Background: I am an Indian student currently studying in the United States. A year ago, my girlfriend, who is american, decided to study Marathi and has been in Pune for the past year. She is well conversant in Marathi and understands Hindi.
Incident: On March 17th, 2010, my girlfriend came to see me off at the Mumbai airport, along with my family. She had to travel back alone, to Pune from Mumbai, during the night. I had booked a taxi for her through E-Cabs.
The driver designated was named Praveen and was driving an Indica car (Number plate available on request). On starting their way back from Mumbai to Pune, the driver harassed her by repeatedly asking her, to sit in the front seat with him. After she made clear that she will not sit in the front seat with the driver, the driver did not stop. He continued, trying to reason with her and convince her. He persisted, citing various reasons, to the extent that she had to say ’I am already married’. However, the driver did not stop at this, either.
The scariest point during the drive was when the driver pulled-over near a vacant road (around 3 AM) and opened the back door. The following conversation happened:
Driver: ’Can you sit in the front seat, NOW!’.
Her: (sternly) ’I am NOT going to sit with you in the front seat!’.
Driver: ’Why won’t you? I have never had a girl sit in the front seat with me’
Her: ’I told you, I am already married. The people you saw at the Mumbai Airport were my in-laws and are big people’.
Driver: ’Why won’t you sit, please?’
Her: ’Don’t talk to me’
At this point, the driver finally gave up asking her to sit in front. He closed the door and drove decided to focus on driving.
They didnot talk until her destination arrived. She handed him the cost of using the taxi and parted with one word ’Goodbye’.
Thankfully, nothing untoward happened. For around three years now, I have been recommending using ECabs to my friends from USA, visiting Mumbai or Pune. Each one said it was an okay service. However, this last experience has made me rethink. Ecabs is a private agent Taxi service. There is no where to complain about this service.
I dread if anything untoward would have happened.
Use Ecabs at your own risk. I do not recommend it.
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UPDATE (22 March, 2010): I complained to the ECabs managers recently. After apologizing, their response was: ’There is always going to be a black sheep in the herd of drivers’. They reassured me to take action and update me on what has been done. However, I have NOT heard anything after a week, yet.
The manager seemed to doubt my story, asking me for more cross checking. After speaking to him at length, I think that ECabs is only a middle-man between taxi drivers and the customers. They do not employ or know the drivers that they send the customers.
To all those who recommended a Police complaint:
I did not file an FIR with the Police, since I am not in India to take care of the matter. I would like to minimize the hassle, without troubling my family members. I will simply not hire from ECabs anymore, since there is no accountability or security.