Los Cabos Tourists Urged To Beware Of This Local Scam 

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Last Updated 3 months ago

Once again, Los Cabos taxi drivers are protesting due to the presence of private transportation services in their municipality. 

This issue has been going on for quite some time, but the local authorities still have to find a proper solution to it. 

With so many illegal options available, tourists can easily end up paying for an unauthorized service without even realizing it. 

But what happened exactly, and what should visitors heading to Los Cabos soon do to protect themselves from these scams? 

The protests

A protest against illegal transportation took place in Los Cabos just a few days ago, on Monday, February 19th. 

The demonstrations were carried out to complain about the many pirate services offering illegal transportation for tourists and constituting unfair competition for local taxi drivers operating in the area.

The protest was held in front of the famous Riu Hotel, with people preventing tourist transports from entering or exiting the site, including a bus with people on board. 

According to local news, a taxi kept blocking a bus for over 40 minutes. Other drivers then started to take the clients’ suitcases and move them to their taxis to be transferred to the airport. 

As a consequence, people had to pay both for their initial ride, which didn’t take place, as well as for the taxi driver who transported them to the airport. 

Some people harshly criticized the demonstrators stating: “The truck is all loaded and they don’t let anyone out there. Nobody enters and nobody leaves. What is the clients’ fault for this situation, then? All because of the taxi drivers!”

This is not the first demonstration carried out by taxi drivers and other tourist transport providers. 

Just a few days ago, another protest was held by local tourist transport providers to demonstrate against government inspectors.

The local government had, in fact, decided to hire ten new inspectors following a previous demonstration demanding local authorities to take action to fight pirate services in the area. However, this decision soon backfired. 

According to local transport providers, inspectors soon started to exceed their duties by requesting tourists’ private information.

Benjamín Peña, the legal representative of one of these companies, said that inspectors had started to request this sort of information to keep favoring certain local transport companies and prevent new ones from offering their services. 

“Currently, the state, its inspectors, are requesting a pre-contract, a company’s internal control document, which we have (…) However, this contains private data,” said Benjamín Peña.

He later stated: “[Local inspectors] only seek to benefit those who have historically benefited. Certain families that have a transportation monopoly who, illegally, seek to stop the rest of the companies that, under another federal jurisdiction, are in charge of providing a luxury service that directly competes with theirs.” 

What can tourists do to avoid scams? 

Unfortunately, the situation at the moment is quite complicated. However, tourists heading to Los Cabos soon have a few options to avoid pirate transportation services. 

For instance, they can book their transport service with their hotel or resort. Most hotels in the area offer shuttle services, picking up people directly from Los Cabos Airport. 

Another good option is to opt for an Uber. Uber drivers have not taken part in the protests and their services seem to be pretty reliable. 

On top of this Uber has recently adopted new safety measures to keep both drivers and passengers safe. Drivers are now able to record the interior of their vehicles through their phones. These are then encrypted and sent to Uber’s specialized teams for verification in case of any form of abuse. 

In this regard, Cecilia Román, the Safety Communications Manager for Uber Mexico, declared: “In the last year, at Uber, we have educated ourselves to listen to partners registered in the app, to respond to their feedback in a timely manner, and improve their experience when using the platform.”

She later added: “Partners in Los Cabos have expressed their interest in new options to facilitate reporting (…). We also know that many of them use traditional dashcams, but these can require extensive setup and can come with a high price tag.”