Illegal? So what?
The illegality of credit card charges means little to the hundreds of cab drivers who are forced to pay fees as high as 10% or 12% to get cash back for their receipts.
Taxi Services Enforcement and Legal Affairs Manager Jarvis Murray, in fact, is looking into complaints against various taxicab companies for charging their drivers fees to cash their receipts.
Jarvis said that it is an ongoing investigation so he couldn't give me the names. But he did say that Luxor Cab, Yellow Cab and Green Cab do not charge for cashing the slips.
At the last TAC meeting Councilor John Lazar of Luxor Cab insisted that Director Christiane Hayashi provide the names of these companies to the council and she agreed to do so at the Monday 3-14-11 meeting.
As a preview, I've been told by drivers that Royal, Town Taxi and Checker have all been charging 10% for the service.
At Checker, drivers go to a shed on the property where a Russian speaking woman cashes the receipts. Royal drivers were being sent to the same shed but rumor has it that Royal isn't using her services anymore. Town Taxi has recently reduced it's charge from 10% to 5%. Regent Cab, the other hand, discourages it's drivers from taking credit cards - also a violation of the rules.
Since the fees from the credit card companies are usually 3% or less, the Taxi companies are making themselves a hefty profit from these exchanges - with the money, of course, being taken from working drivers.
Many drivers simply don't take credit cards for this reason, putting themselves at risk for citations and and annoying the public.
Tmw - The new backseat terminals and legal charges.
Not only enforcing. Should take serious action against these companies and demand reimbursement for the fees charged with interest. The city should impose strict regulations and propose minimum fine of 1 mil and suspension of color scheme which violate the rules. I have to pay more than $300/mo for the fees which is illegal but legal due to lack of action.
ReplyDeleteI would take all of it with a grain of salt. Metro has never charged anybody one cent for cashing credit cards and I was notified of a $3100 dollar fine for doing so.
ReplyDeleteNever heard another word about it. I believe others were notified of a $13,000 fine for this and I'll bet not a dollar has been collected.
Most all companies were "fined" $8,000 for not making required reports and I'll bet nobody paid anything near $8,000.
Why follow rules? It sure as hell pays not to.