Fake Ride-Sharing Scams Plaguing New York City Airports
Jennifer Billock October 25, 2016
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - JANUARY 21: A Lyft customer gets into a car on January 21, 2014 in San Francisco, California. As ridesharing services like Lyft, Uber and Sidecar become more popular, the San Francisco Cab Driver Association is reporting that nearly one third of San Francisco's licensed taxi drivers have stopped driving taxis and have started to drive for the ridesharing services. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
New York City is suffering from a spate of fake Uber scams at the city’s airports.
Travelers to New York’s LaGuardia (LGA) and John F. Kennedy (JFK) airports should beware of how they decide to get around town — the city’s airports have been rife with fake Uber and Lyft drivers in recent months. The scam works by having fake cab drivers claim to work for the services, buffered by a fixer nearby who solicits riders. Then the drivers quote a price much higher than average. The fixer or driver will tell the potential mark not to use the Uber or Lyft app, saying they can just input the information on their end.
Seventeen-year-old Bella Stier told the New York Post that she was nearly a victim of these scams on a recent ride from LaGuardia.
“He [said] he could get me where I was going for much cheaper,” she told the Post. “I asked him how much the ride was, and he said $75.”
Normally that ride should cost about $12 to $15. Her mother refused to pay the driver the requested amount when they arrived at the house.
The scams have become such a problem that Uber itself reached out to the Port Authority, the organization that runs New York’s metro-area airports.
“In recent weeks, the conditions at the terminal have noticeably worsened and have reached crisis levels,” Josh Mohrer, Uber’s New York City manager, wrote in a letter to the Port Authority that was reported by the New York Post. “In response to feedback from our riders and drivers, we are writing to request that the Port Authority Police Department review the problem of illegal solicitations at the airports.”
[Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]
You've got an Uber for me? Great! Then I assume my credit card on file with Uber will be automatically charged and I'm hopping out at the end of the ride. Have a nice day!
One would think that a few quick sweeps by PA undercover police officers or NYPD would shut this down after a month or so. Or even uniformed officers. The touts operate with impunity, and the drivers hold up traffic for legitimate transportation at both LGA and JFK, even with uniformed officers directing traffic. I cannot fathom why this is an issue that cannot be remedied in short order with ticketing. If it becomes too expensive to have an illegal transportation service, it should go away quickly.
I am assuming this article is about ride sharing because that is how it is headed. [FONT="Book Antiqua"][SIZE="5"]The problem with ride sharing at New York airports is that pathetically bad companies have a lock on the market. Principally Airlink and Supershuttle/blue bus.. (Uber ride share is a minor player) The way they work is that for some reason I never figured out, no one cruises around looking for passengers, - a help desk calls them and the passenger is told to wait 20-30 minutes for a bus to come. When initiated in this way, the bus ALWAYS arrives empty and in my experience, the organisation is so bad that the wait can be up to four hours for the empty bus to come! The bus then drives slowly around the airport, exiting and re-entering the airport anything up to a half dozen times for another hour or so. On maybe a half dozen times over the last five years, this situation has become so ridiculous that the passengers have openly revolted at the 3rd or 4th exit and re-entry and all got out of the bus and agreed to share cabs to get into the city. immediately! Occasionally this ridiculous situation is exacerbated by the Airlink or SuperShuttle driver seeming to go in to the last stop (it is or used to be American?) and get a coffee. People DO approach you at the kerbside and offer limo rides in place of Uber or bus rides but whenever I have used their services I have found myself getting a nicer ride than a cab with a better=qualified driver than some of the poke-and-stab yellow cab amateurs. And at about the same price as a yellow cab by a driver not wanting to go back into the city empty. OTOH there must mathematically be a way to call out a shared riding service which is at the end of its pick-up cycle, I just never figured out what it is: Reserving online rather than by calling out? (Someone once told me that by law ride sharing services at LAX are prevented from making more than 2-3 stops)[/SIZE][/FONT]
Taxi cons have been part of LGA culture for decades. We natives will try to alert visitors with straw hats and overalls about this when we can, but it's basically an extension of three-card monte out to the airport. And the mess that the PA has made of legitimate LGA taxi pickup points is not helping.
I fly into LGA at least once a month and this has been a much BIGGER problem than described for past 3 years. The fake uber drivers PARK (technically stand with the motor running) in the pickup zones and clog up 2 of the 4 lanes. This causes traffic to backup and prevents legit uber drivers from getting to pick me up. By the time my uber driver does get though, I have to wade out to lane 3 to load. I usually get propositioned by "fixers" at least 5 times in the 5-10 minutes waiting for real uber pickup. Every trip, I see a couple port authority officers obviously looking-the-other-way and NEVER-EVER do anything about this. I always figured they be being paid off.