She claims the driver refused to let her pay with a credit card and then wouldn't let her get out.
"I asked the driver would it be OK to take me to Lower Merion, because it's kind of far. He said, 'That's fine. Come on.'"
Thus starts a cab ride Laura Amato will not soon forget.
At 11:30 p.m. last Thursday Amato jumped in the cab at 18th and Cherry streets in Center City after a long day at work.
Once home she produced her credit card. She says the driver switched off the card reader and bluntly declares, "'No. You have to pay in cash.' And I said, 'No I don't. Put your meter, put your card reader back on please.' And he refused and we argued about it."
City based cabs are required to take credit cards. But the agency that oversees cabs says about a third of the complaints they receive in a given month pertain to a cabbie refusing to accept a credit card, or a driver may tell a passenger that the credit card processing equipment is not working.
Jim Nye from the Philadelphia Parking Authority says those excuses are bogus. He explains, if the reader is not working the cab is required to come off the street. He says some cabbies want cold cash immediately. Credit card payments are subject to a five percent processing fee and arrive a day later.
Back in Lower Merion Laura Amato says the driver instructed her he was taking her to an ATM.
Amato tells us, "Then he proceeds to lock the car doors. And at that point I started having a complete conniption fit. I called my boyfriend, and I also called 911."
The driver thinks twice, the police arrive, and there is talk of a false imprisonment case if she presses charges.
"You know I declined [to press charges]," Amato said. "It seems like more than it was worth."
Amato does have the medallion number from that cab and she does plan on making an administrative complaint with Parking Authority. Nye says he hopes she will do that. He says unless people give the PPA the P-number off the cab, as well as the time and the place of such occurrences, his agency cannot investigate.
