Action line 80509

  • Published
  • By Anonymous
  • 39th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey --  Complaint:

My complaint is with the taxi service here at Incirlik. First, would like to say how very convenient it is to have the service available 24 hours a day. Second I would like to address the fact that their meters are set in Turkish YTL (daytime) at 1.30 Lira, but they prefer to have you give them US currency. I have found on numerous occasion that I get the minimum YTL (10.00) from the ATM at the gate, I try to make sure to ask them to provide change for YTL, I get in the taxi, and when I get out of the taxi to pay, the taxi driver says he has no change for YTL. This is an outrage because the ATM only provides 10.00 YTL. The taxi drivers practically cheats all YTL paying customers because they say they have no YTL change and they give you US currency back. To most people, they don't know the exact currency rate and they blow it off. I have to rely on this transportation since the shuttle does not run for 3 hours during peak times (1000-1300). What can we do about this? I have tried to call Security Forces because they have translators who can relay to the supervisor to advise taxi drivers to have change for YTL, but this does not work. Please help!

Response:

Thanks for bringing the problems you've experienced with some base taxi drivers to my attention. It is very important to me that all personnel are treated fairly and this is just not right.

The owner/manager of the base taxi service has been notified of our concern that some drivers are not accepting lira or are giving back change in dollars when they have been paid with lira. The drivers have been instructed to accept lira and dollars and carry sufficient change in both currencies for customers. If you should have any problems with drivers not accepting lira or dollars or providing change in the opposite currency, write down the taxi number located on front window of the cab on the passenger side or the license plate number of the taxi and inform the base legal office at 676-6800. This will allow us to precisely target violations to specific drivers.

We will continue to work with the base taxi to ensure that the service is provided and charged correctly. Please keep us informed as mentioned above if you continue to have problems.