Taxi quoted me 300 baht flat and refused the meter, did I just get ripped off?

First time posting. Was near a big mall in Bangkok yesterday evening, flagged a taxi, said my hotel and the guy immediately goes "300, no meter". I was tired, it was starting to rain, so I just said fine and got in. Trip felt like it should've been way less, maybe half that on the meter?

Now it's bugging me. Is a flat price like that always a scam I should have walked away from, or is there ever a legit reason a driver won't run the meter? And what's the actual move next time, do I just refuse and stand there arguing? I don't really want a row on the street in the rain either.

Don't argue, just don't get in. That's the whole trick. You say your destination, if the answer is a number instead of the meter going on, you smile, close the door, wave the next one down. There are thousands of them, the cost of skipping a bad cab is like thirty seconds.

300 near a mall in the evening does sound like the tourist price. But standing there arguing never works, the driver has heard it all before. Next one.

The bit that confused me for ages is that some extra charges ARE real and it feels like being scammed when it's not. If you take a cab from the actual airport taxi queue there's a 50 baht surcharge on top of the meter, that's posted and legit. And you pay the expressway tolls yourself, driver asks at the ramp. So not every number on top of the meter is a con. But a flat "300 no meter" at a mall is not that, that's just refusing the meter.

Driver here, so let me answer from the other side of the glass. A flat fare is not automatically a scam, but you always have the right to the meter, and near a mall in the evening a "300 no meter" is almost certainly the visitor price, not a fair one. You did not do anything wrong getting in, but the clean move is the one Hazel said: do not argue, take the next cab.

Here is how the meter actually works so you can judge for yourself. Flagfall is 35 baht, then it runs on distance, plus a small time charge when the traffic is crawling, which in Bangkok is often. On top of the meter, only two things are legitimate: the 50 baht surcharge if you took the cab from an airport public-taxi queue, and expressway tolls, which the passenger pays and the driver settles at the booth. Nothing else belongs on a normal city trip. So a fair metered run that a driver wanted 300 flat for is often more like 120 to 160 baht, tolls aside.

Now the honest exception, because it matters. Late at night when almost nothing is cruising, or on a long fixed run where the driver knows he comes back empty, a flat price can be genuinely fair, and sometimes it is the only car you will get at 2am. The test is simple: agree it out loud before you get in, and if it feels like the tourist number, it usually is. If a driver refuses the meter and you want it on record, note the plate and the door registration and report it to the Department of Land Transport on 1584, refusing the meter is against the rules. Honestly though, a supervised rank and a metered trip are as much in a good driver's interest as yours, so I would rather you just walk to the next one. The full meter and surcharge rules are written up in Bangkok taxis if you want them in one place.

Wichai Thongchai said:

agree it out loud before you get in, and if it feels like the tourist number, it usually is

This is really helpful, thank you. So it's not that flat prices are evil, it's that I have the right to the meter and near a mall there was no reason for him to refuse it. Makes sense.

Follow up: when it's raining and everyone wants a cab and none will run the meter, is that when I should just open Grab instead? Because that's exactly the situation I was in.

Yes, rain is peak Grab moment. The whole point is the price shows before you get in so there's no meter to refuse and no argument, you just see the number and decide. Might be a bit more than a fair meter would've been but you're not standing in a downpour negotiating. There's a rundown of how it works in Grab in Thailand. I basically default to the app the second it starts raining.