A passenger pays a fare to a taxi driver near Chaoyangmen Wednesday. People have reported receiving fake money back during such exchanges. Photo: Guo Yingguang/GT

Counterfeit change from fake cabbies for taxi fares appears to be on the rise, but authorities said Wednesday there is no effective way to deal with the problem.

A woman surnamed Wang told the Global Times Wednesday that she took a cab ride on Tuesday for which the fare was 10 yuan ($1.55). The driver refused four of the 10-yuan notes she offered, using various excuses such as "your cash is torn" or "your money is fake."

Wang finally gave the driver a 100-yuan ($15.47) bill.

"You have too many fake bills. You'd better give me a different one," Wang said the driver told her. She did, and he tried to ask for another but she refused. Finally, the driver gave her the change and her first 100-yuan bill back, as well as a receipt.

"The taxi looked like any other legal taxi from its appearance," Wang said. After she realized both the 100-yuan bill and her receipt were fake, she called the number on the invoice. However, the taxi company told her that the taxi's license number, which was printed on the invoice, was not their company's.

An employee with the Beijing Yuyang Joint Taxi Group Company confirmed to the Global Times that the invoice's phone number was correct, but that the license number was false.

"It must be an illegal cab copying another cab's license number. We've heard several of these kinds of cases," she said.
Wang claimed that the company told her another passenger reported a similar case the same day, in which he was duped out of 500 yuan ($77.35).

Further research showed that the phone number, license number and driver's work ID on Wang's invoice did not belong to one single company. The seal on the invoice was merely a red circle, and the English words "Beijing Taxi Special Invoice" had been replaced with "Beijing Taxi Receipt."

"It's fake. I've never seen this kind of invoice," taxi driver Nie Xiaoguang told the Global Times Wednesday.

Nie said that usually illegal taxi drivers buy decommissioned cabs from the transport administration to continue taxi operations, or they redo an ordinary car to look like a taxi with the same coloring, meter and light.

Six passenger complaints about fake change were listed on the Beijing Municipal Transportation Law Enforcement General Team's website Wednesday. An officer with the team refused to comment Wednesday.

"You can call the police or complain to the taxi company. We have no good way of dealing with it," a complaint hotline operator said Wednesday.

"It's hard to count how many victims have fallen for this trick," Municipal Public Security Bureau spokesperson Zi Xiangdong told the Global Times Wednesday, declining to comment further.