFIG_colors_palette__ Sign Up & Date Sexy Colombian Women!