Tourist Ruse Confirms N.Y. Cabbies’ ‘Unfare’ Play
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NEW YORK — Just about everyone heading to New York for the first time gets the warning: When you hail a cab, don’t act like a tourist. You’ll get taken for a ride.
Undercover city investigators tested that adage this week and found some truth to it: More than half of taxi drivers overcharged them for trips from John F. Kennedy International Airport into town, officials said.
The investigators, posing as foreign tourists, handed notes to the drivers asking to be taken to either the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in Manhattan or the Brooklyn Marriott.
Of the 24 drivers subjected to the “integrity test,” the department said, two charged their passengers more than $100 for rides to Brooklyn -- about 2 1/2 times what the trips should have cost. Eleven others overcharged by at least $20.
The two worst offenders were arrested on misdemeanor fraud and theft charges, and their cabs were impounded.
The other cabdrivers will be referred to the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission for administrative penalties, the department said.
The flat fare from Kennedy airport to Manhattan is $45, plus tolls. The trip to Brooklyn or the other boroughs is metered.
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