Have you ever felt bad for handing your taxi driver a 50-dollar note because you had no change?
The fare was only $4.65, but your wallet was empty and you left all your bank cards at home.
So this poor cabbie, after a draining 12 hour shift, had to do a little arithmetic in his head and draw several notes from his bulging wallet.
And then you left the vehicle, feeling a stab of guilt.
Don’t feel too bad though, some passengers require cabbies to turn into human coin counters.
Teen Paid Taxi Fare in Sealed Envelopes of Coins & Told Driver to Trust Her That It’s Accurate
A taxi driver surnamed Zaffre had an odd experience with a customer’s unique mode of payment after she paid her fare entirely in coins.
On 30 July, the cabbie had picked the passenger up from Orchard and was heading to Bukit Batok.
The “teenage girl” did not inform Zaffre about the mountain of coins she had waiting for him at any point during the trip.
When they reached her destination, the number that came up on the fare was $17.20, and it was time to compensate the taxi driver for his services.
Instead of whipping out some dolla dolla bills or a credit card, the teenage passenger handed Zaffre four paper packets and a 20 cents coin.
The stapled paper packets were full of coins and were labeled with the amount of money it contained.
Zaffre’s daughter, Liyanah, who shared details of the encounter in a post on Facebook, said her dad was a little “pissed” that he had to count all the coins.
When he asked why she paid for the fare with four packets of coins, she said this was all she had, and asked Zaffre to trust her that the amount was accurate.
According to Mothership, Zaffre decided to give the girl the benefit of the doubt because he thought she may have taken the money from her piggy bank.
After work, the cabbie counted the coins with the help of his daughter and son-in-law, a process which took 10 minutes. The amount was indeed accurate, but there were many five and 10 cent coins inside the packets, two of which were of China and Hong Kong currency.
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At the end of her post, Liyanah applauded the girl for “being honest and adding some humour to our lives.”
Netizen Reaction
Some netizens speculated that the girl paid with coins because it was “hard earned cash” that she had saved up over time.
Others praised Zaffre for accepting her unique mode of payment even though it meant more work for him.
As for those who are concerned about having to pay “service charge” for depositing coins at the bank, here are three “hacks” to get around it:
- Use it at Sheng Siong/Fairprice automatic checkout cash machines
- Use it at the hawker centre but don’t go too overboard lah
- Deposit the coins into a child’s bank account.
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