Téo Taxi: Book A Local Ride

I've liked using the Curb app to hire cabs when visiting big cities like NYC, Chicago and Boston, but there's no single app for cabs in Montreal like Curb, instead there are several competing apps. Based on some recommendations on reddit, I tried the Teo Taxi app while visiting Montreal and I'm not convinced the app isn't some sort of scam to separate tourists from their money. I tried to book a cab from Marche Jean Talon and for the pick up spot, I entered a specific address (7077 Av Casgrain) of the building that my daughters and I were waiting in front of. We waited for a while as three different times, the Teo Taxi app showed we were assigned a driver who apparently immediately changed their mind and refused the fare -- the app would show a driver had accepted our ride, then within a few seconds it would go back to searching for a driver. The app has a map that's supposed to show the location of your cab driver, but it doesn't seem to have any relation to reality. If you can believe the app's map, our cab at one point appeared to fly directly overhead, traveling diagnoally over city blocks. We picked a good spot to wait where we'd be able to see any approaching cabs a block away, but never saw our driver, who somehow "arrived" at our destination without us being able to see him. We then tried calling the driver through the app. He said he did not speak English and unfortunately, my French is not any better, so he just kept repeating "I am inside!" (inside what, exactly, he could not / would not say). We walked around the entire market block hoping to find him but eventually gave up. The app then charged us anyway for a "no show." Teo Taxi ended up convincing my daughters that Uber is better than cabs. When we gave up on the cab, I ordered an Uber, using the same address the Teo Taxi driver couldn't find. Our driver was there within a couple minutes and got us right to our destination. My daughters asked "why would people use cabs instead of Uber?" Can't say I have a good answer to that one if you're visiting Montreal. Hopefully one of the other Montreal cab apps is better than Teo Taxi, cause this one is worse than useless.

In a taxi right now. Entered the taxi’s number, doesn’t pair. Asked the driver and he says the app never works and it’s a poor attempt at trying to compete with uber and not worth using. Way to go. I figured I would give it a try but tech in Quebec is so poor.