Cautionary New York Taxi Tale!
 

This little saga is meant to serve as a PSA for people taking taxis in New York.

My BF and I arrived at JFK this past Sunday after spending a delightful week in Turks and Caicos. After conquering customs and baggage claim, we hopped in a cab to head back to our apartment in Manhattan. The taxi stand operator handed us the little sheet of paper that lists the cab information and rate. I threw it in my bag and forgot about it.

We arrived at our apartment, paid the cabbie, and asked him to pop the trunk. We went around to the back of the cab to grab our bags out of the open trunk. As we approached the cab, it started to pull away. My BF was able to grab one of our bags before the cab sped off down Sullivan Street with its trunk wide open! My BF took off running, but he was long gone. The bag sitting in the cabbie's trunk contained about $2K worth of scuba equipment.

After frantically calling 311 and the T&L commission, I realized that I had that little slip of paper from the taxi stand at the airport. Lo and behold, the taxi's medallion number was on it. We were able to track down the cab company, thank god! The owner finally called us back yesterday, and we got the bag back. Of course he wanted us to schlep all the way to Brooklyn to get it, but we would have none of that. We told him that the cabbie could bring the bag to us, or else we would file a complaint with the TLC.

So....moral of the story - pay attention to who's driving your cab! I take cabs several times a week and am typically oblivious to this. We would have been totally screwed if not for that little slip of paper from JFK. The medallion number for you taxi can be found on the doors of the cab.

That's it for my PSA - have a great morning!

Excellent suggestion. Even us seasoned New Yorkers usually ignore medallion numbers. Scribbling it on any scrap of paper (or keeping the yellow JFK receipt) can save a lot of headache. Thanks for the reminder!

So glad you got your stuff back! I have heard of this happening before unfortunately. It reminds you to not pay until you have retrieved your bags, if that is possible. Those cabbies are hot to get back to airport to get another fare. Time is money to them.
Debi

Debi you are so right ! My husband always gets out of the taxi, stands by the trunk as he reaches for his wallet, and doesn't pay him until all our bags are out - he learned his lesson well once when he paid while still in the taxi and his wallet slipped onto the seat and he didn't realize it until the taxi pulled away and he went to pay the bellman - lucky for him the next customer was a nice guy who took his wallet with him and called the number on his business card in his wallet and told him where his office was so he could retrieve his wallet ! So now he doesn't remove his wallet until he is outside of the taxi and all the bags are out too.

Sorry to hear about that, lizzie. That stinks. I hope your cabbie got fined by the TLC.

When I'm with my DH in a cab and we have something in the trunk, one of us usually stays in the cab to pay the cabbie while the other (usually DH) gets out to get the bags. But when we have smaller bags with us, we usually bring them in the back seat with us.

Thanks for the solidarity! We were lazy and assumed that b/c he popped the trunk while we were in the cab, it was okay. I wonder how long he drove around w/ his trunk wide open before he realized it. The scary part was that he wasn't even on his cell phone!

Having him pop the trunk isn't enough. I stand there while the driver unloads the trunk. Often they prefer not to get out of the cab. But - I tip well - and part of the service is taking any luggage in and out of the trunk. So - I stand there until they get out and unload the lugage. (The polite one take the luggage over to the sidewalk for you.) Then I pay them.

That way you never have a problem.

How scary! Thanks for the warning.

Thanks for info--we are going to NYC in a few months and will keep this in mind. Glad to hear things worked out for you :)

Jebus - you should still make a complaint. You should be able to press charges. Unbelievable.

Now that we have our stuff back we've relaxed a bit. I did almost have a coronary when the cab company wanted us to pay the driver to drop the bag off. My BF had to put one hand over my mouth while he was on the phone w/ the owner:-)

Thanks for the warning and glad it all worked out.

Press charges? And be told the cab driver simply made an "honest mistake?" Sure.

Dukey - The way lizziea06 told the story it didn't sound like an honest mistake.

Thanks for the heads up lizzie!

Thief!

Just awful. So it sounds like this was purposeful, yes?

I don't think it was intentional...the guy had no way of knowing what was in the other bag. I think he just had a brain fart and wasn't paying attention.

This sounds at the very least like a felony. You should be able to file a police report on the taxi driver.

You will probably get better results filing a complaint with the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission. Here is a link to file a complaint online:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/pas...omplaint.shtml

You might, however, have to take time off to testify. But, that is how you would punish to the taxi company.

But if the trunk was wide open, surely he had to see that?

It's definitely not a felony, just a bonehead mistake. The owner of the cab company told us that the driver called him a few hours after this occured and told him that he had our bag. I think if he really meant to steal from us, he wouldn't have reported the lost luggage to his boss. I'm sure he "forgot" to tell his boss that he drove off with it in his open truck. We took care of that :-)

There have been stories of cabbies driving off with car seats in the back seat. I've been getting into a cab when all of sudden it starts moving. Like many other drivers, they get distracted, maybe even more so b/c they drive all day. It also doesn't help that they always seem to be on their cell phones.

The point of this tale was to let people learn from our mistake and to remind everyone to pay attention to details! Trust me, we are all over the TLC website and complaint form. What we really cared about was getting our stuff back, and we did!