I like to think of myself as a generous tipper as I usually give waiters and taxi drivers 20% if they provide decent service. But I don’t like it when restaurants automatically add generous tips. I really despise the new New York City taxi tip options when you pay by credit card. See the image below. As you can see, when you pay by credit card, the options to tip are 20%, 25% or 30%. Thirty per cent?! That’s outrageous. Yes, you can manually input the amount but most passengers including myself are in a hurry and just hit a button to complete the sale. Don’t you think the taxis should be pre-programmed to read 10%, 15% and 20%? Next time I’m going to use Uber.
STP! And take the BUS that crying is not needed in the BIG APPLE!
If it’s to much for you take the bus or train STOP CRYING and pay if you need to there in a hurry!!
I don’t consider this a ripoff compared to what a cabbie did to me in Chicago. I put a $5.05 charge on my credit card and he insisted on emailing me the receipt. When I received the receipt, it was for $7.05. When I called the number on the receipt, Foursquare answered and said that they could do nothing.
Tipping is a phenomenon caused by something very wrong with the economy: some categories of people don’t get paid enough, and customers are made pay for it. On one side I guess it helps the economic flow since most people think of the price without tip to start with and so they spend more, but on the other side it is really annoying and may eventually cause demand to fall e.g. by Europeans or Japanese who are not accustomed to this system and dislike it.
There should be no tipping at all. If salaries are too low, you can’t penalize customers for it.
You should rather point out whether the tip options apply to the before-tax or after-tax amount. I only tip (10-15%) on the BEFORE-tax amount.
Also take into account that you can travel from the UES to soho in a NYC taxi for about $15. I ask you what other city you can do that in. DC Boston LA would all be much more. If you don’t like it take the mta.
Australian cab drivers charge a 10% surcharge for paying with a credit card, trust me they dont get many tips!
First off, do you think that the drivers themselves are in anyway responsible for what’s shown on the display? A more accurate headline might point the blame at the TLC or the fleet owners. This article reeks of laziness. If you can’t be troubled to enter your own tip amount, then you yourself are the problem! Maybe the headline should read, “Tipping your NYC taxi driver… A lazy sucker born every minute.”
How lazy are you? I lived in NYC for 8 years and always took 2 seconds to type in my tip amount.
Framing cab drivers’ tips as “ripoffs” speaks much more to your mood and mindset than it does to the ethics of the drivers. They work hard, never know who is going to step into their cab, put up with some incredibly rude people and bad tippers, and never know what their paycheck is goinog to be. Maybe you were having a bad day? Hope that is not typical for you.
I live in NYC and I totally think this IS A RIP-OFF. Give me a f&^&ing break, people. I’m not a tourist and I’m tired of the BS in this city. This doesn’t only happen in cabs, it happens in a lot of restaurants. Yeah, sure, I can manually add the tip, but it’s a hassle and the cab drivers KNOW this. It takes me one extra minute and I don’t want to give them that extra minute. This is why I can’t wait to leave this uber expensive city. See ya!
I think that the Taxi drivers probably do more wrong rates. Plugging in a higher rate that the ride calls for.
As I’m based in NYC, I face this all the time. Yes, it’s moderately annoying, but it’s that not hard to just manually figure out and type in a tip — that’s what you’d have to do anyway if they didn’t offer pre-calculated percentages. I don’t think taxis need to be required to do the math for you. And there are so many cities where cabs don’t even offer the convenience of paying by credit cards . . .
Much more of a ripoff is when drivers take routes that are not the most efficient path to your destination . . .