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Comment by oefrha | Hacker News Reader

Wow, care to share where you live? I’ve hardly ever heard stories of taxi drivers cheating locals (needless to say tourists are cheated all the time).

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This was common in Chicago when I lived there from 2011-2013.

"I'd like to pay with credit card" "Machine is broken." "It's all I have." "Fine."

Here in the UK, if you say it's all you have they just reply "I can stop by an ATM"...

That’s cheating their company (and/or setting up for tax evasion), which in my experience is far more common than cheating the customer with a detour, at least when the customer is local (you can show your localness through verbal cues implying or simply indicating you know the route).

Only the other night a Chicago cabbie tried to get my wife to pay with a portable credit card reader not the one installed in the machine. She made a big fuss and he 'discovered' that the built in machine was working after all.

What? There are quite a few people in the very thread, talking about their bad experiences with Taxis.

It is a common thing, to hear stori es that people have of bad experiences with Taxis.

> It is a common thing, to hear stories that people have of bad experiences with Taxis.

Stories of bad experiences with taxis != stories of taxi drivers cheating locals.

Stories of overcharging people are also common.

It is common to hear people talk about a "broken" credit card machine, or about a taxi "taking the long way", or the like.

Most people being cheated don’t know it. Taking a little extra detour “because on construction,” or taking a drunk person home the long route — people being cheated generally don’t know it.

Taxi drivers swindle everyone, they just have a wider array of tricks for swindling tourists.

A UK city that isn't London.

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