Klook Travel Technology, the operator of the travel experience booking site ‘Klook’, has made it public that they have delisted the products of a supplier following reports of the arrangement of illegal ‘white taxis.’
A ‘white taxi’ refers to an unauthorized taxi service operated with a private car’s white registration plate, instead of a commercially licensed vehicle with a green registration plate. It violates the Road Transport Law, and offenders are subject to up to three years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to 3 million yen. Users could also be at risk of not receiving compensation in the event of an accident.
On December 13, our magazine reported that a booked vehicle through Klook was identified as a ‘white taxi’. Before publication, a Klook spokesperson had denied facilitating arrangements for ‘white taxis,’ stating they had not transacted with partners who could not provide sufficient licensing documents or prove compliance with laws.
On December 15, the spokesperson stated, “Upon verification of the facts according to our established procedures, and having confirmed the violation, the products of the concerned supplier have already been taken down. Our process also includes sanctions and trading suspensions with suppliers not adhering to legal regulations.” The reported dealings have been halted with Yichuxing, which provided the chauffeured vehicles through BB-Trip.
Klook has reiterated a stern request to all suppliers to not provide vehicles not compliant with Japanese legal systems, calling for strict adherence to legal compliance. While it is challenging to constantly check all vehicles from every supplier, they plan to strengthen the monitoring of suppliers’ compliance systems, such as requiring submissions of pictures of vehicle license plates owned by the suppliers.
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This article was generated using automatic translation by GPT-4 API. The translation may not be accurate.
