Lee Kuan Yimby, the Ambassador to The Republic of Somaliland, shared the following warning to fellow New Yorkers:

“I got scammed by an NYC pedicab.

I took two of my family members to see the Empire State Building today and we wanted to walk to Central Park after.

A pedicab driver asked where we were going and said he’d take us. I asked how much to Central Park and he said “$12.” At no point did he clearly say it was $12 per minute.

We got in and for the first couple of minutes it was a fun time. Then he started riding painfully slow, and blaring music, while intentionally missing yellow lights he easily could have made. I got suspicious and asked him to stop halfway there.
When we got out, he said the ride had been about 10 minutes and we owed him $120.

We were stunned. I told him respectfully there was no way we were paying $120 for a 10 minute bike ride and offered him $30 instead. He immediately started screaming, cursing us out, and trying to intimidate us. We told him we weren’t paying $120 and called the police. I have since researched it is not uncommon these guys are getting away with charging people $600 for bike rides under an hour by tricking and intimidating tourists when it’s time to pay

While we waited, several of his friends on other pedicabs rode over. They were speaking Russian or another Central Asian language, it’s an organized group and they all know each other. They were laughing shouting **** you at us, flipping us off as they biked by, and one even spit toward us before they rode off.

After waiting about an hour, the NYPD arrived and mediated the dispute. They asked if we’d pay $60. I refused, and it eventually ended with us paying $40 just to be done with it. I’m not happy about it but it beats $120. Really thankful the cops we had arrive albeit an hour after we called did not take the pedicab guy seriously and said they were well aware of how they operated.

For the rest of the walk we warned tourists that the price was $12 per minute because almost nobody seemed to realize it.

This scam is happening all over Manhattan and tourists are being charged hundreds of dollars for short bike rides, then threatened when they refuse or question the amount.

The city has known about this for years. The fact that it’s still happening in one of the busiest tourist destinations in the world is embarrassing. I have come to find out The last NYC Mayoral admin under Adams was getting this ***** down and confiscating bikes, but it has now been completely let go of and the scamming is out of control.

These are not people trying to make an honest living these are thugs and some are making thousands a day preying on tourists in NYC with threats.

A competent NYC would to shut this down ASAP and it’s long overdue.”