NEW YORK — Thousands of New York City taxi drivers overcharged passengers by more than $8.3 million over the past two years by setting their meters at a rate that was supposed to be used for trips to the suburbs, the Taxi and Limousine Commission said Friday.
At least 1.8 million trips were wrongly charged at the suburban rate, which is double the rate within city limits, the commission said.
The city has about 48,300 licensed cabbies, and data show that 35,558 have illegally charged a rider at least once, the city said.
A smaller group of drivers is responsible for the majority of overcharged trips — 3,000 cabbies were found to have doubled the meter rate more than 100 times.
The commission has referred its findings to the Department of Investigation.
“Some of these people could face serious charges,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “Now, how we would ever recoup the money and get it back to the individual payers, no, but we can stop the practice and we can make sure there’s penalties.”
The scammed passengers overpaid by an average of $4.45 per trip, the commission found.
The city said that although 1.8 million overcharged trips is a significant number, there were 361 million taxi trips in the past two years, so the illegal fare was charged in half of 1 percent of all rides.
