Have you ever paid for a stranger’s taxi fare?
Toronto model and actress Saja Kilani is warning residents in Toronto and the GTA about a taxi scam that almost cost her her debit card.
On October 16 at around 4:30 p.m., Kilani says she was walking along Bay Street and Yorkville Avenue when a teenage boy stopped her and asked if she could cover his taxi fare since they only took card and he just had cash.
In a TikTok detailing her experience, Kilani says the boy offered to pay her back and showed her that he had money on him.
How it happened
“I thought, you know what, if I was in that situation, I’d want someone to help me,” says Kilani.
Kilani says she asked the driver if he had just driven the boy, to which he responded yes but that he only took card. So she agreed to pay for him.
The driver asked if she had a debit card before setting up the transaction on his machine, according to her TikTok.
But as soon as the transaction was in motion, things started to go south.
“The kid was really trying to get my attention. He kept saying something about, ‘If you want to give him a tip, I can give you extra money’ but he was fidgeting a little bit,” she says.
Despite the distraction, Kilani says she managed to catch the driver putting her card down while he fixed the machine out of the corner of her eye.
Kilani says he put her card in the machine and gave it back to her.
After she paid, she claims she handed the machine back to the driver with her card, but when the driver returned it, she…
