A Winnipeg family is filing a complaint with police and the Manitoba Taxicab Board over a ride they say terrified a young woman.

Deborah Dutka said her son's girlfriend and the woman's two small children got into a Duffy's cab Monday night in Fort Rouge for a trip to her North End home.

Instead, the driver took a long route through Elmwood, with the young woman wondering where they were going and frantically texting for help, Dutka said.

"He just kept saying, 'I know where I am going' and totally took her to a different spot and ignored everything she was saying," according to Dutka, who said the woman was telling the driver "you are going the wrong way, you are going the wrong way."

The woman was so frightened she began worrying for her safety and "was trying to think how to protect herself and her girls, like that was all she was thinking about," Dutka added.

After getting the woman's texts, Dutka phoned the Duffy's dispatcher who eventually advised her to call police.

The woman eventually got home safely but the driver's conduct has prompted them to file a formal complaint.

CBC News has calls in to Duffy's Cab for a comment but they have not yet been returned.

Other incidents with Duffy's

The same cab company was the subject of a similar stories earlier this year.

In March, Sasha Renaud told CBC News she and her boyfriend got into a cab outside the Palomino Club on Portage Avenue and wanted a ride to their home in Transcona. The driver told them his shift was almost up and he wouldn't go that far.

Renaud's boyfriend and the driver got out of the cab and continued to discuss it. She waited inside the car since others outside the club were scrambling for rides.

As her boyfriend went off to look for another ride, the driver got back into the car and drove off, with Renaud still inside.

Renaud said they drove for about 10 minutes while she kept asking where he was taking her. They stopped on a street Renaud didn't recognize after she called police. The driver then got out, leaving her locked inside, she said.

The driver waited outside the vehicle as Renaud panicked.

Police finally arrived and drove Renaud home, telling her the driver was confused and didn't understand because his grasp of the English language was weak.

'Hysterically crying'

The following month, two 18-year-old women said a Duffy's driver took them to a part of the city they didn't ask to go to, then locked them inside the vehicle.

Jade Solvason and Kaitlyn Sylvester said they and a third friend hailed a cab to go to the Richmond West neighbourhood on April 18.

The girls said they quickly realized the driver was heading in a different direction, toward the Elmwood neighbourhood.

When they asked the male driver to stop, he locked the taxi doors and kept going, they said.

Sylvester told CBC News the girls were "hysterically crying [and] … so terrified because we just had no idea where we were."

The driver finally stopped the cab in Elmwood when the girls called police.

Once again, police said the problem was the language barrier as the driver did not understand where they wanted to go.

The girls, as well as Renaud, have filed complaints with the taxicab board, which is investigating.