Taxis are an integral part of life in big cities. Unfortunately, among the drivers there are outright scammers who do not disdain to deceive their customers.
Such is the case in San Francisco, where Margaret Becker and her husband Chris Schlesinger go to a restaurant and take a cab. The 1.7 km journey takes 11 minutes and costs $7.90. The woman added a 25% tip and paid $9.87 with her Bank of America credit card through a PayPal terminal.
The driver promised to email her a receipt, but this never happened. However, the bank told Becker that her trip cost 1,000 times more, $9,875. Intentionally or not, the comma is replaced with a 0 at the end. And the bank refuses to accept Margaret’s protest because she provided her own payment card.
Interestingly, taxis are not Uber or Lyft, but one of the most respected companies in the US, Yellow Cab. The check showed that the driver had a receipt, but his signature did not match Becker’s. The company found a trip record in their system that says the trip actually cost $7.90 and the woman only spent 11 minutes in the car, but that doesn’t help.
The bank refuses to admit the mistake, and the woman has no choice, because if she does not cover the amount, she may even go to court. Eventually, she was helped by Yellow Cab CEO Chris Suas, who personally approached the bank for a refund. And the woman is convinced that if the problem had not been inflated in the media, the story would hardly have ended happily.