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Couple Pays $720 For 20-Minute Pedi Cab Ride
By
Lauren Evans
Published Jul 19, 2013
Modified Jul 19, 2013
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By
Lauren Evans
Published Jul 19, 2013
Modified Jul 19, 2013
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"Pedi cabs are for tourists, and tourists are for swindling," went the logic of the pedi cab...driver (cyclist?) who fleeced a Japanese couple out of $720 after pedaling them from Midtown to Greenwich Village last month, the Post reports.
Chisa and Hiroki Niwa were just trying to enjoy their trip to the city—which, in their case, meant first hanging out at the NBA Store on Fifth Avenue, then heading to Knickerbocker Bar & Grill on University Place for some nice House Made Pasta. But all that changed when they hopped on a pedi cab for what should have been a $50 ride.
The driver chatted the couple up, making small talk about their plans for the visit to the big city, the tabloid said. At the end of the 39-block trip, he casually presented them with a bill for $520.
A real New Yorker would have never gotten in a pedi cab anyway given the driver five bucks and a swift kick to the groin, but the Niwas are not New Yorkers—it was, in fact, their first day in the city. The continued their trajectory of totally blowing it by handing over their credit card because "they had no choice but to pay." This is erroneous. The Niwa's had a veritable rainbow of choices—laughing in the cabbie's face, slapping the card reader out of his hands and running, pushing over tables of apples and pausing to talk to sunbathing women, or alerting one of several of the city's Helpful and Friendly Police Officers were among several options on the table.
Obviously, Mr. and Mrs. Niwa returned to Japan to find that the scoundrel had actually charged them $720—with another $616 charge pending. (The latter was fortunately denied.)
In the end, though, the Niwa's got what everyone comes to New York for in the first place—a good story. To the Louisiana couple who paid $90 for a 15-block ride in 2011: Your story sucks.
Tagged
pedicab
swindling
Lauren Evans
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