A taxi rank that never answers the phone.
Whenever I am in Cihangir/Tophane area, most of the taxi offices run out of cars specially at rush hour. But Akyol has always available cars and is quite helpful when you call them. You might not find their number when you do a quick search; since they do not appear as top suggestion; and it took me time to find their office by accident when i was passing by them one night. Very recommended!
Of course, as a tourist, I got half-scammed.
We ask the hotel to call a taxi to go to Taksim (normal price is 25). Taxi arrives, we repeat "TAKSIM", the driver says yes. He takes a long detour, where the taximeter says already 40. We repeat "TAKSIM", and he is surprised, like Taksim would be a goal where almost nobody goes (apart from the fact that it's one of the main places in the whole super huge Istanbul). He writes on Google Translator "misunderstanding". Yeah.
So, he changes direction, and he has an accident with a bike (it was not taxi driver's fault, though). We are as far from Taksim as we were from the hotel, the taximeter says 53, and he wants us to pay. I refuse. Then he says something "pay just a little", and I do, because I was not alone and because I saw that he was shaking because of the stress, so I leave him be.
Long story short: after the detour, the accident and all, we pay for the show and we have to take another taxi and pay what we would have normally paid.
Here it's the picture of the taxi with its identification number. I guess, the company won't give a damn, but maybe it could be helpful for other tourists.
I am a foreigner. This place deserves more than 5 stars because drivers are very well-behaved, they never tried to screw me by increasing the invoice or going through long routes
Rarely fail to be unbelievably unprofessional.
Taksimde taksi rezaleti. Gece saat birde taksimde taksi bulamadık ! Türk olduğumuz için hiçbir taksi tarafından yolcu olarak alınmadık neden çünkü arapları dilediğiniz gibi sövüşlediğiniz için kendi milletinizi mağdur ettiniz.
Yardımsever, kibar, müşterisini mutlu eden ve kesiklikle güvenilir bir durak. Havaalanına giderken yol üzerinde çay alıp bize arabada kahvaltı ettiren çok güzel insanlardan oluşan şöförleri var.
Saygili seviyeli hizmet vallahi bravo