5 stories about how treacherous taxi drivers deceive customers
In Russian cities, two-thirds of the population regularly use taxi services. Moreover, studies by the Levada Center have shown that over the past couple of years, 33 percent of Russians have started to take a taxi more often. Most passengers prefer to pay for the train in cash, but just over 30 percent do it using a bank card. The average check at the same time is 223 rubles, and half of those who participated in the survey reported that they pay about 160 rubles. It is not surprising that drivers want to get more and sometimes go to various tricks for this.
If you think that modern taxi services vigilantly guard the interests of their customers and crooked drivers have no chance to deceive an inattentive or inexperienced passenger, then you are deeply mistaken. Neither special mobile applications nor payment via bank card will protect you from motorized crooks if you do not exercise vigilance yourself.
Alexey, a Muscovite, told this story to AIF journalists. The man was relaxing in the evening with friends in a bar and when everyone started to disperse in the evening, he decided to go home by taxi. Alexey called the car using a mobile application, while noting with pleasure that the taxi arrived almost immediately, as if it was waiting for a call around the corner.
The taxi driver immediately informed the passenger that his bank card linked to the mobile application was not working, so he offered to pay by making a transfer to his personal card. Alexey immediately transferred 900 rubles to the taxi driver's card.
But in the morning, he found an SMS message on his mobile phone, in which the bank warned him about writing off 900 rubles to pay for a taxi ride. It turns out that the taxi driver deceived the customer by informing him about the non—working card in order to receive a double payment - from the passenger directly and once more from him, but through the aggregator that provided the order.
Although not so unprofitable, but an even more unpleasant case occurred with a Muscovite Lyudmila. She and her little daughter were going to the children's clinic and, since it was raining, decided to call a taxi. In a hurry, the woman forgot to indicate in the order that a child seat was needed.
The driver, who came to the call, was outraged that he was not informed about the child seat. Lyudmila offered to add the chair to the application retroactively and pay separately, but the driver ignored this offer. All the way the man was outraged that taxi drivers are all around trying to cheat and underpay somewhere.
The woman, in order to stop the flow of complaints, repeated her offer again and paid him 100 rubles for a chair in cash. After leaving the car, Lyudmila noticed that her card was charged not 150 rubles, as it should be, but 2 times more.
Then she wrote to the application about the surcharge for the seat, the withdrawal of extra money from the card, adding also a description of the careless driving of a taxi driver who cut off other drivers on the road. We must pay tribute to the operator, the money was immediately returned.
And money was withdrawn from the bank card of the associate professor of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation Valeria Minchichova for the trip, which never took place. The economist told reporters about a simple scheme of "divorce" of clients.
After calling a taxi through the app, the driver accepted it and immediately marked it as completed. Thus, he received money from the card without even coming to the client. Immediately after that, the taxi driver was called and demanded to explain himself and return the money received by fraud.
The driver did not come to the showdown alone, but with a support group — determined friends. But the fight did not take place, as the police were called, which took care of the proceedings with the fraudster. Despite the happy ending, the unpleasant aftertaste from such a "branded service" remained with the woman.
Another case, quite unpleasant, happened personally to one of the AIF correspondents returning from a business trip. Then a car arrived at the call, driven by a man from one of the former republics of the Union. The driver immediately asked to cancel the order, as, according to him, the application removes 20 percent from the amount for services.
The journalist entered the position of a taxi driver and canceled the order through the application. After that, the taxi driver changed his behavior and began to hint that if he was not paid 1300 rubles instead of the required 1100 rubles, then the passenger might not get home. So I had to agree with the arguments of the scoundrel right away and promise him the required amount.
But the extortionist's plans were not destined to come true, as the woman called home and asked her father to meet her near the entrance. Of course, in the end, the taxi driver received only the 1100 rubles due to him and not a penny more. Since then, the media representative never goes on about drivers and does not cancel orders.
At all times, the favorite passengers of dishonest taxi drivers were pretty drunk men. Alexander, who celebrated the holiday well with friends, called a taxi to get to his home quickly and comfortably. The distance was small and the walk would have taken no more than half an hour, but it was night outside and the drunk man decided not to tempt fate.
Having settled down in the taxi cabin, Alexander immediately fell asleep, and when he opened his eyes, he saw that the taxi driver had taken him to another area of the city. The driver demanded to pay off and vacate the cabin, while the cost of the trip was twice the original.
Since it was very far to Alexander's house, he had no choice but to negotiate with the taxi driver to take him home. As a result, the trip cost twice as much in one direction and I had to pay another thousand rubles for returning home. It's good that the passenger's misadventures ended there and he still got to his home. This case is unpleasant, but it does not compare with the story of the American Kenny Bachman, who, drunk, took a taxi for crazy money to another state.
Keywords: Car | Money | Fraud | Payment | Russians | Taxi | Taxi drivers | Services