Fortunately, the city requires the vast majority of cabs to be able to take credit to be allowed to pick up a fare. It's amazing how many times reminding the driver about this has made the machine start working...
Still, the that fact that out of three recent cab rides, the two trips involving credit cards were both paid for using Square is an impressive sign.
As noted by others in this thread, drivers here regularly try to use the "machine is broken" tactic, despite the law. If Square's existence makes taking credit cards sufficiently easier for drivers then cab riders will directly benefit.
I asked him about it and he said it was personal and he had not seen any other drivers using one. It's non-sensical and as an earlier poster noted, also a bit of a political issue, since the existing terminals force the driver to pay 6% versus 2.75%, with no ad revenue sharing. I talk to the drivers here in Boston quite often, and they have no choice on the terminals they have in the cars. One would think that if drivers are forced to accept credit cards, they should at least have the option of choosing a vendor.
Could you elaborate on this? I'm in Chicago and have had cab drivers claim the same thing (about the CC machine being broken)
*I believe this only applies to fleet cabs (not independents), but that's virtually all of them anyway.
Note: 2am so I'm not going to look up the specifics right now, but if you want to know more, feel free to email me (in my profile).