<p>I am helping my college age niece find a taxi service to take her to the airport for Thanksgiving to fly to Grandmother’s House. Her mom has cancer and so life has changed for the family. She had had bad experiences with taxis - always late, the driver “hitting” on her, drivers who wouldn’t even pick up and put her luggage in the trunk or take it out of the trunk at the airport, etc.</p>
<p>No luck on the internet and then I found a list for International Students at her university. I checked them out on the internet and then decided to call the International House and speak personally to an employee as I was pretty shocked by what I found.</p>
<p>First taxi service I checked my niece had already used twice and each time they were late by 30 minutes to take her to the airport. I checked reviews on line - all reviews were negative as to reliability and being on time - including those found in the college section for her college on College Confidential. This is the service the students can use their “loaded” student ID and that the university employee I spoke to recommended highly before I told her what I found on the reviews.</p>
<p>Second taxi service the university employee recommended my niece has also used - they were twenty minutes late the first time she used them and they charged her $10 more than their flat rate to the airport as they said it took longer due to traffic. My niece called the owner and he refunded her $10, although it took three months, several phone calls and complaints to the BBB (of which he was a member). Their on line reviews were also negative as to being on time and complained of driver body odor.</p>
<p>Then I told the university employee that one of the taxi services on their recommended list had an incident in 2005 where a female student was kidnapped and assaulted by the taxi driver. She expressed surprise they were still on the list and said she’d remove them. I pointed out it had been over 5 years and they still had this company on the list.</p>
<p>There were two other individuals on the list and I could not find anything about them on the internet.</p>
<p>At this point I gave up - found a private car service in a neighboring town and the cost is three times that of the taxi. However, all of their on line reviews are positive!</p>
<p>Is this typical or is my niece’s university just clueless?</p>
<p>My kids went to colleges where it was fairly common for kids to have cars. When they took flights they just got a ride with a friend to the airport. I’ve never arranged any transportation for my kids at all except to get them there freshman year.</p>
<p>I dunno, I rarely call taxis, but we have used the ones who sit at the train station- and I have also called them up for rides to the train station when running late ( both in Seattle and Portand)
While a couple drivers have been overly chatty- never any problems.
We alsocalled for a town car when we were in SF and I was just wiped and couldn’t deal with taking public transportation to the Oakland airport.
Very reasonable price, very quiet and relaxing.</p>
<p>I would just use the internet or yellow pages to find taxi service- Idon’t usually get referrals from schools as you found out, they don’t have latest info.</p>
<p>My niece does not have a car and since her last class is at 4PM the day before Thanksgiving begins all of her friends are leaving that day. She usually does catch a ride with a friend to the airport, but it does not work this year. There were no evening flights after 4PM to her destination.</p>
<p>I did use the internet to do a search and that’s where I found all the horrid reviews, but I don’t have access to the yellow pages where she goes to school. All the reviews for taxis in the city where she attends school were dismal and I wouldn’t trust any of them after what I read on the internet. I couldn’t even find a limo service.</p>
<p>I guess what shocked me the most was that the university was still recommending a taxi service that had assaulted and kidnapped a female student. And the fact that the guy still is in business!</p>
<p>We have always uses Super Shuttle.</p>
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<p>I assume it was a particular driver employed with the service, not the service itself, that attacked and kidnapped the student? I assume the driver was convicted and sent to prison. Without much more detail than either we or the university can probably know, how can we assume the company itself was culpable? Or taking it a step further, than the university is now responsible for some action by some person in some office making a courtesy list that wasn’t updated? I’d assume no one ever connected the dots until now. </p>
<p>After many years of living in big cities, especially NYC, I found what works for me (to avoid frustrations) is </p>
<p>a. To let the little things go when I can (e.g. even as a poor student I’d not chase $10)</p>
<p>b. Learn from experience and keep my expectations low about some people, systems and industries (e.g. cable companies, the telecom industry, taxi drivers), and </p>
<p>c. Constantly build in contingencies for bad behavior by those people and systems (e.g. I go early to the airport and bring work with me).</p>