Port of Canada Place Cruise Ship Terminal Taxi Service

Broken Credit Card Machine and Double Billing
Some taxi drivers are reluctant to take credit card transactions and prefer cash only. When presenting your credit card, the taxi operator will sometimes indicate that their machine is not working and request for a cash alternative. If the customer has no cash then magically the credit card processing machine is working again. IHT is still unsure why this is happening and it appears to be happening too frequently to quantify a batch of bad e-machines. IHT has logically deduced this is occurring for four possible reasons:

1. That this scam revolves around cancelling the recorded ride and pocketing the cash to avoid a paper trail - the customer does not get ripped off, but rather the taxi company through operator fraud;
2. That this scam involves purposely mixing things up at the last minute for the customer - the credit card is not utilized (but you don't recall), you end up paying cash and then later that evening the cab driver rings in your transaction. You get your credit card statement at the end of the month and there is only one taxi charge and you assume that was the only charge you paid. There is a similar type scam occurring in Australia, namely Melbourne. Check your credit card statements to ensure you are not double charged and keep hold of all cash receipts as well;
3. That the taxi driver prefers to operate in cash and may not see their money for credit card transaction until a later date. So for personal cash flow purposes they attempt to indicate that their machine is broken to obtain the money upfront;
4. That the taxi driver is responsible for the fees associated with e-machines (pin pads) that process credit card transactions (similar to Interac transaction) and as such have to eat the costs and reduce their commission. Again this would not apply to manual credit card machines which require a physical imprint and will require drivers to do more work filling it out. Most of these e-machines act as a mobile interac or credit card wired or wireless device. Essentially some taxi companies (i.e. Regina, SK) pass the transaction cost over to the customer ($1.00 for each credit card transaction). Why it is not done similarly in Vancouver could be because they are no bylaw in place, disagreement amongst different taxi companies on whom shall eat the cost (i.e. company, operator, or customer), or fear of it impacting the possibility of a tip.