Blast From The Past.... With TfL Run By Cowboys, The Nightmare Continues

   After six demos and two all party engagements, the signs still went up!

I remember, many years ago, the Metirpolitan Public Carriage Office, writing to every licensed Taxi driver saying "their must be no, 'no go areas' in London for Taxis". 

"You will be expected to go to any destination anywhere within a six mile radius (now extended to twelve) or within one hour in duration and their must be no exceptions". 

Now we have a Mayor, in charge of a Transport body (TfL), bent on the destruction of our 360 year old trade by creating 'no go areas' for London Taxis.

We've had 8 years of protest, demonstration, consultation after consultation, engagement and negotiation. Apart from the killer on the knowledge protests, which saw top TfL directors moved sideways, we've had little or no success. 

Last year, after six demonstrations and two bouts of negotiations, we lost access through the Bank Junction, financed by TfL just to speed up bus times. Once through the junction the busses hit chaos which negates any advantage made by the ban!!!

This is about to be followed by a complete ban from Tottenham Court Road, plus Oxford Street and Baker Street are still being negotiated.

Caught up in the middle of this attack on our trade, are the unfortunates, and they are the disabled and less mobile members of the public. Mayor Khan is trying to steal the freedom of the disabled, to shop wherever they like, in order to give way and make more room for the able bodied shoppers who he hopes will travel forwards and backwards on the Tubes new Elizabeth line. 

The most scandalous aspect of these plans being....there are two wheelchair users on the board of TfL who have said nothing in defence of the disabled's right of access and to shop on Oxford Street.

There is as always a hidden agenda and Khan obviously feels he can supply many extra passengers to the new line by making it as difficult as possible for taxis to get to popular destinations around central London. 

PROJECT HORIZON:

Taxi Leaks spoke of Project Horizon several years ago and TfL flatly denied it ever existed.

We predicted back then, that under this agenda, there would be Taxi no go areas, followed by Private Hire rest ranks where drivers could wait to be hired and PH WAVs rank spaces at mainline stations. 

Remember the Gold, Silver and Bronze PH ranking system? It's still there in the background as TfL never fully scrap an idea, they just shelve it till the time is right. 

WE ALWAYS SAID TFL WERE A BUNCH OF COWBOYS

With Country Boy Rett Russell in charge of London's Ambulance service, it's only a matter of time before we see NHS Uber ranks at hospitals around Greater London...an going on TfL's present form, outside Greater London too. 

As Harry Wall said, "History is there to learn from".

Seems our trade has learned nothing

After years of negativity and deterioration, fighting the unfair and elitist United Trade Group, did we not all cheer when Val Shawcross announced the UTG would be scrapped and the gagging order known as the engagement policy would be assigned to the shredder. 

So what is plan B.

It seems the old United Trade Group is to be replaced by the new United Trade group, and the old gagging order known as the engagement policy, is to be replaced by a new gagging order called the new engagement policy. Again the right to exclude any group they see fit to exclude.

And the price for signing away the right to criticise TfL in print or on social media, is a seat at the old fold up table.

Towards the end of this year, the Taxi trade will be expected to purchase the new electric TX5, even though neither TfL, the GLA, the Mayor or our trade Orgs, have bothered to explore the health risks associated with the radiation given off from the bank of batteries inside the vehicle. 

Not only has TfL put us in the predicament of not being able to afford this vehicle by selling our work to a NonDomicile company that pays little to no tax, we now learn this week that the government is likely to scrap the subsidy they were going to give Taxis and private hire to go electric.

But tell me this Sadiq, will the new electric Taxis be allowed to use all these no go areas and eventually replace the dirty buses that are running round, 100% on diesel, as replacement batteries proved to be too expensive ?  

A blast from Taxi Leaks past December 2013

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And So It Begins....Visa Doubles Transaction Charges to 8%

£1bn assault on the High Street: Shopkeepers suffer as Visa hikes fees on card payments. Unfortunately, this will give the green light to increase transaction charges for Taxi drivers taking Card payments. 

It's estimated that shopkeepers will pay £1billion extra a year to payments giant Visa after it hiked fees.

The increase comes as the Taxi trade faced a boom in customers who want to pay by card.

But what many passengers don’t realise is that every transaction costs the driver, and Visa has been accused of cashing in, by hiking its fees.

Card sharks: Taxi have seen a massive increase in customers who pay by card for even the cheapest journeys meaning that drivers with company's that charge the extra 20p on top of the transaction percentage, pay even more in fees

Experts warned that some will see their bills more than double. 

Obviously it's not just Taxis who will be affected, payments consultant CMSPI said that increased card costs will hit Europe’s shops for £2billion.

In the UK alone, which has embraced contactless cards and chip and pin, the bill will be £1billion.

Visa Europe has doubled charges since 2015 from an average 4p per transaction to 8p, says CMSPI. 

Firm’s crippling £26,750 card bill 

Hardware store owner Vin Vara says his firm is struggling because of huge bills from credit card companies.

Vara, 58, employs 38 people at 11 Tool Shop stores in London and lost £20,400 in fees last year as shoppers paid by credit card. 

Some 60 per cent of customers pay by card and he expects the bill to rise to £26,750 this year.

He said: ‘People don’t understand the damage this can do. I’m scared for others on the High St about what’s going to happen to them.’

It used to keep just 1.5p of this as profit but now takes 5p after cutting costs, the consultant said.

CMSPI chief executive Brendan Doyle said: ‘This is incredibly disappointing. Visa, a multinational that consistently reports profit margins in excess of 50 per cent on multi-billion-dollar revenues, is piling cost after cost onto retailers and the latest change will be particularly hard on struggling small businesses.’ 

He added that CMSPI will complain to the European Commission about the hike.

Visa has become more aggressive since it was bought by its US sister firm for £15billion in 2016.

Until then, Visa Europe had been owned by banks, including Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland, and they made billions from its sale to namesake Visa Inc. 

The American company’s chief executive Charles Scharf plotted to hugely increase fees – in 2015, he said he hoped to ‘expand yields in Europe’.

MPs and business groups called for regulators to step in.

SNP MP Stewart Hosie, of the Treasury Select Committee, said: ‘It’s a scandal card issuers’ fees have increased massively. I would hope and expect card issuers would think again before they impose these costs.’

Meanwhile, High Street retailers face average hikes for UK card fees of 75 per cent, and other European card costs will come close to trebling with an increase of 189 per cent.

James Lowman of the Association of Convenience Stores said: ‘We encourage the Payment Systems Regulator to look closely at these fees to ensure fairness.’

Andrew Cregan, at the British Retail Consortium, also backed intervention by the regulator.

Visa said: ‘The figures quoted are misleading and over-inflated. Our pricing means we can invest in world-leading cybersecurity and consumer protection, in innovation such as contactless and mobile payments, and in providing a global network which enables billions to make purchases safely, securely and reliably.’

TAXI LEAKS EXTRA BIT :

In the past, we've seen many retailers refuse to take Amex because of the time it takes them to pay up. 

We could now see the same exclusion notices regarding payment with Visa cards.

The London Taxi trade haven't been granted the right to choose how they are paid as our largest org says "it was a done deal'....and it was the drivers who were done!

The trade were promised a increase in bums on seats and a massive publicity campaign from TfL.....it just never happen. 

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Breaking News : LPHCA Has Lost Its Challenge To TFL's New Operators Licence Fees.

The Licensed Private Hire Car Association (LPHCA) has lost its case against TFL's proposals to increased fees for operators with over 11 vehicles to over £3,000, when they were previously under £3,000. It said the measures could "wipe out" operators, "leaving the futures of many drivers, industry suppliers and others connected to the industry in jeopardy".

The UK's largest private hire trade body, United Private Hire Drivers (UPHD) applied to intervene in the case, which was heard in the High Court, but its application was rejected.

It has argued that the change in fees breaches the Equality Act of 2010 by forcing drivers to shoulder "unfair costs and regulatory burdens" while denying them representation in the stakeholder process.

TfL announced last year that it was increasing charges for private hire operators for the costs of licensing, compliance and enforcement to reflect the growth of the private hire industry and the costs required to regulate it.

The number of privately licensed drivers soared by 78 per cent from 65,000 to 160,000 last year, while the number of vehicles increased from 50,000 to 112,000 over the same period.

TfL expects the cost of enforcement alone to reach £30m - up from a previous estimate of £4m - over the next five years. With the costs of licensing and compliance taken into account, the total reaches £209m over the same period.

​A TfL spokesperson said: “The licence fee changes reflect the increased cost of regulation and associated enforcement activity that has been driven by the huge growth in the private hire industry.

“The changes will fund the additional 250 compliance officers who do a crucial job in driving up standards and ensuring Londoners remain safe. After listening to the views of stakeholders during consultation we amended the fees structure to take into account the potential impact on small and medium-sized operators.

“We consider the changes to fees to be proportionate and will be defending our position.”

James Farrar, chair of the UPHD branch of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain, said: "It's not surprising that gig economy bosses represented by the LPHCA are fighting tooth and nail to pass their cost and regulatory burden on to drivers. But it's dismaying to see TfL work so hard to avoid answering some troubling questions about how it discriminates against 117,000 mostly minority minicab drivers. We will be watching this case very carefully and we'll continue to pursue other avenues to challenge institutional racism at Transport for London."

An Addison Lee spokesman said: “We fully support TfL’s efforts to improve safety in the private hire sector through better regulation and more enforcement officers. Addison Lee recognises that these measures need to be paid for and we are happy to play our part through the increase to our licence fee.”

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Think Your Online Account Details Are Safe ??? Well, Think Again!!!

A hacker who carried out attacks on a string of companies before selling customers’ data on the dark web has been jailed for more than 10 years.

Grant West, 26, carried out cyber-attacks on high street brands including Sainsbury’s, Asda, Uber, Argos and bookmakers Ladbrokes and Coral.

He obtained the email addresses of more than 160,000 people and sent them phishing scams masquerading as Just Eat to get their personal data.

West, who used the online identity “Courvoisier”, sold the information on the dark web, stashing his ill-gotten bitcoin profits in online caches.

He was sentenced to 10 years and eight months at Southwark crown court on Friday. The judge, Michael Gledhill, described West as “a one-man cybercrime wave” and said he had “secreted away” some of the £1.6m worth of cryptocurrency that is unaccounted for.

He said: “Regrettably, as this case has demonstrated, security of information held electronically is at best poor. When such inadequate security is confronted with a criminal of your skills and ambition it is totally unfit for purpose and worthless.

“This case should be a wake-up call to customers, companies and the computer industry to the very real threat of cybercrime.”

He added: “You have a deep and impressive knowledge of computers and if you had decided to use your abilities lawfully I have no doubt at all that you would have had a very successful career.

“Unfortunately you saw the potential of using your skills to make a great deal of money not lawfully but by crime, blatant crime and your crimes were highly sophisticated.”

West’s two-and-a-half-year scam came to an end in September last year when he was arrested in a first-class train carriage in the act of accessing the dark web. He had been returning from a trip to visit his girlfriend and co-defendant, Rachael Brooks, in north Wales.

West, who was living in a caravan park in Sheerness in Kent, used the stolen email addresses to send out messages posing as Just Eat with offers of cash rewards in exchange for customers filling out a survey.

Respondents were asked to confirm personal emails and supply extra details in order to obtain the reward, which were then harvested by West. The information, which included everything needed to make purchases online, was then advertised and sold to customers from his dark-web shop.

He built up huge caches of bitcoin and other cryptocurrency in online “wallets”. Police also found £25,000 in cash and a stash of cannabis when they raided his home last year.

The prosecution estimated that the total loss to customers and businesses was more than £1m.

A total of £84,000 was fraudulently taken from compromised accounts held at Barclays, costing the bank more than £300,000 to remedy. British Airways also suffered a £400,000 loss after Avios accounts were targeted.

Just Eat said no financial information was obtained in West’s fraud, but estimated the cost of combating the scam at more than £200,000.

Brooks, of Denbigh, north Wales, was previously given a community order after she admitted using the details of two of West’s victims to buy herself a bikini online.

West previously admitted a string of charges including conspiracy to defraud, unauthorised modification of computer material, possession and supply of cannabis, possessing criminal property and money laundering.

He has a number of previous convictions, including drug offences and other frauds.

Anna Mackenzie, defending, said West has been a cannabis user since the age of 14 and suffered from low self-esteem, lack of confidence, anxiety and depression.

“He has expressed remorse and shame and acknowledges his irresponsibility, selfishness, greed and hunger to succeed,” she said. “He wishes to offer apologies to the victims and businesses affected by his actions.”

Source : The Guardian.

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Sean Paul Day and Mirna Borne In London Taxi Radio : Subject, The Apps.

SPD ON LTR

By Mirna Borne / May 29, 2018/ Podcast, SPD at LTR/

Host this week @seanpaulday, Presenters, @mirnaborne

SPD discusses App regulation and criticises the taxi hailing apps for not applying conditions to prevent unsavories  from accessing the platform.

A call for Apps to declare their hand and commit to being ‘plying’ Apps.

Does this put Plying 4 Hire back on the map ? In our opinion it should never have gone away.

SPD asks, what movie and what track would you take with you to a deserted island ?

Also, TAXIAPP, Taxileaks News-Desk and much more ….

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The Hostility Explained : Hundreds Of Met Police Officers Moonlighting As Minicab Drivers

Almost one in five Met Police officers have secondary business interests, figures obtained by the Evening Standard show

Hundreds of London police officers are moonlighting as minicab and private-hire drivers, the Evening Standard can reveal.

More than 300 Metropolitan police officers have declared business  interests as drivers or chauffeurs, figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show.

In total, 5,395 serving Met police officers — almost one in five — declared business interests with the force.

Metropolitan Police Federation chairman Ken Marsh said many of the business interests were likely to relate to consultancy work or property. But he added: “Our job is a professional job and it clearly shows you we aren’t paid a professional salary. You have to ask the question, why does someone need a second job when they’re a police officer? It’s not right at all.”

Police officers declaring business interests included chief superintendents — one of the highest ranks.

But more than 70 per cent of officers with declared business interests were police constables, the lowest rank. A Police Federation spokeswoman added: “The sad reality is that some police officers are having to find additional means to make ends meet. Given the choice, officers would rather not take on a second job, but some unfortunately have no alternative.”

Scotland Yard allows officers to hold second jobs down 

The Met police said in a statement that secondary employment or business interests are permitted “providing it is compatible with being a member of the police service”.

It added: “An officer/staff’s role in the Met will always be considered as a priority over any business interest. 

“The police service, the regulations and procedures that govern external business interests recognise that there is a need to ensure that where officers/staff have secondary employment or business interests that these are compatible with their role and do not create any conflict of interest.” 

The figures come after a warning that key workers including police officers were being priced out of London. Only eight per cent of homes in the capital can be afforded by an officer on an average salary of £44,824, according to research by website reallymoving.com. 

One former Met officer, Claire Hearn, said she left the force after previously juggling her duties with a tea party business.

“It was never a problem,” she said. “But it’s not the sort of job you can do without giving 100 per cent. As the business grew, I realised the passion was with that really. 

“It’s not something that the Met stop you doing — they decide whether it’s something suitable you can do alongside the police.”

Source: Standard

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The LCDC Question, Submitted By David Kurten Of UKIP ...And The Mayor's Answer. Part 2.

WTF is Khan talking about when he answered David Kurtan at Mayors Question Time "designed to ensure London remains the world leader in regulating taxi and private hire service"

Why has no one challenging Khans statement?

Who told him the regulators were the best in the world?

London's Private Hire Trade (since the implementation of a Uber) has seen the statistics on PH driver rape and sexual assault go through the roof!

TfL have allowed an illegal operation to carry on in London for the last 6 years, while consciously discriminating against Licensed Taxi Drivers struggling to earn a living.

TfL have allowed an operation to continue knowing drivers had fake medicals, plus an alarming 13,000 drivers with fake criminal record DBS certificates.....how can Khan make his statement when he knows TfL have allowed this???

Hotels.com held a survey of the public around the world and it was the London Taxi trade voted the best in the world for eight years straight.....not the regulators who would feature somewhere close to the bottom.  

What Khan should have said:

London has the best and most stringently regulated taxi service in the world, but with a virtually unregulated and unsafe private hire trade allowed by TfL who obviously don't care about public safety.

TfL have purposely blurred the lines between Taxis and Private hire to dilute the complaints about rape, serious sexual assault, fraud, hacking and poor standard of driving. 

It is TfLs intention of dragging down the best Taxi service in the world and introduce a one tier system that they can milk the life out of to fill the void in their £1bn budget deficit. 

 

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