It’s Mamdani’s New York now! We’re traveling up to NYC for the long weekend. Some fun with family, some free points from a Hilton timeshare presentation, a play, some good food (I already chomped a halfway decent lox-bagel this morning!) Things are expensive, but that’s no reason to sit back and stand for being scammed. This goes for the shady “Uber” drivers trying to get business at the airport. That also, it seems, goes for the authentic yellow-cabs (TLC-based).
So what’s the situation here?
Precisely to avoid hassle, strange parking lots, and sketchy drivers, we went to the taxi line at the LGA airport. Easy, painless, no wait. Jump in a taxi and go. As soon as we jump in, we enter the information for address, and the driver quickly says “press yes” and taps on the screen. That “yes” was an opt-in to Flat rate fare (exl. tax, fees, tip, etc.) of $65 to Manhattan. The thing is, that’s not how it’s supposed to be. Even the LGA airport website showcases sample fares, and unsurprisingly these to even far reaches of Manhattan are substantially lower. We’ve now had multiple taxi…issues over the years, so I’m more deliberate than most.
Once in the cab and moving, particularly with safety on the line, it’s not worth escalating and risking getting kicked out of the cab on the highway for pushing back on someone scamming you. And so, I *largely* bit my tongue, and annoyingly downloaded a new app for payment, and sat back as we breezed traffic-free to our hotel in the city.
The end fare came out to $88.46 for a 7.1 mile, 17 minute ride.
Now the reality here is that there’s a bunch of fees and addons and I even added a tip despite being salty about being actively scammed. So this cost reasonably goes up. But, holy jesus, paying $315 an hour for a taxi ride is outrageous. There is a delightfully transparent receipt, but no clear way to ask questions or dispute any amount. And so, my expectations were low and I moved on with the night.
After the ride I was prompted for feedback in the Curb (NYC taxi) app, expected nothing, and was pleasantly surprised
I rated the experience 1 star and explained “Deceptively tricked into flat rate fare, nearly doubling the cost of the taxi ride.” And rather than simply sit back on feedback in some deep dark customer database of complaints, someone looked at it and responded at 9:34AM on a Saturday morning (I was NOT expecting this). They didn’t just apologize, but they actually proactively remediated the situation.
The now-corrected fare was $41.38 + taxes/fees (total: $64.84 including tip). That’s still healthy and substantial, but not downright outrageous. In the end I was refunded $23.62, which paid for our bagel and coffee breakfast snack. Thank you TLC (look, regulation done right, enforcing consumer rights!)
The takeaway here is to be vocal (even digitally) when something isn’t right. And with that, a gif.
