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In case medallion cab drivers wonder why people flock to Uber ...

The Daily Free Press reports on a Saturday incident involving a cab driver who held a woman's bags hostage while he forced her to pay twice for her ride from the airport:

After she swiped her card and accepted the payment, a message on the machine thanked her for the payment.

The driver said the payment had not gone through and insisted that she make the payment again. The driver then got in the back seat with the victim and made her swipe her card under the flat rate. The victim said the first payment was $46.10 and the second payment was $40.10. The driver gave the victim a receipt for the second payment, threw her luggage onto the sidewalk and then drove away.

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Comments

I took a cab from the airport Sunday night. As soon as I got in the cab, the driver told me that all cabs in Boston had their credit card machines down until 1 am. Please.

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The correct answer is, "OK, then I guess you're giving me a ride for free."

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Sounds just like one of those cabbies who just hang at the airport all day, kibitzing with their buddies. It's like a community center over there some days, particularly on the weekends. So when you finally get that fare, you need to make up that time you spent jawing at the taxi pool.

Uber is offering free cab rides up to $25.00 today and tomorrow.

http://www.boston.com/business/innovation/blogs/in...

I like the fact that Uber is forcing more and more drivers to clean up their acts and that the traditional limo service owners are scared shitless of it.

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if she calls it in, or fills out an online form. (She may still need to mail a letter to satisfy legal requirements.) "Charged twice for the same purchase" is one of the standard boilerplate reasons for a charge reversal.

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But if she was charged two different prices ($46.10 and $40.10), would the card companies believe her?

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How would it possible to run up two $40+ fares at the same time in the same cab?

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Now.

Regional licensing for the Boston Metro area, for any driver who can qualify, has a qualifying vehicle, and behaves themselves professionally.

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so badly that she had visible bruising on her arm. They called the cops. Two cops show up, don't believe a word the three of them are saying - about how the cabbie slammed on the brakes throwing them face-first into the partition, or assaulting her. One of them is sitting on the curb crying hysterically.

They begrudgingly take a report, and start to leave. "Uh, can we get a ride home? It's 2AM, we're nowhere near home, and my friend is hysterical."

"FINE", the cop says, and yells to the crying friend: "HEY. LET'S GO. GET IN THE CAH."

Fucking entitled Boston cops.

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"The driver...made her swipe her card under the flat rate."

Um, what flat rate? Boston taxi fares have no flat rate, unless you're going to a town that's more than 25 miles from downtown. http://www.cityofboston.gov/Images_Documents/Meter...

And why aren't the credit card machines designed to prevent this very type of dispute? They should print a receipt every time, or display a timestamped "fare paid" message on the screen for a few minutes.

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Are surcharges allowed when picking up a taxi at the airport? I had a guy charge me 7.50 extra the other day. I couldn't find the info on the city's hackney website.

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They have a bunch of mini-fees that they throw at you when you leave the airport. There's a fee for handling your bags (lifting them 3 feet off the ground into the trunk of their car), an "exit fee", toll fees, all kinds of crap that you don't find out until the end of your trip, when it all gets added in at once.

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Yes. Starting at the airport, there's a $2.25 surcharge, plus the tunnel toll of $5.25 (extra-high for commercial vehicles in an attempt to gouge taxi passengers, but that also includes Zipcars).

It would be too convenient if the Boston Hackney Division included this information on their website.

Going to the airport, you pay $2.75 extra (about half the round-trip toll).

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$3.25. Add to that the $5.25 that livery pays for the tunnel.

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Me: We need a cab that takes cards.
Cab Stand Line Monitor: They all take cards.

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Next time try, "I would like a cab driver that doesn't act like I'm trying to take a shit in his backseat when I want to use my credit card."

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