"telling a taxi driver you just murdered their family wouldn't anger them as much as paying with a credit card"

"credit card swipe machine never seems to work"

free ride (instead of credit card ride)

Cash is still king for San Francisco cabbies who protest credit card fees

 

 

Some San Francisco taxi drivers prefer being paid in cash instead of accepting credit cards, which require drivers to pay a 5 percent surcharge on each transaction.

Taxi passengers in The City are complaining about being left out in the cold by drivers who won’t take credit cards, despite a city law mandating the acceptance of plastic.
Drivers have been up in arms about a new policy forcing them to pay 5 percent when they accept credit cards. To protest the policy, some tell passengers that they don’t accept credit cards, or that their card swiper is broken.

“About 40 percent of the time I take a taxi, drivers tell me that they don’t take cards,” said Nick Halsing, a city resident. “It’s the first thing I hear when I get in the car.”
Blake Manship said he frequently encounters the problem, which is particularly troublesome when he’s short on time and cash.

“I’ve had to swing by an ATM and take cash out to get a ride,” Manship said. “It was a huge pain, plus I got hit with a surcharge from my bank.”

As part of a 2010 city ordinance, accepting plastic is mandatory for all registered San Francisco cabdrivers, according to San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency spokesman Paul Rose. If a card swipe is broken, drivers should have a backup processing method, Rose said.
He said the agency is aware that drivers refuse credit card payments. Any time passengers experience this situation, they should call 311 and report the taxi number, time and date, he said. Drivers who don’t take cards could be forced to go through re-training or face fines, Rose said.
Michael Patrick, a doorman at the Westin St. Francis in Union Square, said he often gets complaints about this from hotel guests.
“The drivers will go a few blocks and then say they don’t take cards,” Patrick said. “They make the passengers stop by the ATM if they don’t have cash.”
However, cabdrivers queuing recently in front of the St. Francis behaved otherwise. Over two days, nine different drivers polled by The SF Examiner said they took credit cards, despite gripes about the fee.
“I’d rather take the 5 percent hit than lose the fare,” said Mike Singha, a Town Taxi driver.
A Royal Taxi driver readily accepted a reporter’s credit card for an $8 ride.
Although few drivers admit to refusing credit cards, cabbies said they understand why it happens.
Earlier this year, the SFMTA approved a measure that let cab companies charge drivers a 5 percent card fee per fare. The move was designed to help out companies paying high monthly fees for credit card usage. Drivers, however, said the fee unfairly targets working-class individuals who already struggle to make a living in San Francisco.
“Drivers are not refusing credit cards,” said John Han, a taxi driver. “They’re refusing the unfair cost that comes with taking credit cards.”
While that stance may be appreciated among drivers, it doesn’t go over too well with passengers.
“I got kicked out a cab just the other day on Market Street because I didn’t have cash,” said Elizabeth Baksi. “That was not fun.”

How Taxi Companies Rip Off Their Drivers

If you have been aggravated about what you perceive as high taxi fares, especially in New York or other major cities, and you think the drivers are making off like bandits, think again. I have been interviewing cabbies in major cities across the country about how they get paid and what they make, and the dollars can be pretty dismal except in rare cases, or where the Taxi Authority jacks up the rates for special events or major weather problems like the hurricane in New York on August 27^th that never came but the fares were doubled anyway.

I rode with Alvan Narine in Boston the other day. He is an immigrant from Trinidad and came to America thirty-five years ago, when he started driving cabs. Now he owns one at age 71 and drives three 12-hour shifts a week. The other days he rents his cab out to other drivers for $75 to $100 a day. He is responsible for all maintenance and insurance, while the drivers pay for gas.

I asked him what he can make if he has a really good day. His answer was maybe a hundred dollars.
He said a vast majority of drivers are immigrants and need the jobs, so they work like dogs for essentially minimum wage. They can get paid in two different ways: either by a percentage (usually about a third) of the gross fares, or by renting the cab by the day or week and paying all fuel costs.
If they rent, it is usually about $100 per day for their cabs plus fuel. So do the math. If they gross $200 in fares on a good day, they clear maybe $75 when you subtract gasoline costs. Would you like the hassle of driving through heavy traffic all day for eight or nine dollars an hour? Probably not.
The other problem with accepting credit cards, according to many drivers, is the delay in payment by the cab companies. They can take up to three weeks to remit the money back to the driver, according to a cabbie I spoke with in New York. So that means that when you pay by credit card, the driver is not getting the money at the end of the shift, has to pay a premium to get paid, and may have to wait until the cab company gets around to settling with him.

I have a suggestion for cab drivers: hire legal counsel and demand to know what the exact charges are for each kind of credit card that the taxi company must pay, and then tell the company owners that you expect to be paid for what you earned, less their actual costs. The cab companies should be in the business of supporting their employees, not extracting a penalty because their passengers elect to use a credit card rather than paying in cash. In my world, that is called fraud and if all cab drivers complain about it, maybe the companies will get the message.

still using Etch a Sketch to charge my credit card

@PTramutolo: Taxi driver says credit card machines don't work in the rain welll how the hell am I suppose to know that I have noo cash

@memcmp: @SafeNetInc I paid a taxi driver, he needs my credit card to swipe it on front. Now he can use it online, he has all data. #securechat

@blair10nelson: RT @kirstenstubbs: Seriously? In an age of space exploration & nanotechnology, taxi drivers are still using an Etch a Sketch to charge my credit card for fare?

"we appreciate cash"