ROLLED: Chisa Niwa (left) and husband Hiroki were charged $720 by a rogue pedicab driver they snapped with their cellphone from behind. (
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It would have been cheaper to take a helicopter.
A crooked pedicab driver charged two Japanese tourists a staggering $720 for a 20-minute ride from Midtown to the Village, The Post has learned.
Chisa Niwa and her husband, Hiroki, were fleeced on June 9 when they attempted to go two miles from the NBA Store on Fifth Avenue to the Knickerbocker bar and Grill on University Place.
The 39-block trip should have cost about $50, but when they arrived the driver showed them a bill for $520. They reluctantly handed over a credit card because he said they had no choice but to pay.
When they got back to Japan, they saw he charged them $720 — and attempted a second, $616 charge that was luckily rejected by the credit-card company.
Now the Department of Consumer Affairs is hunting for the rogue driver. They are asking the courts to subpoena Square, the company that makes smartphone credit-card readers, to get his name.
The rip-off took place on the first day of the couple’s New York vacation.
“Before that ride, they were very excited about their trip to New York City,” said a friend, Raygan Solotki.
They initially tried to make the trip by yellow cab, but the drivers who stopped said they didn’t know the Knickerbocker. The first pedicab to stop also didn’t know it, and that’s when trouble arrived.
The pedicab thief pulled out a price board and pointed to the $5 line.
Chisa repeated back “$5” — and he started pedaling.
During the ride, he made small talk with them about where they are from and what sites they would see.
Once they got downtown, he whipped out his smartphone and tallied up the exorbitant fee.
“This was their first night in New York, somewhere they had both dreamed of going,” Solotki said. “This put a negative spin on their whole trip.”
Laramie Flick, acting president of the NYC Pedicab Owners Association, said this was the worst rip-off he had ever seen.
Flick said laws that went into effect last Friday, forcing drivers to more prominently display the rates and charge a flat fee by the minute, will help fend off future fleecing.
“I’m hoping the new rules will prevent this from happening,” he said.
The Department of Consumer Affairs said that if true, “this charge is both outrageous and likely illegal. Even at the highest market rate per minute we’ve seen out there so far — $4 per minute — a $700 ride would had to have lasted almost three hours.”