A netizen nicknamed Feihu complained on the Weibo that the bills from the taxies that he took were not clearly printed, which caused the failure of his application for reimbursement. It took him plenty of time to go through the complex and annoying procedure to get the bills again. He also put online one picture with a number of illegible taxi bills stuck on it.
The words on those bills are printed, but some items are illegible, such as time and payment. They look like being done by the printer running out of ink.
On September 5, the reporter went to the Municipal Transportation Management Department and learned that the illegible bills arose from the fact that the colored tapes in the taximeters were not changed in time. The department explained that there are colored tapes in taximeters to print bills, and if the tapes are not changed when they ran out or they are low-quality products, the bills they print will be illegible.
An employee of the Road Transportation Administrative Bureau said, “According to the 4th item of the 34th article of “Taxi Management Measures of Hubei Province”, taxi drivers will be fined 200 RMB yuan if they do not execute the approved price of the price department, or do not provide legal and valid taxi bills. And in this case, the passengers can: 1. refuse to pay if they find the bill is illegible when they are ready to get off the taxi; 2. find the taxi’s company and ask it to affix its official seal to approve that the bill is legal and valid, or ask for refund, if the passenger remembers some information about the taxi and the payment is the only item that is illegible; 3. Otherwise, call the complaint hotline of the Taxi Management Department, 96595, If the problem cannot be resolved.
The reporter randomly interviewed some taxi drivers in the city. The majority of them said they always checked the colored tape regularly and changed them in time. A taxi driver Mr. Tang of the Kanglong Taxi Company said the colored tape cost from four or five yuan to more than ten yuan, and a tape can be used for two to three months. Some people buy low-quality tapes to save money, so the bills will be illegible, but most of taxi drivers will not put their integrity to danger for that. (Reporter: Xiao Min; Intern: Li Maimao)