On a recent night, Sarah Rachlin hailed three separate cabs in San Francisco — one to an event in Pacific Heights, one to Russian Hill and one to downtown.
Each time, she said, the driver told her the credit-card machine was broken and requested cash. Ms. Rachlin, who works for a technology company in Silicon Valley, said she began to wonder, what was going on?
Other cab riders in San Francisco may well be asking themselves the same question.
But the problem isn’t mechanical. “All the machines are working just fine,” said Jeffrey Rosen, a cabbie. Rather, what would seem to riders to be an increase in malfunctions can be traced to a 5 percent fee that taxi companies recently imposed on drivers for credit-card transactions. The levy is one of many changes that in recent weeks have led cabbies to protest and threaten to strike.
But the fee has provoked another kind of rebellion: since the charge does not apply to cash payments, some drivers have decided to just say no to credit cards — even though all cabdrivers in the city are legally required to accept them.
Claiming the machine is broken is “a good excuse,” said Prithvi Upreti, a Yellow Cab driver for four years.
Some drivers are even bolder. Mychael Monroe, a driver for 22 years, said that “quite a few” drivers have added the word “no” to the “credit cards accepted” signs in their cabs.
It is not possible to know how common such practices are, but drivers, passengers and an industry regulator contacted by The Bay Citizen said that the number of cabbies refusing credit cards had increased markedly since the fee took effect.
Violators may face disciplinary action.
Many drivers who do not want to flout the rules have nonetheless started encouraging customers to pay with cash.
“Nobody has the right to refuse credit cards,” Mr. Upreti said. “They can politely tell customers that credit card is a pain.”
The fee stems from the large increase in credit-card use in recent years. Unhappy about having to cover transaction costs, the DeSoto Cab Company declared in April 2010 that it would stop accepting credit cards.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency threatened to sue DeSoto. The company retreated and in July, the agency voted to allow companies to pass transaction costs on to drivers.
About three-fifths of the 5 percent charge covers credit-card fees. The rest goes toward the installation of new backseat “passenger information monitors.”
On Tuesday, after a series of town-hall-style meetings with drivers, the agency agreed to raise fares for the first time in eight years.
But the fee is not likely to go away because it puts San Francisco in line with Boston, Chicago, New York City and Philadelphia.
liars who say their credit card machines broken
@dovzmood
I've noticed taxi drivers get rather testy when you call them liars after they tell you that their credit card machines are broken.
I've noticed taxi drivers get rather testy when you call them liars after they tell you that their credit card machines are broken.
#shady
@kgoingglobal
a charge has mysteriously appeared on my work credit card for a taxi in Mpls on May 3 when I wasn't even there then!
a charge has mysteriously appeared on my work credit card for a taxi in Mpls on May 3 when I wasn't even there then!
Why bother protesting [credit cards] when they can just lie
I don't see the problem. The last time that I took a taxi to SFO, the driver just lied and said his credit card reader wasn't working. This is akin to their telling potential passengers that they're going off shift if they're given a destination where they don't want to go.
Why bother protesting when they can just lie
Why bother protesting when they can just lie
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