Crescent Cab

I called for a cab, they told me one would be out shortly, 20 minutes later I called again, the RUDE woman who answered the phone told me that maybe there weren’t any cabs and maybe one would be there in «like an hour»… Really «like an hour»!

1:30am, heavy snow/​sleet. I hail one of these guys, plate number TX43720. He pulls over, cracks the window and asks where I’m going. I tell him and he says «are you paying cash?» I say «no I only have a card.» He rolls his window up and skids off, hitting my elbow and almost running over my leg. I’m the first to advocate paying with cash, and if not tipping more to offset the card charge, but that’s irrelevant here. Philadelphia code requires all taxi drivers to accept cards. I don’t use them but for exigent circumstances. These were.

0 stars if possible. Like everyone has mentioned, if you try to pay with a credit card they act like you have just insulted their mother.
First time I got a cab late at night going from Drexel University to Upper Darby. The driver says no problem. He starts driving. We started at 47^th & Spring Garden. He tells me «No credit cards» and I figured whatever, it was late and I had some drinks and just wanted to get home. He proceeds to pull over at a random 7 – 11 and tells me I need to take out money. Um ok? How much? «$ 60» WTF? «Just to be safe» he says. I tell him I know it won’t be nearly that much. He starts driving and after 10 mins I realize he is driving in circles trying to run the meter up! We were at 40^th & locust now! He now says the road was closed and he had to go a different way. The meter was at $ 14 already when previously it had been $ 12 for the same *actual* ride. When I confronted him he said I was trying to rip him off for a free ride (even though I was no FARTHER from my destination). I threatened to call the cops and WOW his tune magically changed and said he would now «give me a discount» while maintaining he was doing ME a favor. I left and got another cab. At 3 AM in West Philly.
Another time I got in and he tried taking a ridiculous route (I guess a young blonde girl they think I’m going to be an idiot) and after I called him on it he said he «misheard me». So after getting at the store I got out my card to pay and he freaks out. «WHAT IS YOUR F’ING PRObLEM?! If I had known you were paying with CC I would have told you no way because it is broken, you have robbed me now! you must get cash to
Pay!» I said that is interesting because the sign clearly states that a cab cannot operate in Philly without a functioning CC machine and I’d like to take his info and report him. Then his machine magically worked and he begrudgingly accepted it.
I WANT TO MAKE IT CLEAR TO ALL PEOPLE. A CAB DRIVER MAY NOT OPERATE A CAB LEGALLY WITHOUT A FUNCTIONING CREDIT CARD MACHINE. THEY MUST ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS. NO EXCUSES.
This is disgusting. This is how they treat young white females and I hate to imagine how they treat others who don’t know the streets well enough to call them out on ripping them off.

If I could give negative stars. I would. I just had the world’s WORST cab experience with this terrible company!!! While being driven home from the airport, my pet sitter called to let me know I would have to pick up my dog early. I kindly asked the driver to change final destination to another location a few blocks from my original request. I was addressed by the cab driver in a condescending, hostile tone telling me that he ‘doesn’t have time for this.’ He proceeded to drop me off on a HIGHWAY EXIT 6 blocks from where I requested. While attempting to pay via credit card, he screamed at me to ‘FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS and GET OUT.’ NEVER EVER get in a cab from this company!!!

As with many of the other reviewers, I had a terrible experience with Crescent when I tried to pay with a credit card. After arriving at my apartment, I informed the driver that I would be paying with a card. Instead of letting me swipe it through the machine in the back of the cab, he strongly insisted that I let him scan my card through a reader attached to his iPhone! He said it was ‘better for him’– in other words, that he was stealing from his employer. I argued with him for over ten minutes before giving in and paying on his card reader, mostly because he was starting to become threatening, and I was alone at night. I called the dispatcher to report the situation, but they didn’t seem to really care. Terrible company, avoid if at all possible!

Horrible cab company. Drive charged us TWICE and was insisting we pay cash. I swiped my card and it got stuck «processing» on the machine. I asked him to reset it and let me try again because I knew it could just be the machine an he kept saying my card was bad! So not the truth. He was yelling at us and made my brother pay with his card. I thought to myself «well maybe there IS something wrong with my card?» Then I check my bank account today and the charge is there WITH the 20% tip that I had generously punched in. I called the company and they gave me the runaround told me to call PPA. Awful customer service, NEVER AGAIN! I’d rather walk then give them any more business.

THE WORST!!! Me and my daughter would’ve waited an hour and a half had we not called another company. What pissed me off is 3 of their taxis came to the dunkin donuts in the same parking lot we were waiting in (nobody in the back) and when i asked all 3 said they were temporarily off duty and none of them came back to get us so finally i called All city or All State taxi or something like that and they came in 5minutes i was very satisfied with them their # is 2 157 447 777

Why can’t I give 0 stars? The cab driver claimed he couldn’t get the credit card to go through, AFTER I swiped it. So he convinced me to pay cash. Guess what? My credit card got billed. And this was AFTER giving him a generous tip. The manager refuses to return my calls, and they repeatedly say he’s not in when I call, even though I call when he is supposed to be in. SLIMY!

Can I give 0 stars? I guess not. But I received exactly that; nothing.
So I’m waiting at a bus stop when I happen to see a cab come up. I try flagging him down, but he went into the gas station across the street. I think, okay, he’s just going in to get gas and then he’ll be with me, because he HAD to see me. He gets gas and pulls back into traffic, as I’m still trying to flag him down, he gets into the completely wrong lane of traffic, and I’m just standing there like, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me! So, he leaves.
I find the company’s phone number and call and explain the situation to a very rude bitch of woman who informs me that all of the cabs are independently owned and it’s up to the driver to pick up whom they want. I then say, so you’re not in business to make money? And she says that maybe he’s a millionare and he just does this because whatever. WHAT?! What kind of bullshit answer is that?! So I say that I will never be using their company because their business is bullshit. What a load of bollocks.

I don’t know what has happened. Crescent used to be my favorite cab company. You used to be able to call and poof the appeared in the ether. What has happened. I mean seriously I used to have one crescent cabbie in my phone when I lived at 48^th and Chester! He was great I could call him the night before a flight and there he would be in the sketchy darkness!
My last straw with crescent was about two weeks ago. I was staying at S’s. She lives on Webster. Which I had no idea existed before L&J moved there. However, your a cabbie. My feeling with cabbies is this. Before you get a job get a map and study it. Sure you aren’t going to know all the little streets, but I would hope you know every street from spring garden to washington. Is that asking too much? I guess so.
So, I’m on webster and I call and they say they are sending him right out. It’s one of those pretty 60 – 70 degree days so I lug all my stuff outside and sit on the stoop. Thank god I had my jacket! It’s about twenty minutes I call back. The dispatcher gets sassy with me! The cabbie calls me and I tell him how to get here and he is questioning why I’m having him overshoot, but I tell him webster is one way and you have to enter it from 18^th not 17^th and furthermore 17^th runs north to south. I’m skeptical. However, I have to take a cab because I have a bag of topsoil, a back of rocks and jars to make terrariums! I really should have asked S’s neighbors if I could borrow their wheelbarrow.
So he finally comes down webster. He wants to help me, but I don’t want him to because god forbid he break any of the glasses! We are off to a great start! I get in the cab and he’s like uh so take christian right? Well buddy unless this thing has wings how the hell else do you expect us to go? Please why are you asking me stupid questions? I’m not in the mood. Just drive. So, I figure I better tell him exactly how to go or otherwise I’m going to have patches of hair missing.
I finally show up at the studio and Marcie helps me but even Marcie is like what? you called me 40 minutes ago where were you! I paid the driver and we unloaded.
I will never ever ever ever call them for a cab. I have since used Capital Dispatch and had much better service. Such excellent service I even told friends I just had the nicest cabbie! Which is rare!

Wow. Never been to philly before and wanted a cab in clifton heights to the airport. Took this guy an hour to find me because he didnt know the streets in philly. He kept calling me to give him directions. Like I said, Ive never been here.
So from clifton heights, pa to the philly airport, it cost me $ 80…I consider that a $ 80 lesson to never trust cabs in philly again.

My friends and I called this cab company last Friday night around 9:30 for a normal cab only going about 3 miles away. the very RUDE woman on the phone told me it would be 45 minutes which was fine with us, we understood it was a Friday night and they were busy. Well, 45 minutes came and went it is now 10:30 I call back they don’t answer so I keep calling. I guess it’s lucky number FIVE that they decide to pick up. Same very rude woman picks up and told me she would find out where they were and call me back within in ten minutes. Those ten minutes were just like the 45, came and went. no phone call. So I called back no response until about 11:15 when she insisted «oh no they said they got you already» finally when i started treating her the way she was treating me she broke down and told me that she will call them and have them there in five minutes or less. All of these minutes must be in the same family because there was no sign of a cab, no phone call, no answer, nothing. we ended up getting a ride which in hindsight we should have long before that. I thought maybe I would get a phone call later on in the night but still nothing. they just completely dropped our request. Anyway, moral of this extremely long rant is DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!

This is the worst cab company ever!!! I used my phone to get directions while in Philly and asked the driver to take me the way I WANTED TO GO but he insisted the expressway was faster although it was longer :/
Then, when I questioned him he told me if I couldn’t pay to get out right where we were (a not so nice area of Philly). So… I paid bc he bullied me. I have called my bank to get a refund and called the «PPA» to complain but «Donna» hasn’t called me back yet.
Cabbies will take you a longer way to get a higher fare for the meter and it should be CRIMINAL to do so!!!
If you call a cab and a Crescent Cab pulls up #P1096…do yourself a favor and walk!!!

this cab company took my call, 40 minutes i called back and they told me my call was canceled. i took PHL taxi, it was a 14 dollar fare and i gave the guy a 20 and let him keep the change. ill never call crescent cab again, the last time my girlfriend used them, they gave her a card time for paying with her debit card. i have no allegiance to any taxi company, but it will stick out in my head forever not to use these guys ever.

Lost a pair of prescription glasses in the cab and was told by the company there ain’t nothin’ no one can do about it: everything just gets thrown away. Buyer beware. Or at least make sure everything you own is glued to you.

Something has GOT to be done about the attitudes of many of this city’s taxi drivers when it comes to customers paying by credit card. This has become a crisis situation and it’s starting to get dangerous.
90% of the time when you tell the cabbie you’ll be paying by credit card you’re going to be in for an ugly fight. It’s gotten out of control. Perhaps they’ve all banded together and decided if they’re jerks to the customers we’ll all be intimidated and frightened into never trying to pay with credit cards but they need to realize it’s 2010 and that it isn’t going to work.
These ugly incidents with drivers happen to my wife all the time, even when she explains that she must pay with a company credit card and get a receipt, and it happens to me 90% of the time as well although I think the cabbies tend to lean harder on lone women than they on men. We’ve started taking down medallion numbers and calling in complaints to the cab companies whenever it happens. Tourists in particular must find Philadelphia cabbies to be a nightmare. What an embarrassment.
Last night’s incidents were particularly egregious and is the reason I’m writing this review. My wife and I hailed a PHL cab around 9:30pm outside the Walnut Street Theatre on 8^th and Walnut. As soon as we arrived at our destination on Spring Garden near Columbus (the Live Arts Fringe Festival’s temporary bar) I said I’d be paying by credit card. The driver went through the usual rigamarole we’re used to by this point. «My machine is broken.»
«Yippee, we get a free ride.»
«You don’t have cash? I have to wait a week to get paid when you use credit card.»
«Then you need to take this credit card sticker off your window.» We start to get out without paying.
«Okay, okay, no problem!»
Magically his credit card machine fixes itself and we pay.
Two and half hours later around midnight we have to go through it again. We leave the Festival Hub and hail a cab, this one a Crescent cab, and tell him we need to go straight up Spring Garden to 18^th street. We hop in, and as he does a U-​turn he asks if we plan to pay with cash or credit card. I say, «Credit card.»
«Aw man, if I’d known that… You need to pay me with cash.»
«We’re paying with credit card. If that’s a problem just pull over now and we’ll get a different cab.»
He mutters a bunch of stuff under his breath but keeps on driving. «If you want to make a cabbie’s day you’ll always pay by cash.»
«If you want to make a customer’s day you won’t advertise that you take credit cards and then refuse to accept them.»
«What’s that?» he said menacingly, raising his voice now and trying to elevate this thing, pretending he didn’t hear me.
«I said you need to stop abusing your customers! Did you hear me that time! This is the second time tonight we’ve had to have a fight with a cabbie because you pretend your machine’s broken and all kinds of other bs. We told you when we got in that we’re paying with credit card, you didn’t have to take us. You’ve got a credit card machine in the back of the cab here and then you’re gonna try to strongarm people into not using it?»
«I didn’t put it there,» he said.
«Well, we didn’t either. Welcome to the 21^st century, people pay with credit cards sometimes and cash sometimes, it’s the same as anywhere else.»
«It’s not the same thing.» he said.
«It’s exactly the same thing – «
He then CRANKED UP the car stereo defeaningly loud to drown us out. This was just as we stopped at a red light around 8^th Street and Spring Garden. My wife and I looked at each other, I opened the door and we got out. «We’re done,» I said over the music, and slammed the door.
Magically he turned down the stereo but it was just so he could yell at us. «Hey, f– you man! I already started the meter!»
«No, f– you! You think we’re gonna pay you a dime now after putting up with this abuse and then pay to put up with 10 more blocks of your bs?»
We walked to the curb. When the light turned green the driver was pulling away with BOTH HANDS OFF THE STEERING WHEEL so he could flip us the double bird. We returned the complement. We didn’t get his medallion number but I can tell you it was a Crescent cab and that the driver was a fat white guy with a scruffy beard and long, brown hair pulled back in a pony tail.
We hopped into another cab that had just arrived. The driver had no idea about our altercation just seconds before.
We told the new driver our destination and that we’d be paying with credit card. «No problem,» he said to our surprise. We had a pleasant ride home and he got a 20% tip. At least 1 out of 3 of your drivers is a professional. That doesn’t say much about the other 2/​3s that we deal with day in, day out. Doesn’t matter which company.

Speedy & courteous service in a clean cab. After the operator quoted me a wait time of 15 – 25 minutes (by which time I would have missed my train), a cab showed up in 5 minutes and got me to the train station just in time. Of course, luck and probability played major roles in this, but the driver did not get in their way.