Fleecing The Foreigner

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31597, 7 February 1968, Page 13

Fleecing The Foreigner

(Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, Feb. 6. Competition to fleece foreign tourists at London Airport has become so intense that Heath Row’s multi-lingual, multi-priced taxi-drivers are being muscled out by unlicensed touts, according to a writer in the “Guardian.”

Accompanied by colleagues, the writer decided to “test price” the market. "Summoning up our mythical languages, and armed with suitcases, we found that the rate for the journey into central London ranged from £3 10s in broken French and £5 in fractured Spanish to SUS2S in Brooklynese,” he writes.

“Jabbering Russian in Peter Ustinov style did, it is fair to say, temporarily stop the Berlitz School of Languages on the rank, but after a huddle they came back with a finger rate backed up by •funf'pfund.’

“When we replied ‘Soviet—nietski’ the rate dropped to four fingers, to be replaced by two, and jeers when we walked over to the bus.

“The suggestion that one would have to go to the back streets of Naples, or possibly Beirut, before receiving similar treatment, is almost certainly a gross libel on the Neapolitan and Beirut taxidrivers.”

The writer says the British Airport Authority was alarmed and surprised when told of the activities of the touts. Its advice to foreign tourists was to agree on a fare with a taxi-driver before heading for central London, the recommended fare being £2 15s.

The authority said it was considering translating its warning notices into other languages. “In the meantime,” the writer says, ‘The touts consider that a good week should bring them in about £7O.