Hi all,

Yesterday I booked a taxi to take me to the train station and specified the time for it to arrive.

The taxi arrived 15minutes late and as a result I had to watch my train pull away from the platform when the taxi arrived.

This resulted in me having to buy a new ticket, close to £100.

The taxi company have described the situation as 'unfortunate' but do not accept responsibility.

I was told the taxi would arrive at the time I had requested and in my mind entered an agreement.

The train fare is substantial enough for me to feel I should go to Small Claims.

Am I right to do so?

Really appreciate your help.

Hi there and welcome to CAG!

When you made the booking did you specifically say that you had to catch a train at a specific time?

DD

Just my opinion but a 15 min delay causing you to miss a train probably means that you should have given yourself more time to get there. I always aim to get to long distance stations one hour before departure in case of delays and if I arrive very early go and read the paper/get a coffee.

However, you have been let down by the taxi firm. A refund of the taxi fare would be good practice imo

Whilst we probably all sympathise to a greater or lesser extent, your complaint is obviously with the Taxi firm, but I very much doubt that you will derive any benefit from a civil claim in this case.

Thank you everyone.

Daniella - no, I just specified that I required a taxi for a specific time. I did not give the details as to why.

MrHat - I see your reasoning and had my taxi journey taken longer than I anticipated then I would have to concede that it was my error.

Old CodJA - could you explain more?

Did the driver give any reason for being late? Sometimes things are out of the drivers control and theres nothing they can do. Traffic, slow paying fare etc.

The possibility of a claim against the taxi firm would be stronger if you had said that you needed to catch a particular train. Then the despatcher may have suggested you book the cab for an earlier time in order to guarantee that you arrived on time.

I honestly don't think you would succeed in making a claim against them because I don't think any judge would agree that giving a desired time of pick up for a taxi or minicab constitutes a contract, bearing in mind that their arrival will be governed by traffic, an earlier pick up being delayed, and so on. Otherwise we would all be suing minicabs every time they were late, and they often are.

I would be absolutely fuming, like you, but I don't think you would win this and it would cost you even more money to take them to court and lose.

No there was no reason. I phoned when it hadn't arrived and they said it was on it's way but it arrived 10mins after that call. As I see it the train company specified the time I needed to board the train, and I in turn felt I had specified the time I needed my taxi. Have agreements not been made in both situations?

We don't know which taxi firm or where this occurred and in practice I doubt it matters all that much.

As an example this link shows the general T&Cs relating to one London cab firm and I guess that they are all pretty much the same:

http://www.tlctaxi.co.uk/terms-and-conditions/

It seems pretty well covered by Condition 3 in this particular list I'm afraid. I would expect all Cab firms have very similar conditions and unless you can prove that you were given assurances to the contrary, I cannot see much, if any, likelihood of success in taking this to civil action.

I can't prove it as it is illegal for a consumer like myself to record telephone conversations. (The taxi firm are legally allowed to record them, which I would argue is a one-way defence, and have subsequently told me they record their calls)

In the instance it was a written agreement I would be able to prove myself and in no doubt they may alert me to the terms and conditions.

However I wasn't alerted to any problems: they agreed that the taxi would arrive on time and in doing so I believed they would. I could have asked my friend to give me a lift if I had warning the taxi would be delayed.

I feel I'm entering into a sounding like a broken record now. I'm trying to avoid being angry about it, but I want to understand why these circumstances are different. Please don't feel I'm trying to be antagonistic. I appreciate your help as always.

no, I just specified that I required a taxi for a specific time. I did not give the details as to why.

Therein lies the problem I'm afraid.

The Taxi firm recording the call wouldn't really be a 'one-sided' defence if that recording showed that you said 'I need to be at xxxx station in good time to catch the xx.xx hours train', but if you did not make that stipulation I cannot see any impartial judgement falling in your favour.

The Taxi firm will simply counter by referring to their T&Cs and additionally will say something along these lines: 'if Mr X had specified a need to catch that train, we would have said his time-scale was probably unrealistic and we would have suggested he needed an earlier booking to allow for traffic etc'.

I can't prove it as it is illegal for a consumer like myself to record telephone conversations. (The taxi firm are legally allowed to record them, which I would argue is a one-way defence, and have subsequently told me they record their calls)

.

It doesn't help with your original query, but why do you feel it is illegal for you (as a consumer, rather than as a business) to record a telephone conversation that you were a party to?.

What law have you been told you would be breaking?.

There are requirements placed on businesses who record their calls (as part of their licence to access the telephone network) but these are more (not less) stringent than for individuals.

I don't agree that a business is allowed to record calls to a business while an individual is not.

If one should advise the other party that the call is being recorded, the intent (or lack of) at time of recording to later share the recording with others, and the later admissibility of the recording into evidence can all be debated : but I don't believe it is illegal to record one's calls to a business.

The difference is that trains and planes run to a published timetable and taxis and minicabs do not. Generally if you phone and specify that you have to catch a train or a flight then the booker will probably call out the job earlier. When I have made complaints to my minicab service - a large city wide one - about late minicabs they have said they call out jobs 15 minutes before the requested pick up, and really they are hoping that a cab will pick up and get there on time. However, if a cab has been requested for a train or a flight they call it early - maybe 30 minutes before it is due - which is why often when you do request one in these circumstances your cab may well turn up early.

I don't think a judge would accept that a cab arriving 15 minutes late breaks a contract because they can be held up by circumstances which are not their fault.

Very unlikely to succeed in getting any more than a refund of the cab fare, is this a private hire cab or a Hackney?

It does appear as others have said you did not allow enough time to cover eventualities.

Hello there.

I have to agree with the others, I'm afraid. I think you're going to have trouble proving this.

Too late to tell you this time, I know, but if I'm catching a train at a specific time, I tell the cab company the timings. They know what traffic conditions will be like at that time of day and allow long enough for me to arrive with time to spare.

My best, HB

Just thought I would echo the above. I don't see any claim against the taxi company.

Moral of the story is to allow more time for your journey in future.

I'm with the others on this. I don't see how this is their fault. If a friend drops me to the station, (as they always do because it's too dark for me to walk there) I always make sure they leave early so that I have enough to get there due to traffic.

The taxi being late is generally out of their control. I've had taxis arrive late usually because they're doing other jobs.

Well I suppose the sheer number of you saying I've got this wrong maybe is going to mean I must concede.

It aggrieves me: All I can say now is I wish when I had phoned them when it was late that they had and given me an ETA rather than saying it was 'round the corner'.

I was interested by this story I heard the other week:

bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mg74/features/lawyers-personal-battle-with-tmobile-over-bill

I suppose I thought that an agreement made over the phone was still an agreement. If for example, as Old-CodJA states, I had stated it was for a train journey leaving at a specific time, I'm not sure how that why that should affect the agreement.

Anyway, it's a costly mistake, I'm upset about it and I'm trying not to get myself more upset about it.

Really appreciate all your help, genuinely. Any legal back up anyone could give would be great.

An ETA is just that - an estimation. I've phoned for a taxi and always been told "we'll be a few minutes" and sometimes it can take longer.

@Nystagmite

Yes but I agreed a specific time of arrival to start with. Hopefully I didn't confuse things there.

I'm sorry we are not giving you much hope of suing them, but probably the first question the judge would ask would be, "Did you specifically say you had to catch the train at (time)?" and you didn't. If you do take this to court, and I hope you won't, then if the taxi firm defends successfully they may well ask for costs for someone having to take time off work to attend the hearing. Then you will have court costs and their costs on top of the £100.

I do think it would have been a goodwill gesture on their part if they had refunded your fare, but you can't insist that they do.