Every taxi passenger wonders from time to time if the driver is taking a certain route so he can pad the fare. Turns out he probably is — and even if he’s not, he’s got plenty of other tricks he can use to charge you extra.
New data from New York City cabs equipped with GPS units shows that over the last two years area cab drivers have overcharged riders 1.8 million times by switching the meter into a higher fee grade, one reserved for trips out of New York proper and into Westchester and Nassau counties. In those counties, cabs are allowed to charge 80 cents per 1/5-mile instead of 40 cents, so they need merely punch a button on the fare box to make the switch ... and hope you don’t notice.
The New York Taxi and Limousine Commission discovered the overcharges using GPS technology installed in cabs, cross-referencing where cabs were driving alongside the rate that was being billed to those in back.
All in all, those 1.8 million trips earned an extra $8.3 million for drivers, or $4.45 per trip, as the New York Times notes. That’s 1 out of every 200 journeys taken by taxi during the 26 months investigated. That may not sound like a lot, but the depth of the scam shouldn’t be underestimated. One driver alone is said to have earned an extra $40,000 through the trick. (He will undoubtedly plead that it was all a big mistake.)
The commission is striking back with a high-tech solution. When the meter is kicked into the higher fare rate, an alert will pop up on the LCD panel in the back seat (you know, “Regis Philbin here...”). The alert will stay there until the passenger acknowledges it on the touchscreen or gets into a fistfight with the driver.
Meanwhile, overcharges are now being investigated by the police.
— Christopher Null is a technology writer for Yahoo! News.
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