BLAGGERS

Hi My name is Chris Lee and I help run a minicab/courier/chauffeur company in Harrow, West London. I have never blogged before and I am sure in time I will be able to write a concise and succinct blog. To begin with, however, I will just ramble !!

I wanted to find somewhere to vent my spleen ( don't worry no pictures ) and those in the 21st century tell me this is how things are done these days.

What is causing my spleen such discomfort ? I hope you ask

Interline has been in business over twenty years. Our minicab drivers have all the correct paperwork, are fully insured and have the best cars they can afford. We are open 24/7 and offer, in my biased opinion, an excellent service. However those who choose to work illegally, we call them BLAGGERS, operate around our business, stealing our customers with ease because there is very little, if any, attempt to stop them. I have written to my local MP's, the Public Carriage Office ( the body which regulates our profession along with the Black Cab industry ) and the Metropolitan Police. All basically pay me lip service and send me letters that they have forwarded to each other but there seems no real impetus to deal with this problem.

This raises many important issues. These blaggers work mainly at night cruising through the town centre slowing down, like kerbcrawlers, or just park outside the bars and takeaways.
They ask people who walk past if they want a taxi, an exorbitant fare is agreed and off they go.
No record of the pick up, no insurance, no public safety and, in my opinion, no interest from the authorities to put an end to it. Our drivers have had a criminal record check by the CRB, these blaggers could be anyone !!! They could be drug dealers, have other criminal intentions and at worst, they could be rapists. Remember they are trawling the streets when young woman are leaving bars perhaps having had a few drinks and are not as security concious as they should be
I do not believe this is scaremongering. I work on a Friday and Saturday night and I see how the blaggers operate, picking up right before my very eyes. The Public does not have enough information about what is a legal minicab and what is not.

Please contact me chris@interlineonline.co.uk if you have experienced any problems with blaggers in Harrow or elsewhere and I will build a dossier which can then be forwarded to the relevant authorities to show how big a problem this really is. In the meantime make sure you book a car with a fully licensed company. Of course I am going to recommend my company http://www.interlineonline.com/ but any search on google will produce plenty of telephone numbers for legitimate minicab companies. Put a few numbers in your mobile and use them. Any cab that picks you up of the street without you having made a booking on the phone or in person at a minicab office is breaking the law.

I will return to this subject in future blogs but I hope to write on some lighter topics in the future

Regards Chris