After it was revealed that the majority of taxi cab drivers had overcharged passengers, the Taxi and Limousine Commission hoped to issue refunds to those who had paid by credit card. But now Mayor Bloomberg says they shouldn't hold their breath. He said on the John Gambling radio show, "You’re talking about eight bucks for a ride instead of five bucks for a ride, and how are you going to go and ever get the monies and get them back to the people?"
Bloomberg also said that it would be a lot of work to track down those customers who paid with credit, because the TLC would need to work with the credit cards' financial institutions, "I mean, it would cost you more to do it than you save. Would it be nice if you could do it cost-free? Yes, no argument about that. The main thing is to stop it from happening and to go after a handful of the most egregious cases and prosecute them so that everybody else understands that we’re not going to walk away."
Out of the approximately 36,000 cabbies who charged passengers double the usual NYC rate (also known as Code 1) by using the fare for Nassau and Westchester County (Code 4—there is now an alert about the codes being programed in the taxi TV's), the TLC says 3,000 overcharged passengers at least 100 times and will probably face prosecution. As for the "less egregious" offenders, the Post says TLC officials will impose "significant penalties" on them, since taking away their licenses means losing thousands of cabbies off the road.
