Six JFK Airport Dispatches Arrested for Bribery Scam

I am really happy that TLC caught 6 Taxi dispatchers for taking money from the drivers. Actually im a yellow cab driver too. Once I was at the terminal and i got fare for the city and a Taxi dispatcher offer me for a shorty ticket in five dollars but i refused his offer and the same thing is going on at the LGA and in the city. Hotel doormans they sell JFK fair in five dollars too. And at LGA dispatcher take three dollars to get in front of the line. TLC should stop this bribery.

I hate to say it, but I wish I would’ve known about it. I would have gladly tipped them to get out of LGA or JFK faster. Let’s face it, we are all in the business to make money as fast and safe as possible. People worldwide are struggling financially, and when an opportunity arises, they take it. We can criticize, but who is to say that any of us wouldn’t do the same thing is we were in their position.

Let he is without sin cast the first stone. Enough said

It is not our job to take care of anyone.

You are nothing more than a loser bellhop. I never go to hotels, i never pick anyone up at hotels and the next time you’re standing in the middle of the street in the pouring rain, i will hit you.

Winky: your a scumbag if somebody in life gives you a job, take care of them. You have no class!

To the crying doorman who knows he is just a door MAT: let one of your dummy black car drivers get into a accident and you can take your 10 tip and slide it up and your smelly ass cheeks along with your pink slip.

i get realy surprised when i see doorman bossing around cabdrivers and watching cab drivers kissing their a** for a fair. guys city is full of customers going to airports. you idiots spend 2-3 hours front of hotel and taking crap from those a** h**** doormen. i bet if u drive around 30 minutes in midtown u can find an airport and neva had to pay 5-10 bucks to those jerks. people those idiots

Well why you sit there I will make the same $45 in 45 minutes and when you sit at JFK for a while I done double my $45 after everything is paid for I make $250 a shift for myself which is roughly $1400-1500 weekly ..holla

So let’s figure this out.

You spend 2-3 hours in front of a hotel: $0 money made.

You get a ride to JFK: $45 less the five you give doorman, So now you’re down to $40. It takes an hour to get there.

You wait 2-3 hours in a lot: $0 money made.

You finally get a ride back: $45

You have made a grand total of $90 in 6-7 hours.

But if doing that keeps a good 400-500 cabs off the streets, it makes it that much easier for me to get rides all day.

Definitely worth it huh?

you are a fucking big liar GABARAHABAN this bul shit you are driving a fucking cab not an aeroplane to make 250 dollars in your pocket everyday. we are just struglle to survive w work for ourselve in weekend and we spend the rest of the week working to make the lease

well that’s what you think you slow pokes don’t hate maybe you need to take some real driving lessons, with me I bend the rules and do shit quick maybe you don’t know how to work the fucking NY you dumb fucks.. I make my 200 - 250 a day you old cab drivers plus the lease so say what the fuck you want .. besides stay there and figure it out.. 3:30am-4-30 pm?my shift?

Keep bending the rules buddy…We will see where your 250 a day is next year when it comes to renew your hack license and your are denied for having to many points on your license.

yeah f the doorman they are just as greedy I don’t give them one dime and I still do 4-5 airport trips plus locals and and long runs … your professional cab driver GABARAHABAN…

steve get a life..dude..

GABARAHABAN you need to hide your secrets a master cabbie doesnt talk!
YOU WILL HELP ALL THESE HALF-WITS

joe has plenty to say!

You should get a summons for that! First, you are parking your taxi front of the hotel to steal cab fares from other cabbies, who is driving around legally, and they aren’t parking or standing like you illegally! Tipping anyone who makes a lot easier dollars than you, lead to corruption! This is a reason why you cannot tip, or bribe at the TLC, otherwise your cab always has a pass, just like you have it at the hotel’s doorman who receives TIPS from you!

This is only a beginning, gas price going up steadily before the summer, and so the food price! Forget about TIPS, and if they demand it, - you know what to do! GIVE THEM MORE!

Six JFK airport dispatchers arrested for bribery scam. Now isn’t that a surprise?

Was the credit card edict mandatory or was it voluntarily decided upon by the TLC. Also I’d like to know with Verifone buying out Clear Channel, what is going to happen to Creative Mobile Technologies who uses the Clear Channel advertising and news in their advertising screen? News releases said that VeriFone with the purchase of Clear Channel added 5500 NYC taxi backseat screens to the 6500 they already have. Was all this nuisance and greed voluntarily agreed upon by the TLC?
You know something sleazy happened in San Francisco about their credit card inquisition. I read it about a month ago, but it seemed there was a “mule” on the TLC that no one knew was a cousin of a big fleet owner. Contracts were changed, service delivered not as promised, but a big take on the cash of the cabbies pay. Go to h t t p : / / beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=4198. You might find it interestin.

If you drivers would get off your ass and help put some of this luggage into the taxi, it would prevent damage to your vehicle and maybe you would recieve a tip. It’s all about service. I can’t even think of a taxi driver that ever assisted with luggage. Cool more for me.

GABARAHABAN and Mister Cabbie are certainly correct about sitting for hours in the lot at JFK or parking in front of a hotel and turning down fares to Brooklyn and Queens; not learning how to work the outer boros, racing around the streets…

About being professionals.

I am however curious as to the assertion that people are making a “guaranteed” 200-250 every day, 250-300 every night. I do not doubt his professional savvy, but…

GABARAHABAN spoke of a 3:30 AM-4:30PM shift…well thirteen hours helps.

My questions concern the price of the lease and the amount of mileage, because the number don’t jibe, and income is down for most of the drivers I know, professional as they may be.

There are certainly many hours, when $45 in 45 minutes is possible, but that pre-supposes like 4-5-6 fares an hour, and consistently high tips from every passenger. No matter the shift, day or night, if you are doing 40+ trips a shift, you are having a good shift.

But I find during the average shift while there are certainly a few hours when one might book $45 in fares and tips, on the average it is closer to $30-$35, and with many dead hours or dead miles, some hours you could be booking like $20-25. Skill is a big component, as is luck, and making your own luck.

Suppose for the sake of argument you are driving a Crown Vic for the full 12 hours. Let’s say as a night man your lease is $129 and you burn $35-$40 worth of gas. That’s $164-$169. Let’s be generous and say you did 30 trips, God Bless you, so there’s $15 in MTA tax. Now you are up to $179-$184 in fixed expenses. Then you have to factor in credit card payments, so deduct 5% from whatever you booked.

Many drivers lease for 12 hours, but considering how late you get out or early you get back, getting over the bridge, and what have you plus dead time, let’s say 10-11 hours of action.

In order to do $250-300 for every evening shift, one would have to book on the order of $40-$45 an hour for EVERY HOUR.

That means passengers tipping you like Jesus of Nazareth; that means passengers jumping in and out, passengers taking you to other passengers almost continuously; that means long circle routes, such as picking up a fare on Smith Street in Brooklyn and taking them to the Upper West Side, then say a fare jumping right in on CPW and 102nds Street and taking you all the way down to Ludlow and Broome.

Gross $440, subtract $180 and there’s $260 for a night shift. If GABARAHABAN is working Mon-Fri on the day side, with more or less steady biz and predictable rhythms, from 3:30 AM to 4:30 PM it is not inconceivable he could book $200 or more for a good shift.

However, no dead time or reduced action on the day side, say from 10:00-2:00 time between rush hour peaks? No sitting in traffic empty? Nothing but live hours? Hell, sitting in traffic with a passenger is 0.40 X = 24.00/hr.

I can tell you that other than on Friday or Saturday evenings, Sun-Thursday, depdning on how early you get out on the street, driver count themselves lucky to bring home $100. Don’t pick up your first passenger until 5:30PM? By 12:30 at night, the schools of passengers are pretty much fished out. Know where the hot spots are? So do a hundred other yellows. As Abe Lincoln once said, “Not enough teats for the sow.”

So a skilled, knowledgeable driver, hard-hustling driver, maxing out live hours to dead hours, catching all the peak hours, getting a timely start (on the night side picking up your first fares between 4:00-4:45), making that meter drop, and getting 20%-30% tips, yes, one could make $200 during the day and $250 at night. Or more.

But every day? Every night?

[Cough.]

Anonymous, yes, there is certainly the potential, undoubtedly, but even if you hustle, there still have to be fish in the pond.

I cannot comment intelligently about the day side, because I have always been a night man, and while I have not driven continuously, since 1979, I’m on my fourth license, with a cumulative total of around ten years service, I reckon.

Back in the mid-80s, Thursday evening was a lively night to drive on, as all the SERIOUS Party People were out all night long.

But even on a Sunday or Monday evening, traditionally pretty slow nights, let alone, Tues-Thurs, it was not uncommon to do 40 fares or more a shift.
It was no big deal. It was typical to bring home $100-120 a shift, usually in nine hours or thereabouts, while for Thurs-Fri-Sat, you might make upwards of 140-160.

Some 25-30 years latter, it is an event to bring home $100 for a night shift. I am not talking about lazy, inexperienced cabbies either. The potential to make money on Fridays or Saturdays is greater than it was back in the day, for sure, but again, NYC/Manhattan is not the all night town it used to be.

Day drivers? I have nothing but respect for the pros on the sun-side. For me, it was always too stressful, and could never align my body to get up at such a time as to be out on the street trolling for fares at 3:00-4:00 in the monring. It is a different kind of rhythm, a different kind of hustle, a different kind of customer…probably less cruising and more waiting involved.

Sitting in lines? Number one, I would rather keep moving, number two, you are a sitting duck for predatory cops and TCL agents, looking to hang a ticket or two on you. Number three, those places with fares late at night invariably have several yellows, any of whom will cut you off in a Ceylon Second for a fare.

Working the airports? To me they were always for suckers or gonniffs…you either hustled or you were hustled.

To me, I don’t look at going to JFK as making $45, I look at it as losing $30, which what I figure I lose eating 30-40 minutes getting back to Williamsburg, or 45-60 getting back to the city.

Anyway, this is winter, and we on the night side grow easily frustrated after midnight, wherein you push yourself and say, I’m not giving in, I’m not going home early, I am going to work this sucker, and you can get lucky, as I have often done on the morning side of a Sunday evening shift, but that has become a rarer and rarer occurrenced, and I inariably end up making $15-25 dollars between 12:00-2:30, when I could have gone home and recharged my batteries for an hour or three more, and not be burned to a crisp when the 12 hours of business on Friday and Saturday does come.

Any day man, making a steady 200-250 Monday through Friday, I salute your fortitude and guile and gumption. Ditto those night men doing 250-300 on a regular basis…but I suggest these nighties are getting out more like 3:30 than 5:30-6:00 in the afternoon. Getting your lease money by 7:00PM is a big incentive to hustle and book as well.

Perhaps I am not wise in the ways of the city as you gentlemen, but veteran drivers I respect echo my sense of a significant diminuition in the rider base, and opportunities for the second half of our shift.

NYC taxi cabbies are the scariest people to ride with. They race around midtown w/ passengers in the car. They fly thru the terminals at the airports. Really, who wants to ride with these people? It’s not a race to get anywhere, just a race to make money. I come down from Connecticut all the time and take work in NY to give passengers a nice rate that is comparable to NYC taxi rates and such…. just saying!

To Taxi red weed. Idiot Savant Hotel Doorman, with HUGE tip and bribery pockets. What does STFU mean? I might guess the last two letters, but what are the first two. I tell my customers the Doorman Savant’s game, and say when he asks WHERE you are going, tell him Connecticut, when his brother-in-law comes around from out back with the black limousine you get in and when you get 10 blocks down ask to be let out at the sandwich shop and ask how much. But, says doorman savant’s brother in law, aren’t you going to Connecticut? Yeah, after we have lunch and do a little walking around.

To Taxi red weed. Thanks for explaining STFU. I’ll add it to my vocabulary.