An Indigenous beauty influencer has told of the time a taxi she ordered drove off as soon as the driver saw her.

Sari-Ella Thaiday shared the story with her 185,000 TikTok followers, adding that what unfolded left her sitting on the side of the road in tears.

She said the taxi she ordered in Cairns, before Uber was introduced to the city in 2017, pulled up to collect her but when she started walking toward the car it drove off.

When she called to question the company, she said she was told the driver had reported a problem and she was asked whether she was drunk or had money to pay.

“How is the taxi driver supposed to know if I’m drunk or if I don’t have any money if I didn’t even get the chance to speak to them?” she said.

“Why did they just drive off as soon as they saw me?”

She asked another person nearby to call her a taxi, but claimed the company refused if it was for the woman who had previously called because she was “abusive” to their staff.

In a separate video, Ms Thaiday, who is both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, shared a series of news articles about other Indigenous people who had been refused taxis across Australia due to racial profiling, including blind Aboriginal singer Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu who at the time was on tour with Missy Higgins.

Other TikTok users shared their experiences too.

“We used to get our non-Indigenous friend to order the taxi and wave it down for us then we’d run to it. We got turned down too many times,” one woman said.

“I was working in Katherine NT, old Indigenous bloke asked me to call taxi for him, I was chatting with him while we waited, taxi pulled up he started walking towards the taxi … the taxi took off,” said another.

Cairns Taxis, the company which Ms Thaiday said refused her, said it had not been approached to investigate the incident.

“We are concerned about this incident as much as the person featured in the video,” it said in a statement.

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“All complaints about drivers/call centre operators are thoroughly investigated and appropriate action is taken to prevent such incidents.

“All calls are recorded for quality and training purposes, with the date and time Cairns Taxis would be able to investigate the incident. However we were not given this opportunity.

“If this incident actually happened we would like to ascertain who the taxi driver and operators were so appropriate action can be taken.”

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