On 3.4.2010 Duane from Verifone transportation systems left me the above voice mail at 10:51 am. It seems that Verifone being so concerned with the goings on of the Boston Massachusetts taxi cab business took a full week to discover and respond to my last article published in the carriage news of Boston. If you listen to the above voice mail you will hear that Duane seems unhappy with the article and states that several of the items we published were fraudulent. I would now again like to state that prior to the publishing of this article more then one voice mails and emails were left with Verifone transportation systems representative “Kim” asking for comment.

I immediately returned Duanes call and invited him or a representative of his company to go on the record and answer the rumours swirling around his company once and for all. I further told him I would be publishing his voice mail here on my blog.

1)First ask yourself. What do I remember about the taxi itself? What color was it? Did it have a divider between the front and back sheet with a plastic window at the top? What color was the lettering on the outside of the taxi? Do you actually know the number of the taxi cab you were in? Just because you were picked up in a Boston does not mean you were in a Boston licensed taxi cab. Taxis from several bordering towns come into Boston and steal/poach work from us. You may have been in one of these cabs. Was the item you lost a phone? If so did you try repeatedly calling the phone and asking whoever finds it if they will bring it back to you? Do you remember the last few people you spoke with just prior to losing your phone? Perhaps you should try calling them or anyone in your phone marked Home,house, mom, dad etc and asking if anyone called them asking about a lost phone. I often try to get people their property back before I turn it in to the police and will make every attempt to contact the person via their recent call history or their Mom,Dad,Wife, etc.

2) By law any property found in a Boston licensed Taxi is supposed to be immediately turned in to the on duty officer in the lobby of Boston police headquarters. Any driver who calls a dispatcher to report the property has been found or any customer who asks a taxi cab dispatcher about lost property gets told to call the lost and found phone number at 617-536-8294(taxi). One problem with this. They never actually answer the phone and depending on who is working the desk may not check the messages until the next morning or Monday morning. GO TO BOSTON POLICE HEADQUARTERS AND ASK IF THEY HAVE YOUR SHIT! BPD headquarters is 1 Schroeder plaza located next to the Orange line Ruggles train station at the Corner of Ruggles and Tremons st. in Boston’s Roxbury crossing neighbourhood.
3) If you are still reading I am guessing you still did not have your stuff because it was not at the Boston police headquarters. At this point things are not looking good for you but we will keep trying to help you get the stuff you lost back. If the cab you were in had a divider that separated you from the driver then it MAY have been a Boston licensed taxi cab and one of the below phone numbers might be the cab you were in. If there was no divider/shield separating you and the driver then chances are you were not in a Boston licensed taxi cab and these numbers will not help you. If you have been looking in the yellow pages you will see dozens perhaps over a hundred taxi company phone numbers. The secret here is that there are only 4 phone numbers in Boston that will connect you to the only 4 places where taxi cabs are dispatched from. The below phone numbers are so super secret I beg you not to tell the people that answer them how you got the number these are their “specials”. Seriously that is what they all call them its a hold over from the 1930’s. I will not even identify which company owns which number just a description of the cabs that they dispatch.

I recommend you call each one of these “specials” and say the following:

“Hi I hate to bother you because I know you are busy but I lost my (Insert what your stupid ass lost here) and I would like to leave my name and phone number in case it is turned in.” It also never hurts to offer a reward for your lost property no one can make you give what you offered but it may make someone speak up understand? I have also included a tiny white lie with each phone number that may get the person to help you a bit more.

1) 617-426-8277
White cabs with Red and Blue stripes on the sides.
White lie: “I play cards at Mohegan Sun/Foxwoods with George Summers and he said if I ever had a problem you guys would help me”

2) 781-286-5490

White cabs with yellow and red checker pattern on front door & also this phone number dispatches cabs that are All white with fat Red letters.
White lie: ” I went to High school in Winthrop with Tiffany and she said if I ever had a problem you guys would help me”

3) 617-242-8000
White Boston licensed Taxis with Fat green lettering.
White lie: I know Felix from Suffolk Downs and he told me that if I ever had a problem you guys would help me out.

4) 617-266-4700
White and Brown Boston licensed cabs with fat brown letters.

White lie: My nana goes to Church with Eddie Tutunjian (pronounced: Tah Ton G An ) and he told her if I ever had a problem to call and you would help me.

If after doing all this you still do not have back whatever it was that you lost then my friend I hate to tell you this you may be shit out of luck here. The shields that are put into our cabs to protect us are so high we can not see the back seat. There is a very good possibility that whoever got into the cab right after you found whatever you lost and took it with them. Sorry folks!

Thanks to Mrs. Pearlman my third grade teacher at the Beachmont school in Revere,Massachusetts I can spell Massachusetts right every time ! While I do not claim to be a genius for being able to spell the state I live in properly I do not understand how so so many people around the world get it completely wrong! In fact recently sitting Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley was running to replace deceased senator Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy and someone in her campaign managed to do it. I’ll never for the life of me understand why people can not remember it! This is one of those things that once learning it you should never forget it because it is so odd it should stand out. Must be the same kind of people that have to look up Gayhead st. or Dicks st. in a street guide several times before they remember where it is.
Hitler even makes fun of her for it in the post below..

Further searches of Google reveal that an astonishing number of people can not spell Massachusetts several different ways.

Massachusettes-135,000 global monthly searches a month.

Massachusette- 8100 searches a month.

Massachusetes-90,500 searches a month.

Massachusetes- 2,900 searches a month.

Massachussetts-110,000 global searches EVERY MONTH!

Masachussetts- 1,900 global monthly searches!

Massachoosetts- Now according to google this one and the next 2 don’t have enough data to show how many people are searching for them every month but would you believe this misspelling appears on 5,290 pages?

Massachoosets This one appears on 312 pages

Massachoosetes and last and least.. this one managed to sneak onto exactly 5 pages.

As you can see it’s not that easy of a word to spell or so many people would not be getting it wrong so many different ways. I guess we should thank them for at least being able to say it unlike these Germans who appear not to know what the hell to say when faced with the almighty MASSACHUSETTS. God Save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and god save her citizens.

Let’s meet John Moore founder of “Boston Clean air cabs” no one man is more responsible for Boston’s forced migration to Hybrid vehicles then John Moore a Somerville architect. Which is why most Boston cabbies including myself rightfully credit him with taking millions of dollars out of our pockets.

I am sure you are asking how the efforts of one man could have cost so much to so many people who can’t afford it, so please stick around and try to follow the  bouncing ball as we explain how Mr. Moore’s tireless efforts to have Boston’s taxi cab fleet convert to hybrid vehicles cost the working poor hard earned dollars.

On 8.31.08 Boston’s police commissioner Edward F. Davis signed into law,with power derived from a 1930’s act of the Massachusetts legislature , a new Taxi Cab rule book that required all new vehicles placed into service as taxi cabs  be brand new factory white 4 door cars  with less then 200 miles and no change of title. Since any cars placed on the road as taxi had an existing time limit this left several cab owners with little more then a year to come up with the money to purchase a brand new factory white hybrid vehicle.

Where did they plan to get this money? An easy solution presented itself further down in the newly issued “rule 403″ signed into law by commissioner Davis. Rule 403 further allowed Boston taxi cab owners who placed into service these required cars to charge up to an extra $18.00 per shift for these vehicles. A Boston cabbie renting shifts on a hybrid would not pay $95.00 per shift rather then the old standard of $77.00. Further the rule change allowed taxi cab owners to charge the shift driver a $3.00 insurance collision waiver to cover any damages to the taxi a charger that would have been greeted as a joke prior to the hybrid mandate.

Can you imagine a cab owner asking for $3.00 to cover the cost of any damages that might happen to a 5 year old used police cruiser with 280,000 miles? Factor in the Ford motors had been making 200,000+ units every year since 1992 allowing for a plethora of parts and you can see how funny of a proposition this would have been.

Now that these Boston Taxi cab owners had been forced to buy expensive exotic cars with newly designed electric/gasoline “hybrid” drive trains they wanted a bit of insurance. Another bit of an added bonus to fleet owners was that they could no require taxi cab shift drivers to put up a sizeable deposit of $200.00 that would be held for the length of employment and not accrue interest. Can you imagine owning 400 taxis ,collecting $200 deposits on every one of them at least once (Some cabs have 4 drivers and one wonders if 4 deposits were collected per cab) socking them all into a money market fund and keeping the cash? Now that’s a windfall that would make the Massachusetts lottery jealous!

One new protection for shift drivers rule 403 provided was that Boston taxi cab owners must now issue receipts and paperwork to go with the money they collected. Imagine until 2009 a cab owner could stick the money into his pocket  say “thanks pal” and then turn and walk away without issuing a receipt and it was perfectly legal?

A typical 2009 Hybrid receipt,if you actually have one since most drivers were still afraid to ask and the people making the rules were still not doing spot checks, would total $104.67 after the insurance,salestax and an odd .30 fee no one understands. Seriously there is an additional .30 per shift these guys collect that has been explained to me a couple of times now but makes no sense. Something called a violation assessment? Now add in that you would still use around 6 gallons of gas in a hybrid vehicle and you get a grand total of $120.33 with gas at $2.61 a gallon.

This means the Taxi cab driver would have to average 10.02 an hour 12 hours a day before he made any money at all! Think  of it a Boston taxi cab driver must gross $31,285 a year BEFORE he makes any money for his family on a 5 day work week.

No consider before the Hybrid mandate Boston Cabbies typically paid $75.00 a shift for a Crown Victoria plus gas. No imaginary insurance collision waiver no violation assessment fee no sales tax. $75.00 total plus gas with a typical 12 hour gas consumption of 10 gallons at 2.61 a gallon that’s 101.10 before you hit profit and the rest of the money is yours or  $26,286 a year. A total savings of 4,999 for each 5 shift a week cabbie in the city if Mr. Moore had no begun his meddleing.There are 1825 cabs in the city with 2 five  shift a week drivers minimum at 2 shifts a day per taxi.

This means even if all 1,825 cabs in the city were parked on Saturday and Sunday and no one drove them,which we know is not the case, Mr. Moore cost the working poor taxi cab drivers of Boston roughly $18,246,350.00 Yes you read it right and my math is right 18.2 million dollars extra paid out a year by the working poor cab drivers of Boston because environmental activist John Moore thought “Boston Taxi cabs should go green.”

Now are you ready for the hard part? There could theoretically be no more hybrid taxi cabs placed into service and the Boston Taxi Cab owners could still charge the extra $18.00 per shift. How did it happen?

Boston Taxi cab owners are a funny bunch. They did the math saw the incredible amount of extra money they would be making of poor shift drivers and instead of smiling and thanking  Commissioner Davis they sued him in Federal court claiming that among other things Commissioner Davis had over stepped his bounds because only the Congress of the United States of America was allowed to regulate fuel mileage.

On July 23`rd  2009 US District Court Judge William G. Young sided with taxi owners. Ruling that the city of Boston could not mandate they purchase hybrids. On 12/10/2009 this same group of Taxi Cab owners lead by attorney Paul Merry went back to court and got the judge to agree that allowing cab owners to charge extra for a hybrid vehicle Vs. a comparable internal combustion engine vehicle was in violation  of the judges former ruling.

Within 24 hours the city of Boston via a new law signed in by Police Commissioner Davis now allowed the extra$18.00 to be charged for any “new” vehicle placed into service as a Boston Taxi cab until it reaches 4 years old. This means if a taxi cab owner goes out and buys a 2010 Ford Crown Victoria he can now charge $95 a shift plus the .30 assessment violation plus $3.00 insurance plus sales tax for a total of $104.67 and the driver who rents the car will save 0.00 gallons of gas. Now 10 gallons of gas at 2.61 a gallon comes out to $26.10 plus the $104.67 a day means that taxi cab drivers now must gross $34,000.20 a year before they feed their families.

This means since John Moore “environmental activist” and local architect has potentially caused the working poor taxi cab drivers of Boston $28,156,830. a year for 4 years! Thats right if every Boston Taxi Cab owner goes out tomorrow and buys a Ford Crown Victoria the working poor Boston Taxi Cab drivers will have to find an extra 112.6 million dollars over the next four years.

Now thankfully most Boston Taxi Cab owners are not as scummmy as that and only a few have gone out purchased Crown Victoria and charged the extra money,or at least only a few have been reported to me.

In conclusion I would like to say I do understand that Mr. Moore probably thought he was doing the right thing when he initially began to think he alone knew how to run a business he had never worked in nor had any relationship to better then the people who were already doing it. I can picture him now out tailing a city of Somerville licensed taxi cab around the hub thinking to himself  “these fools don’t know what they are doing I alone will have to show them the path to salvation” .

I can forgive Mr. Moore his trespasses I only wish that now that  the cold hard dollars and cents of his “great idea” and who had to pony up that money is staring him in the face he publicly admit that he may have made a mistake when he began pushing that a private business he had no interest in nor had any relationship whatsoever to change their fleet to one he alone approved of he really had no idea what he was doing.

I further request that he put half the energy he put into ,forgive me, screwing the little guy into publicly denouncing the large rich taxi fleet owners of the city for passing on the costs of his fabulous idea to the working poor of the city of Boston.

When he is done doing that I would like him to personally apologise to each and every single Boston Taxi cab driver who has lost money on what he must now admit was a lame brain idea.

In last months column I detailed concerns that Verifone , who has the most taxis under contract within the city of Boston and its suburbs, may have taken controlling ownership of Top Cab/City cab and now had gained control of Clear Chanel`s taxi top light business.

Within a week of the story being published the owner of the taxi I rent got a call from “Kim from Verifone” asking to speak to me to “clear up some issues” I was immediately bewildered as to why a company with access to my social security number, bank account, home phone number, and more then likely my underwear size would be contacting me via my cab owner? Perhaps to send more then one kind of message? I immediately traced the phone number she had left to a Long Island city company called “All Taxi management inc. ” . I then called the Top Cab dispatch office to ask if they had any idea what the call had been about. The operator who fielded my call said “that’s one of your Bosses from New York leave your number here and we will pass on the message”. I then looked up the corporation of my until now unkown “New York Boss” and found very little info about it. The New York state corporate database has the CEO listed as a Neil Greenbaum with one address the same as the phone number attached to my “New York Boss”.

Now my curiosity was peeked so I dared to call my “New York boss” and got a voice mail system that identified itself as Verifone transportation systems. I quickly punched in my new boss’s extension and left a voice mail inviting her to call me back and discuss any concerns she may have on a recorded line or email them to me directly. As of this writing my new boss has yet to call. If my new boss is reading this and would like to speak to me on the record to address any concerns she may have I am of course available and you will find my phone number and email at the bottom of this column.

However I implore you boss that before calling I would like you to take a deep breath and come to the realization that no matter what you or your associates purchase here in the Commonwealth I ,nor any other Boston Cabbie, WORK FOR YOU! As a matter of fact I only answer to the following

1) God
2) My Wonderful wife
3) Mark Cohen and the Boston police department.

If you you do call/write please have answers to the following questions prepared

1) What is All Taxi Management and what exactly is its relationship to Verifone transportation systems?

2) What % of Top Cab city Cab dispatch is owned by All Taxi or Verifone transportation systems? Mind filling us in on the purchase price?

3) I and several drivers in the Top Cab/City Cab system are willing to provide whoever is running the place with constructive advice on how your woefully inadequate dispatch system could be improved to better suit our needs and the needs of the citizens of the city of Boston. Which “Boss” do we pass these suggestions to? How will they be handled?

4) I have been told by several sources that Top/City radio room operators are now instructed to take calls anywhere in the Commonwealth regardless of the traveling distance? Is this true?

5) Recently I.T.O.A. dispatch informed it`s membership that they must have their Verifone machines removed from their cabs by March 1 if they wish to continue being members of the I.T.O.A. Several cab operators in this situation have reported to me that they were repeatedly told by representatives of Verifone T.S. that there would be no problems with having these machines installed. Sources at the ITOA have told me that there was a time they had negotiated with Verifone TS and after reaching a deal with another provider Verifone installed machines in ITOA cabs knowing full well they might not interface with ITOA’s planned deployment of Mobile knowledge dispatch. Is it true the machines will not interface and given the obvious issue of interfacing the two systems will you release these people from their contracts and remove these machines free of charge and in a timely manner?

6) Several current members of Top/City had no idea upon joining these associations that ,if this ownership relationship exists,they would be involving themselves with a New York city based radio room management team. Now that this information,if true, has come into daylight will these members be allowed to leave Top/City/Verifone contracts free of charge and enter into agreements with other locally owned and operated associations?

7) If the ownership relationship between Top/City/Verifone/All Taxi management exists was this conglomeration approved by the Boston Police Hackney Carriage unit and where can we see documentation of that ?

Several taxi operators with Verifone equipment installed have informed me that they have yet to be paid for the advertising that is running on these credit card machines. Have you paid anyone? What % of the ad revenue does the taxi operator get? More then a few drivers find these ads to be bothersome is there an option to shut them down when particular drivers log in? Given these ads,as well as the top light ads, are powered by gas purchased by taxi drivers and not taxi operators and as I said several drivers find these ads to be a nuisance would it not be more fair ,now that it is easily tracked, to provide a % of the ad revenue directly to the driver who PAYS to power these ads?

I look forward to any and all responses from Verifone transportation systems, All taxi management, Top Cab,City Cab, Kim .Duane, Amos or whoever it is that is actually running things these days! However, I have the feeling they won’t spend the money on the long distance call from Long Island city to answer such tough questions from a lowly cabbie.

Mike@southiecab.com Recorded line:617-934-5651

According to Google Maps this is 5.5 miles and the trip breaks down like this.

Drop fee(what a Boston meter starts at) $2.60

Logan airport Massport fee $2.75

Mileage $2.60X5.5 miles  $14.30

Boston Meters also click on time. When the car stops it costs .40 every 45 seconds or so. On a short hop like this it wont be much of a factor.

A good guesstimate for this ride is $20.00-$25.00 depending on traffic.