Had another interesting thing happen in transit the other day. Since I was away on business travel, Google offers various ways to get around town. One of the methods I used in the earlier part of the week was my trusty 3 mile town car ride to and from work. It’s pretty simple: You call this number, ten minutes later you get a phone call confirming the impending arrival of the driver, driver rolls up, and you hop in. For particular trips like this, Google fits the bill and there’s no transaction on your end. Nice, simple, convenient.

However. There are those that game the system. Not Googlers, as it turns out, but other taxi drivers. Rogue taxi drivers–that in my case posed as the car service Google has arraignments with. Here’s what happened…

Leaving my desk for the day, I received a phone call that a driver was rolling up in a white town car. I walk downstairs, see a car of that description driving up, approach the window, confirm my name, the driver confirms, and I hop in. Moments after settling in, I realize through a very confusing, and twisted discussion with the driver, that I’m in the wrong car — not the one that I had called. The quickest way to realize this was to ask if at the end of the drive I’d have to pay. “Yes, yes, yes. YOU WILL PAY.” I told him that in prior rides I didn’t have to pay, but he nodded and insisted again: YOU WILL PAY — 3 DOLLARS A MILE. He went on to lecture to me that I should “never ever” call the other people, that they only do local drives, but he will go anywhere in the Bay Area, and offered me his phone number multiple times.

At this point, we weren’t quite off the campus but we were still driving and, at this point, far from where he’d picked me up. I suggested that he should take me back. He refused. Really. He did. A quick glance at my door I noticed it was locked, and briefly went into MacGyver mode thinking I might bail out anyway. I decided to stay the course and just be driven home. Shortly after crossing the freeway, I received a phone call from the original town car service, “Josh, the driver is waiting outside, can you give us an idea how much longer you’ll be?” After a quick explanation, they expressed their sympathy and told me not to worry.

Moments later I arrived at the curb of my hotel, and paid the driver sans tip.

Today, a week later, I took the local bus system to the campus up here in Kirkland. No issues as of this morning!