RIYADH, 1 December 2006 — If you want to know what kind of rip-offs many cab drivers face in the Kingdom, talk to Aiyed Thawab Al-Messily.

“Once a young man hailed my cab and put a box in the boot,” said the Riyadh cabbie, a Saudi national. “He asked me to stop at a local residential compound so he could get his brother. He left the box in the boot and told me it was heavy and he will take it to another destination. The young man never returned. A worker at a nearby shop told me the guy does this regularly. He enters the compound and exits from somewhere else.”

Sometimes the tricksters simply insist on paying less after the trip than what they agreed to pay before getting into the vehicle; cab drivers say there’s not much they can do but take what they are given when passengers say that’s all the money they have.

Al-Messily says that he’s had passengers who go to residential compounds after getting out from the taxi saying they need to get money. They go inside and never return. Because these compounds are usually large, difficult for outsiders to enter, and have a lot of apartments, the search for the deadbeat passenger is pointless and time consuming.

Abdulazim Mohamed, an expatriate cabbie, says that young men not only cheat, but also steal.

“I know drivers who have encountered teenagers who ask for change for a large bill to pay the fare. When the driver takes out his money to count change, they snatch the wad of cash and run away,” he said, adding that this compels him to profile potential passengers, avoiding young men - Saudis and expatriates alike.

Said Al-Harthy, another Riyadh cab driver, said that, for their part, Saudi women exploit gender-based sympathies to pay less, or not at all. He says that when he suspects a cheater, he asks him to pay in advance.

On the other hand, Mohiuddin Iqbal, an expatriate cabbie, says in most cases people are honest, sometimes they even pay a tip.

“The bad behavior is typically from young adults and especially teens,” he said. “They should be taught that we work hard and they should be honest and mature.”