SC stiffs cabbie out of $980 fare

[Dave1982]

http://boston.com/news/local/massach...VRI/story.html

An SC hailed a cab in New York City and asks to be driven home.....to Framingham MASSACHUSETTS, then told the cabbie a sob story about why she couldn't pay the $980 fare. She was subsequently arrested for larceny.

This story blows my mind.

Obviously we know what the score here is. She had no money and KNEW she wouldn't be able to pay, but she took the cab anyway and just tried to walk out on the bill.

But I'm surprised the cabbie even agreed to such a trip. NYC to Framingham is more than a 7 hour round trip. She should've been able to get a plane or train ticket for far less money, so that would've set my alarm bells ringing.

So yeah......this woman is clearly a scammer, but I can't help but feel that the cabbie walked (or should I say "drove?") right in to this situation by being a naive moron.

[taxguykarl]

Indeed, I can see driving to the Greyhound station, but all the way there You're right, Dave, that cabbie walked right into that scam.

[eltf177]

It's nice she's got a week to cough up the money. Anybody thinks the cabbie gets a tip?

[wolfie]

It's my understanding that cabs are licensed at a city-level jurisdiction. If I were to take a taxi from Toronto to the company yard in Mississauga (suburb of Toronto), that cab wouldn't be able to pick up a fare in Mississauga for the trip back to Toronto. A NYC cab would definitely be outside its jurisdiction in Massachussets.

As to why the SC took a cab rather than any other form of transport - to my understanding, a cab is the only type of common carrier where you pay AFTER the trip. Since SC didn't have the money, they couldn't have got a Greyhound (or train, or plane) ticket, so they would have been stuck in NYC.

[eltf177]

There was an incident back when I worked on a ship. We were docked in Cape May, NJ - a bunch of guys wanted to rent a car and go to Altantic City. They conned the cook to drive them as they wanted to drink. He agreed but reminded them he had to be back to cook breakfast.

You probably guessed it, they got totally shit-faced and didn't want to leave. He had to take a cab from Atlantic City back to Cape May. This was in the mid-80's and he said it cost him US$75 for the one-way trip. The crew came back late (probably to let someone dry out enough to drive), I suspect the driver was probably still over the legal limit. I was shocked they actually made it back in one piece and without being caught.

The cook demanded the assclowns reimburse him for the cab ride, they refused. I'm surprised he didn't poison their food...

[wolfie]

There was an incident back when I worked on a ship. We were docked in Cape May, NJ - a bunch of guys wanted to rent a car and go to Altantic City. They conned the cook to drive them as they wanted to drink. He agreed but reminded them he had to be back to cook breakfast.

Cook, as driver, should have insisted on being the person named in the rental contract. Note that armed forces personnel tend to be young, and car rental contracts frequently have a "minimum age 25 years" clause. If cook had been the person named, he could have legitimately told them "I need to leave now in order to cook breakfast - if you want a ride, you need to leave now" and taken off with the car. Any who wanted to stay would then have been in the position of needing to find their own way home.

[JustaCashier]

Anybody thinks the cabbie gets a tip?

Yeah.....

"Dude! Be skeptical of somebody wanting a 200 mile Taxi ride!"

Mike

[Moirae]

Wow, just wow. I'd love to know why she would think she'd get away with that.

[Argabarga]

We are VERY wary of cash-call tows (meaning no motor club, all out-of-pocket) in excess of $100-$200, because you start to run into this kind of stuff,

But I'm just a student....

But I'm poor.....

But I can't afford the tow AND repairs.....

Can't you just, bill me later or something?

Nope, and using ANY of the above phrases causes us to demand half up front, in cash or credit, NO CHECKS.

Fortunately, we have the ability to just refuse to unhook the car, it's not like your average scammer is mechanically inclined enough to figure out how to do it. If they had tried that on us, we would have made a U-turn and hauled it back to "start" and told them THAT just got added to the bill.

[NecessaryCatharsis]

We are VERY wary of cash-call tows (meaning no motor club, all out-of-pocket) in excess of $100-$200, because you start to run into this kind of stuff, .....

Last time I needed a cash tow, I REALLY needed a tow, not something I could just fix on the side of the road



I told the guy on the phone I had no money, but that I had a cheque and a bank card in my pocket, and could deposit the cheque and get cash at the ATM near our destination. The driver dropped the car, drove me to ATM and even drove me home after. He told me on the way home the people who say on the phone 'I have no money, but here is what I plan to do about it' are never a problem, the people who wait until their car is picked up, or worse dropped off, then tell, will stiff them every time.

[eltf177]

Cook, as driver, should have insisted on being the person named in the rental contract. Note that armed forces personnel tend to be young, and car rental contracts frequently have a "minimum age 25 years" clause. If cook had been the person named, he could have legitimately told them "I need to leave now in order to cook breakfast - if you want a ride, you need to leave now" and taken off with the car. Any who wanted to stay would then have been in the position of needing to find their own way home.

Not military, Environmental Protection Agency ship and we were all civilian subcontractors. And the crew had asked me and others first, I told them I needed sleep and couldn't do it. I strongly suspected this was what was going to happen anyway...

[lordlundar]

Last time I needed a cash tow, I REALLY needed a tow, not something I could just fix on the side of the road

[ATTACH]4062[/ATTACH]

I don't know, a jack, an arc welder and a little skill and you'd have enough of a repair for the ride home.

[wolfie]

Last time I needed a cash tow, I REALLY needed a tow, not something I could just fix on the side of the road

Wow! Looks like the swing arm broke at a point where it still had a reasonable thickness of metal. How did this happen? Absent the details, I'd speculate that it was flawed to begin with (damage during the stamping operation?) The rust on the broken end shows that it took some time to happen - could have been a "stress riser" that started a crack growing, and it finally snapped when the crack extended across too much of the cross section.

A few years back, I had to get the "dead axle" (bolt-on crossmember the swing arms attach to) replaced on my car. It had started to rust (hole in the back side, but still had enough "meat" to hold together). Part was around $150 at a salvage yard (would have been over $800 at the dealer), and they had to pick up 4 out of 6 cars of the appropriate "generation" in order to get a good one. Of the first 3, 2 were rusted out in the same place as mine, and 1 was rusted where it was sitting on the ground. Labour to install it was around $700.

[bhskittykatt]

Man, if you want to take one of the cabs around here for any significant distance like that, they ask for partial payment up front (usually half of the estimated fare).

[NecessaryCatharsis]

Wow! Looks like the swing arm broke at a point where it still had a reasonable thickness of metal. How did this happen?

From my point of view, I was driving down the centre lane of the 400 doing 120 when in a split second I was 12 feet to the right, and thanking any God who cared to listen that there was no one in the right lane when it happened.

I tried to get some warranty work out of the manufacturer for replacement parts, but even with the tow driver backing me up the manager of the service area of the dealership kept insisting I MUST have hit something, there was no other way this could happen.

Yet one more in a long line of reasons I will never buy a car of that brand again.