Riders claim popular taxi app is sneakily scamming customers: ‘Thought it was an honest mistake’

If you’ve ever called an Uber, Lyft or a taxi during rush hour or after a late night out, you know all too well how expensive the ride could be.

And now to add insult to injury, riders are claiming that popular taxi app, Curb, is supposedly double-charging some of its customers.

In a post shared to X (formerly Twitter), user @chrisalbon wrote, “Last year I took a taxi from SFO [San Francisco International Airport]. During the ride I paid using the Curb app via PayPal. Then at the end the driver said the Curb app didn’t work.”

“So I paid again in cash. Welp, it definitely did work. He double charged me. I contacted Curb. They said contact the cab company. I contacted PayPal and reverted it. I thought it was a honest mistake. Then I looked on reddit today and saw this,” the post with over 140,000 views read alongside a screenshot of a Reddit thread complaining about a similar experience.

For those unaware, Curb connects customers with licensed taxis and, similar to other ride-sharing apps like Uber or Lyft, it charges users at the end of the ride.

It’s a popular option, especially for those in major cities like NYC, because it reportedly offers fixed or metered rates, keeping the ride cost fairly reasonable compared to competitor apps.

While this app helps keep yellow taxis in demand, many in the thread pointed out how sneaky some cab drivers can be.

The Post reached out to Curb for comment.

“The reason waymo, uber work so well is that dealing w taxis drivers is a universally bad experience,” one commenter pointed out.

“Taxi drivers are scammers with few exceptions. Nearly every taxi I ever took tried to scam me by taking the long way to the destination. One driver was honest, I told him I was late to work and he proceeded to make a 15 minute drive in about 8 mins. He earned a big tip,” chimed in someone else.

“Unless Uber isn’t a suitable option for some reason, I will always choose Uber over a taxi. With Uber, the app just handles payment and charges my debit card and I don’t need to worry about it,” read another comment.

“Amazing how quickly people have forgotten that cabs are/were the worst customer service experience in history,” quipped another disgruntled rider.

“Reason 57 why I won’t/don’t ever take a taxi,” wrote someone else.