Budapest nightlife
tourism & nightlife
Taxi mafia in Budapest nightlife
As it has already been announced by the news of the past period as well, there are certain complaints to be raised with regard to the services of night clubs operating in the capital of Hungary. Catering establishments of weak, non-classifiable standard and aiming at inflicting a loss on tourists are not rare, and this may unfortunately cause irreversible damages to the catering industry and to the whole of national tourism in the long term. On the official web site of the American Embassy those interested in the topic are provided information updated on a monthly basis, including an updated black list of clubs making a living from cheating and inflicting a loss on guests.
This strange phenomenon seems to be a typically Hungarian „disease”. Nowhere in Europe can anyone experience things similar to this, thus it is quite difficult to warn foreigners about the hazards they might be exposed to. Especially because these corrupt clubs do not commit their mean crimes that can end up in violence by themselves. In close co-operation with them there is the Budapest taxi mafia has a role of at least the same extent in the “plucking” of unsuspicious tourists. In practice the case is that if someone does not obtain adequate information, it is almost certain that they will end up in a “bad” place, and in the end they will have to pay quite a price for that. The most troubling thing is that even the taxi drivers employed by major hotels like the Kempinsky, Marriott, Inter-Continental, Sofitel are no exceptions either. The reader of these lines should just imagine that several times € 80 capitation per person is paid by the night clubs per guest. If the taxi driver of the Kempinsky takes a group of four to for example the Merci Night Club or the Broadway Night Club, then they might even earn € 320 by one round. Of course they cannot resist the temptation and they are not at all interested in what place they take their passengers to. Then the club must "rob" these guests (not that it would be hard for them to do so) because they are at EUR 300 loss at the moment when the guests enter. The method of “robbing” guests is very simple. After the guests have taken their seats they learn that there is an entrance fee and obligatory consumption. This is forced upon them, then the dance girls show up. And with the dance girls the unrequested consumer drinks are served, which are of course charged to the victims' bills. It’s no use for the poor tourists to complain, it’s already too late. The bill is already at EUR 400-500. What comes after that is the most destructive and meanest crime, not only against the guests, but also the whole country and honest Budapest caterers. Payment of the bills is usually not done smoothly. Many times part of the group is held "hostage" in the bar as long as someone else does not bring money from an ATM or does not pay the bill. This oftentimes ends with a report to the police, there have been many such cases in the recent past, but if the bar is closed down, it will reopen under a different company name.
Corrupt taxi drivers
As I mentioned before, the role of the taxi drivers in this series of events does indeed constitute a crime. The fact that the hotels know about this (because they do) and they do not do anything about it, does not make their role any more forgivable either. It is simply incomprehensible how multinational companies who operate these hotel chains can allow this to themselves. The greatest problem lies in the long-term., almost unforeseeable consequences of the phenomenon. Bad news travels quickly as fire. If something like this happens to ten tourists, when they get home they tell another hundred people and those again to another hundred, and the good reputation of Hungary fades into nothing by at a highly increased rate. Even now already there is a significant change to Budapest night life and the behaviour of those visiting Hungary. In their eyes there is often fear, suspicion, and I can say that this is not unfounded. Sooner or later the attraction of our capital city will be equal to that of the Balkans or third world countries, and maybe it is already too late to do something about it. We still think that for the sake of the catering industry and tourism - and I shall go further: our children and grandchildren – we shall make every effort to fight against corruption, the above described bars and the taxi mafia. We will not let the already roughly handled image of the country to be trampled into the ground even more, and to let those be robbed in a disgusting way who are interested in our country’s values and variety of our culture and visit us to see those.
Thus we would like to expressly ask everyone to be especially careful, specifically within this segment and to be well informed. There are reliable bars of very high standard that do not obtain their circle of guests by such methods and they provide European standard service. There are several independent web sites dealing with this issue, and there we mostly can get information on where to go and where not to go. One thing is certain: do not trust Budapest taxi drivers or the employees of hotels, because they may just as well send you to the wrong place. Many times they are also involved in this dirty game and they receive capitation just like the taxi drivers do. Please be also more careful when you select the right place and take a seat in the car next to the taxi driver and tell him the name of the club and the address. In that situation usually the following happens: The taxi driver pulls a face and says: unfortunately I cannot take you there because that place was closed last week, it is being refurbished, or something like that… but I can recommend you a much better one, where the girls are much prettier, it is also cheaper and quite nearby. If you believe that, then trouble is just at arm’s length. Then you are already in the middle of a fiendish plan that I wrote about. Stick to the selected club, and if you make a choice via the internet based on reports by independent pages, ten there will for sure be no atrocity or inconveniences.