7 On Your Side: Man disputes taxi charge of $500 for $22 cab ride

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A cab ride in San Francisco can be costly, but $500?

It happened to a Marin County man.

What began as a six mile cab ride in San Francisco turned into a seven-month-long ordeal for Luiz Goncalves of San Rafael.

It began last July when Goncalves hailed a cab downtown, dropped a friend on Polk Street, then took the same cab back to the Ferry Terminal.

"The fare was $17.60 and I told him to round it up to $22," Goncalves said.

Luis paid with a credit card, swiped on the cabbie's iPad.

It seemed to go smoothly until the next day when Luiz got an alert from Chase Bank. It said he was just charged $520 for that taxi ride.

"Initially, I thought it has got to be a typo, a mistake," he said.

He disputed the charge, figuring it would be an easy fix. Then came the real shock, he bank said he had to pay the $522. The merchant refused to reverse that extra $500 charge, saying, the "customer was present at the completion of the ride to authorize, swipe and sign for the total $522.22 charge."

He was determined to track down the cabbie. But all he had to go on was the memory of a red and green taxi, and a mysterious merchant name on his credit card bill. It said "SQ Taxi 1512."

"I didn't know who SQ Taxi 1512 was and there is no address associated to it. There is no phone," he said.

Finally Luiz contacted 7 On your Side. Turns out S-Q stands for square, the mobile pay company that processed his cab fare. Square still insisted the charge was correct and would not identify the cabbie, citing privacy rules.

So 7 on Your Side tried the Municipal Transportation Agency, which regulates San Francisco taxicabs. Turns out Taxi 1512 is the cabbie's medallion number. MTA contacted the driver, who contacted Goncalves saying he'd made a big typographical error.

The driver, William Mounsey, immediately wrote Goncalves a check for $500.22.

"I must have hit an extra button by mistake during the transaction," Mounsey said. "I would never do this on purpose. Taxi drivers want happy customers."

Goncalves said it won't happen again.

"I will have cash available, that's the answer. I will pay in cash," he said.

Chase said it had to uphold the charge since there was a signed receipt. Square would not discuss the case citing privacy rules, but says it does contact drivers if there is a fare dispute. Mounsey said he'd been out of the country and out of reach.

So, if you use mobile pay, get an instant receipt by text or print and check it before you leave.