Bye-Bye Meru Cabs and Thanks for all the Fish

I really enjoyed using Meru Cabs for the last 2 years or so.
Initially, it was really good service at a cost-effective rate.

What Meru Cabs was providing:
1) It saved me the hassle of haggling with an auto-wallah who might take advantage of my situation (20-30 Rs extra, remote address, time of night, rainy season, traffic-jams, busy-routes).
On top of all this the meter was many times rigged to run at double the speed. Then the predictable  last-minute insistence that I'd not bothered to mention the backwaters I'd trapped the autowallah into driving into. An extra 20-30 rupees would assuage his nearly broken trust in humanity though. The "Auto-Stands" where literally you see the autos standing around, auto-wallahs so busy chatting with one another that they can only be "bothered" to put on their brown coats for "miserly sums" of anywhere between Rs. 200 to 500 to ply to a busy area like Forum mall.

2) I'd been using CitiTaxi services for nearly a year when my wife was pregnant and needed to travel safely over Bangalore's worsening roads. The glorious (un)certainty of booking a cab which didn't show up at all. Calling the Citi-Taxi guys till the last possible minute or booking the cab the day before didn't help any. Every call to them got a promise "Don't worry Sir!! The cab will be at your door-step 30 minutes before only". No sign of the cab at all!! Despite giving driving directions to 2 or 3 different people (staff and drivers) it was interesting (to say the least) that the said cab had not even been dispatched. The fact that the Airport has now shifted to such a convenient close by location (NOT)!! only made things better.
 
Till I found the efficient Meru Cabs. I could now avoid All the glorious certainities above for the guarantee (almost) that I'd get a cab when it was convenient to me and my family.  I ended up paying  more but got an A/C car on time and conveniently by phone booking.

Unfortunately the Golden-Era has ended with a change for the worse.

Meru Cabs Level of Service Today:
1) Since some time now I've noticed that Meru Cabs has taken a "Take-it Or Leave-it" attitude towards its own customers. They're essentially doing the same things and more than my earlier dear Citi-Taxi used to do. If you're off the trade-routes you're out of luck. Meru Cabs mostly refuses to service anybody in HSR Layout. We'll see what we can do is the usual answer. The additional charge of Rs. 25 for short term booking and Rs. 50 for advance bookings on using the call-center is laugable at the least.

2) Meru-cab drivers ask to go through the call center even though they're just waiting around. The concept of a taxi which is not plying the roads is quite interesting. Quite similar to the auto-wallahs

3) They do provide an free offline SMS service (which I presume is serviced at off-peak times) where the call-center guys call you when you send an SMS. But this is only a few hours later so no good if you're in a hurry. Also seems like they give advance booking for airport based booking but not otherwise though the distance may be enough to give good business i.e. HSR to Airport is ok, but not HSR to Malleswaram?!!

4)The online net-based booking system also operates on the same offline model with replies taking 5-6 hours for a taxi booking.

It seems Meru-Cabs doesn't need the business that's coming its way.
Well Goodbye and Best of Luck,