I first read about Wasim Khalid Cheema here then followed up the news on Daily News. Apparently Cheema made $40,000 extra than he deserved by tricking the meter, which is also biggest fraud in TLC history.
For those who don't know a taxi meter in NYC has four different modes and rates, rate 1 is regular which is used in five boroughs of NYC, rate 2 starts the meter from $15.00 instead of $2.50 regular and used only for Newark Liberty Airport, rate 3 is flat rate negotiated between driver and the rider and usually is used when you are going out of state, upstate New York or Suffolk county in Long Island, rate 4 is called "double the meter" and used for Nassau and Westchester Counties, rate 4 get in effect after crossing the city limit and meter start charging double price.
What this crook was doing is to use rate 4 instead of rate 1, with in the five boroughs. Which means if your regular fare is $5.00, you will end up paying him $10.00 fare. What surprised me is he got reported after six months of doing this act, no body ever complained? But thank to the passenger who actually took the right step to complaint to TLC, and making this industry get rid of him.
He gave bad name to all other hard working cabbies out there, but punch was thrice hard for me and cabbies like me out there, as his name suggests he is Muslim,Pakistani origin and a cab driver, and I happen to have all these titles too.Bad news always spread faster than good news, also bad news stuck in mind for long period than good news do.
You can follow up comments section on Daily news to see kind of impact his action get for other cabbies.
Update : going again through this post I have noticed the mistake I made regarding different rate modes, below is the right discription of rates in NYC yellow cab's meter and there are five different rates not four.
1) Regaular rate which starts the meter at $2.50 and charges $0.40 per 1/5th of the miles, used in all five boroughs.
2) Flat rate from JFK to Manhattan and vis-a-versa starts meter at flat rate of $45.00
3) from any of five boroughs to Newark Liberty Airport and starts the meter at $15.00, after that $0.40 standrad per 1/5th of mile.
4) Rate for Naussau and Westchester counties, meter will start at $2.50 and drops $0.40 per 1/5th of the mile within NYC limits and after city limit it will charge $0.80 per 1/5th of mile.
5) Negotitiad rate between driver and passanger and exclusively used for upstate New York, Suffolk county and out of state rides.
* meter also drops if cab is moving slower than 8 MPH and it is $0.40 per one minute and $0.80 per minute on rate 4.
Labels: Assholes, dishonest, Religion, Taxi Business, Taxi Scam
2 Comments:
I thank you for correcting my misinformation on my blog the other day, and I put a sentence in the beginning of the post suggesting to people to read the real info in the comment section.
This seems highly dumb here, if the tlc was keeping track of all the trips made, they'd know immediately it would seem. But I'm sure it was easy to prove his guilt when the customer complained, because all the TLC had to do was check the records, and see it was every single ride he was using it. I've heard some cabbies say they hit the rate 4 button if a customer starts giving them a hard time, I don't know why the meters don't just do it automatically with a default manual option as they do for the tolls.
and in good news, did you hear the story of the cabbie who wound 20,000 dollars from a customer who left their purse in the cab, and after trying several times, he returned it to where she was staying in long island, and he refused a tip, as he said it was against muslim religion to recieve gratuity
sorry I meant to say Found 20,000 dollars
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home