Tourists getting ripped off by fake cabbies at JFK Airport

As Tabitha Abed and her husband cleared customs at JFK Airport after 14 hours of travel from Kenya, the excitement of visiting New York City for the first time cut through their exhaustion.

But they quickly received a type of Big Apple welcome that authorities have been unable to stop for decades. A man approached the couple in the international arrivals area after they left baggage claim, posing as a cabbie, and offered to give them a ride to their hotel in Times Square.
Abed said the driver stopped a block away from their hotel, locked the car’s doors and demanded they settle up. Soon, they were out $800, which included a $180 “fee” to drive across the Queensboro Bridge, the couple said in an interview. The trip should have cost around $70 in a licensed yellow taxi.

“ We are scared to ask him because his voice, he was getting agitated,” Abed, 35, told Gothamist at her Midtown hotel a few days later. “He was very aggressive.”

Abed and her husband, Abed Mulee, 49, said they had enough cash on hand to pay the astronomical fare, but it cratered their budget for their trip. “ We were so frustrated,” said Abed. “At a point I told my husband, ‘Why don't we just cancel everything and go back?’”