I call your cab company specifically because you take credit and debit, but damn does it ever come with a price. I HATE being made to feel like crap for asking to pay with a card at the end of a cab ride. If I had cash, I’d pay with cash. So when you look at me with that one raised eyebrow or that angry stare and ask if I can pay with cash instead, it doesn’t get you anything but a much smaller tip. —The paying customer
This article appears in Apr 21-27, 2016.
THey don’t like cards because there’s a paper trail of their transactions. You can’t hide ’em from the revenuers… The tip is included in the card use fee, like with restaurants too.
I don’t take cabs. They smell like 3 day old sex.
Anybody who has the money to take a cab everywhere, has enough money to buy and maintain a cheap car. The only time a cab makes sense is after the bars close. Ironically, the one time you can absolutely not catch a cab.
ive had numerous cry and whine sob stories from cabbies saying they take weeks to get paid if you pay by debit card. so because of that I would tip extra generously on my fare. Then one day I asked a cab driver who was of a different variety and he told me it was complete and utter falsehood what the other drivers had stated. amazing how that is.
It doesn’t take weeks, but it does take some amount of time. For some drivers this is relevant (particularly those ones who rent a cab from someone else) but for most it’s a non-issue. A quick calculation — I’ve taken about 2000 cab rides in the past 10 years in HRM, I’ve only had one driver really go off the rails about debit and it was in Dartmouth. If you use anything other than Casino then you’re doing it wrong, they all accept credit/debit and HAVE to. If they tell you at the end of the ride their debit machine is broken, tough for them, enjoy the free ride and/or get on the horn with Casino Dispatch and they will quickly put the driver in their place. If you use that yellow one… well, that’s your own fault for being stupid.
my description HaLOlifax, has included casino taxi drivers. As for the time, after a detailed explanation, and I mean the driver was explaining it to me in exhaustive detail, he summed it up to laziness in certain drivers. they know how to do it so it doesn’t take long to get paid out. but very few of them actually do it. so when he detailed it like that, I lost sympathy.
An angry stare and a dollar surcharge isn’t that high of a price but we all have feelings I guess.
I’m with GV, no cabs for me.
@charliebrown: the tip is NOT included in the $1 fee. The $1 fee covers all the transaction fees and rental of the 400+ machines.