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Comment by Hermel | Hacker News Reader

Just a few days ago, I made the mistake of telling the police how much cash I had with me after they stopped the taxi I was sitting in (a few hundred euros). This happened in the middle of the night in a foreign country (France), so I didn't dare to disobey their orders. They took the cash and drove away. It turned out they were not real officers, but only dressed up as such for the purpose of robbing gullible tourists...

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The taxi could have been in on it -- its a trick that is normally used in poorer countries but looks like its reached the EU.

I had this same thing happen to me in NYC, outside JFK airport. Not limited to poorer countries at all.

But remember, folks, rideshare services are unregulated and potentially unsafe.

Over here (Uruguay), rideshare services are way more reliable for tourists.

I have family from the countryside, and while they're not robbed outright, they're driven on the most inefficient way that drives up the meter.

Tourists can pay up to 100 dollars for a trip from the airport for example (legally if morally questionable).

A similar trip on a rideshare is less than half, but they're banned from the airport.

Plus, taxi drivers are unionized and are terrible drivers, while rideshare drivers are regularly kicked out if they give substandard service.

The same situation in many developing countries around the world. The local taxi cartels have been using lobbying and outright violence to keep ride-sharing services away / banned.

NYC is poorer country, in a lot of people's cases.

Did you go to the police?

That sounds like an instance of the old saying, "Got a problem? Call the police. Now you have two problems."

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