The nightmare started late one evening on East Burnside when two friends from out-of-town and I were approached by a drunk crack-head who made us fear for our lives. Fortunately, we'd called a cab a moment earlier. We thought the van that pulled up would be our salvation from a nerve-wracking situation. I'd given my name to the phone operator (it's of an eastern European ethnicity) and one of the first things our cabbie did was ask me about it. He asked if my family was from Europe and I responded yes, the former Yugoslavia. He then informed me that he was Russian in descent. While I know that Russians and Yugoslavs aren't always friendly, my family never made an issue of it and he was nice enough and we chatted about the similarity of the languages, etc. When he pulled up at my house, he read the meter as $15.60. Less than 5 seconds before, all three passengers witnessed it at $9.60. I asked, ""are additional passengers $3 each?"" as by that math, the fare would be $15.60. He responded ""no, $2 each."" (There is a sign on the window that reads ""$1 additional passengers!"") I then repeated to him ""$15.60?"" He pulled forward slightly, as if he would take off with us in the car and then replied, ""No, $15 is enough."" We were seriously creeped out by this so I stopped trying to argue, paid and we scrambled out of the car. While I suppose Broadway Cab gets credit for arriving so quickly, I will never feel comfortable getting in another one of their vehicles knowing it could be the same bigot creep who decides to rip off whoever he pleases to. I called customer service to request a refund and still have not received a response.
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