Htydjtk

I am on vacation and I have realized that some people here in Turkey are trying their best to get the money out of my pocket. I have already had a situation where after a folklore show I decided to take a taxi to my hotel because Istanbul is not a place where I want to be walking at night on the streets.

I found a taxi in front of a hotel. I show him my hotel's card so he can check the address and my friend and I jumped in. After he drives me to a different part of the city, he told me that he understood that I said a different hotel. At the end I paid twice the price because of the extra miles with the taxi meter.

In my opinion he did that on purpose, just to make the taxi meter run longer.

How do you deal in a polite way with this kind of event?? Can I just say: hey it is your mistake, so I am not paying for that??

Use an app. Virtually everywhere these days has either Uber/Lyft/Grab/Gojek/Ola/Didi/Yandex/Careem/local clone ride-sharing service, or an app put out by local taxi companies in an attempt to compete.

With these, you get to input the destination, you're given a price estimate, and you can see the precise routes suggested and taken, all of which make it much harder for the driver to rip you off. And if you suspect something shady happened anyway, if you paid by card, you can dispute with the app and they may refund you.

If you aren't using a ride-sharing or taxi app, as suggested by jpatokal, use a different app: a mapping app. Enter your destination (make sure it's correct), show the map to the driver and ensure he/she has a shared understanding of where you want to go, and keep an eye on the route. If the driver has a GPS, ask that they use it. Keep in mind that there may be legitimate reasons to use out-of-the way routes, some of which may not be obvious to a visitor, but if you're straight up going to the wrong part of town, ask that the problem be solved immediately. If you're not comfortable with the situation, and the area you area you are in is not immediately unsafe, stop the ride, pay for the services you were given, and get a new ride from another driver.

Since you're staying at a hotel, this may also be something the hotel staff can help with when you do arrive. They may not want to get involved, and I can certainly understand that, but doormen at nice hotels in countries known for taxi scams will sometimes make it clear to drivers that their guests need to be treated well and help intervene in disputes (of course, in other places, the doormen may conspire with illegal taxis for tips).