Paris taxi driver charges a hundred times the fare

Police in Paris arrested a taxi driver who allegedly defrauded dozens of foreign tourists and in one case charged 100 times the fare.

Instead of 15.40 euros, he secretly collected 1540 euros from a Spaniard, the newspaper “Le Parisien” reported on Wednesday with reference to the police. Unlike many tourists before him, the Spaniard filed a complaint and the 30-year-old’s scam came to light.

The contactless payment function on his card reader does not work, the driver pretended to the tourists. According to the report, while entering their PIN in good faith, the driver covered the increased amount he entered into the device with his hand. Within a few months, the taxi driver would have collected 62,000 euros from 71 customers, which he mainly spent on sports betting and restaurant visits.

The driver, who normally has a taxi license, had registered his ticket machine under a false name, but investigations led to the detectives. They also found some of his victims who identified the scammer. Because many of the scammed tourists were only in France for a few days, they did not file a report. The detectives also discovered that the driver had lost his driver’s license after numerous traffic violations and had just reapplied for the inspection. (aeg/sda/dpa)