Taxi drivers chafe at credit-card deadline

WASHINGTON – All D.C. taxis must allow passengers to pay with a credit card before the end of September, but some feel D.C. Taxicab Commissioner Ron Linton is rushing them.

Drivers can have an extension to install credit-card readers by Sept. 30 if they’ve signed up with a provider by Aug. 15. But a slew of cab drivers-owners who feel they haven’t had enough time to pick a credit-card payment provider.

They say that if Linton gives them until Sept. 15 to pick a provider, they guarantee they’ll have machines ready by Sept. 30.

Linton says they’ve had since June 1 to decide. But driver Joseph Tillman says proposals from providers only came in July, and he cannot meet an August 15 deadline. He says that if the drivers and the commission “all sit down as men, I think we can come up with the right solution.”

Linton says, “They just simply have to knuckle down and do their job.”

Cabs must have credit card machines by Aug. 31 unless the payment provider asks for a one-month extension for installation.

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