Ed Meng just wanted to go home. It was late last Sunday night and Meng needed to get out of Potero Hill and back to his bedroom, stat. He didn't have any cash on him but he hailed a cab anyway, assuming he could use his credit card. He figured paying with his card was a safe bet because most San Francisco cab companies have willingly accepted plastic for years. Besides, thanks to a new SFMTA rule, all cabs operating in the city are now required to accept cards.
Things did not work out precisely how Meng had envisioned.
"When [the driver] picked me up, I said I need to pay with a credit card, and she immediately said, sorry the machine is not working," Meng recounted to the Appeal.
"I had no cash on me, so I asked if she had the swipey manual card thing they use to make carbon copies...and she flips out on me, starts screaming at me, so I got concerned and started filming it."
Meng's video reveals a tense situation. The driver won't accept Meng's card even though signage on the cab clearly states the contrary. She tries to kick Meng out of her cab, but he stands his ground asking for her name and her cab identification number. Eventually Meng gets a name and ID number, hops out of the cab and quickly hails another one who was more than happy to accept his card.
Stories of cab drivers feigning broken credit card scanners or just refusing to take cards have abounded in the months after SFMTA imposed a 5% processing fee on all credit card transactions.
Credit card usage in cabs has been on the rise in recent years and currently accounts for one third of all fare payments. Some in the industry, such as Yellow Cab General Manager Jim Gillespie, speculate cards could be used to pay for up to half of all trips within a decade.
In a business with margins as razor-thin as cab driving, some are opting to take the chance of losing a passenger's fare entirely in the hopes of forcing them to pay cash. With cash, not only do drivers get to keep all of what they earn, but those earnings could be entirely tax free if they simply "forget" to report them, some say.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
wonderful piece of information, I have read at least 7 posts of yours by now, and let me tell you, your website gives the best and the most interesting information. This is just the kind of information that I had been looking for, I'm already your RSS reader now and I would regularly watch out for the new posts, once again hats off to you! Thanks a ton once again, Regards, cabs in hyderabad
Post a Comment