So, it was my first ever visit to the fair city of Boston, MA and I thought well this trip should be fun, after all I am here for a wedding ( my first same-sex wedding at that) and I just knew I was going to have a good time. Now I can always find and have some fun wherever I go, but the
whole mood of my trip was ruined by the Boston Taxi Cabs and their drivers. I know things are tough out here in this economy and everyone is just trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents... but do they need to make it off of me??
I guess the cab driver could tell by the look on my face that I was an out-of-towner and assumed that my middle name was, "Gullie", short for Gullible. Anyway being the informed traveller, I had spent my bus ride looking up the hotel information and calculating how long it should take from South Station to the location where I would be staying. Walking out of South Station, I entered the first cab in the queue and gave the driver the name and address of the hotel, he promptly assured me that he was not familiar, but he had his GPS and that we would get there in no time. Too which I replied, "Well, Mapquest said it should only take 18 minutes" ... I can
assure you right now it did not.
So I guess the driver thought it best to take the scenic route, but some twenty something odd dollars later, we finally found my hotel and we were in the middle of settling my bill, when the first red flag popped up... He turned to me and said well your fare is what's on the meter, plus the toll fee. I was like, huh?? I have to pay the toll also? I guess this is a common practice,
because I asked someone I know after the fact and he assured me that yes the TLC (Taxi & Limousine Commission) says that toll fees must be paid for by the passenger, well who knew, cause I sure didn't. Well I was trying to keep as much available cash on me, so I decided to use my card and everything seemed to be going fine, the LCD screen said it was processing; it was authorized, and finally, yes it said thank you for payment... The taxi driver then says to me well I need the receipt to take back to the cab company or else I won't get paid. HUH??? Dude really what are you talking about. Well apparently a receipt should have been printed from the digital screen I was looking at and one should have been printed in front where the meter was located. Nothing came out on either end. So, the driver then says to me, after I had already handed him
the toll fee in cash, you will need to pay me in cash, because no receipt means no payment. I was like but the LCD screen clearly said that the payment was received... after listening to his sob story for a couple minutes about not getting paid, I gave in and handed over the fare plus a little tip in cash. Then I was like maybe you should call the cab company and see if the payment went through, he then said to me, you call them and promptly got on his cell phone and was having a conversation with one of his friends in an African dialect I was sure not to understand...
DING DING, that's when the noise in my head said, Bubbles, Stop being a damn fool! Are you crazy, you just double paid this cabbie. So, I was still sitting in the car and THANK GOD for BLACKBERRY & INTERNET PHONES!! I went straight to Chase.com and I was able (in less than five minutes) to access my account and recent transactions. That's when the realization hit me, this driver was really trying to make as the Jamaicans would say, some extra cookies aka money. Right there on my phone was my last transaction, in big bold letters, BOS TAXI and the fare amount. I turned and said to him, "Look sir, I am sorry but you need to give me back my cash, you have already been paid for this fare, it has already been deducted out of my account and I am not paying you another dime" He was like the receipt did not print that. Ok, so by this time I had reached the end of my rope, and my friends who were on their way had arrived, luckily for me, one of them just happened to be a police officer and I sat in the car and explained what had transpired. I turned and said to the driver, "Look, I am not about to argue with you, please give me my money, if the cab company has any problems have them call me, here is my name and phone number" Do you know that, he then had the audacity to ask me to give him my credit card information, just in case... just in case what? I had reached my limit and my friends sensed it too, the police officer then said to him, "the young lady has told you what she is going to do, please respect that and let her have her bag."
He finally let me have my bag from in the truck and I was able to get on with my hotel check-in... Had my experience been a singular event, this blog may not have been, but would you believe that two other persons from the wedding guests had similar experiences? I am not kidding you! Which has led me to believe that this is a fairly common practice in Boston, and the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau, need to take a further look into the practices of these Cab drivers and regulate them better as well as the Taxi & Limousine Commission. It is such a shame that my visit was marred by that incident, but I can definitely say it left a bad first impression on my mind and the minds of the others who were along for the trip... So my dear followers, be alert and pay attention to those cab drivers wherever they may be. It was another bubble popped and truly a lesson learnt for sure!
