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Info on Taxi Drivers in France

Posted by on

We recently finished a trip to Paris and had a wonderful experience with the exception of one cab ride. We had reached our destination at the Eiffel Tower and I handed the driver my credit card and he informed us that he accepted cash only. My wife and I started to panic because the fare was 35 Euros and we had about 30 Euros and some change. Not sure what to do I realized that I also had a US ten dollar bill and added that to the pile of cash. He accepted this and we were on our way.

I mentioned this to our clerk at the hotel and he informed us that by law all taxi drivers must accept credit cards! He said I should of told him that if he didn't accept our card than he would not get paid and we would be happy to talk to a police officer about it. We think the driver was insisting to take cash in order to keep it off the books. Also, we did not ask for a receipt which was another mistake.

Fortunately I figured with the additional US money we only overpaid by about 5 dollars but wanted others to be aware of our experience so you wont be a naive as we were!

Posted by
10176 posts

Your clerk was right; we just researched on Google.fr. It’s been the law since 2015. Your posting is a public service. Now, you can retain all those good memories and push this one aside. And you overpaid by only 3-4 dollars.

Posted by
8889 posts

Sounds legitimate, but I don't know Parisienne taxi law. USD 10 is only €8.59. If he tried to change that on its own, I doubt he would get €5 back with all the charges. He possibly lost on the deal.
Never assume anywhere accepts cards unless you see a sign or have asked.

Posted by
475 posts

This is one of the reasons we used Uber on our trip in May ~ it worked very well all three times.

Posted by
2542 posts

We think the driver was insisting to take cash in order to keep it off the books.

This is really not possible as all fares are metered, even the fixed fares to the airports. It is possible that a licensed taxi could have a temporary credit card acceptance issue but the legal drivers will generally tell you in advance.

Accepting a ride in a taxi not using a meter is never a good idea.

Posted by
3685 posts

The exchange rate for converting USD to euro is not anywhere near one to one. It’s more likely that as Chris said the driver got 5€ or less. That being said, although taxis are required by law to accept credit cards, I have found that many have”broken” machines not because they want to keep the fare off the books but because they do not want to lose the percentage to the credit card companies. I found this in many cities where the law requires taxis to take credit cards. As a general rule, One should ask all small businesses (such as taxi drivers) before beginning the transaction if credit cards are accepted. I am wondering though about a 35€ fare for a within Paris trip. Your driver may have been a rip-off artist but who knows maybe you were traveling quite a distance during rush hour. By the way, were you trying to use an American Express card?

Posted by
439 posts

I know taxis here, NYC, don’t make a lot of profit from CC, I try to pay cash whenever I can. When we travel, we try to have cash with us, we usually get a bit of a discount and the bills not as big when we get back.

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