Claim's Cabbies Corner. Kill crazy rampage imminent.

[Warren t claim]

Now, Alan as you already know was totally dependant on Frank to function.

Unfortunately, that bit him on the arse when it was time to renew his badge.

Our licencing authority had recently changed to issuing taxi badges for three years instead of the previous 12 month licences and changed the rules making us jump through hoops at renewal time. This included us drivers having to make an appointment at the town hall a month before expiry which Alan failed to do on the assumption that Frank will sort it. Sadly, with Frank's somewhat frosty relationship with licencing, this was never going to happen despite us warning Alan.

The inevitable happened and his badge expired leaving him out of a job. This meant that Alan had to go through the same process as a new applicant and resit the knowledge test, medical and DBS check. A process that can take months.

A few weeks into his forced gardening leave I bumped into him trying to sell some of his personal stuff to survive, and not being a total cunt, I went to Aldi and turned up at his house with a bag of food, 40 cigs, and a bottle of brandy. I swore him to secrecy about this because if Frank found out he'd kick off at me for being a soft touch.

Fortunately, a few weeks later he passed his knowledge test and medical but to our surprise, he was told that due to a criminal conviction he'd have to go before the licencing committee before they'd let him have a badge. We were all wondering as to what he'd done in the past. We demanded to see his CRB and apparently back in 1972 he'd been convicted for pimping! We were well impressed!

[Warren t claim]

Moving on let's talk about Alan 6.

Alan 6 had suffered a hard time in the past, his wife left him after their son was killed by being run over twenty years ago.

At our firm, Alan 6 was known as The Rat. Alan would always put himself first and hated helping out another driver.

Alan started out working private hire back in the early 1970s. This was a time long before PH cars were fitted with radios and all drivers carried a bag of 2p coins to ring the base to see if there was a job near where they'd dropped off.

In the early days Alan used his Triumph 1300 as his PH car. Well sort of, he discovered that his keys also fitted an identical Triumph that a lady parked by the Mersey Ferry terminal at Seacombe everyday before sailing to work so Alan would "borrow" her car to work his shift. You'll be surprised to hear that he got away with this until she changed her car later that year.

Alan later got involved in a scam with a local Ford dealer that was playing shit or bust with Ford Credit and passing anyone on finance for a Mk5 Cortina/Cortina 80 for the right bribe. He did well on referrals on that scam.

Alan did have one big weakness and that was women, more specifically he was scared of being single. Many times he'd been stung by scammers claiming to love him and needing a few hundred quid to fly from Ghana or Thailand to the UK to get married. Plenty of times he asked fellow drivers to lend him a few quid so he could pay airport taxes for a mystery lady.

Alan lived for his Benidorm holidays. Despite looking like a 5'2" Paul Hogan and being half deaf,he could actually sing and was the first to grab the mic on a night out to belt out "Are We Human?" by The Killers on a night out. His pulling tactic was to play a CD of him singing in his car when a suitable MILF passenger got in.

Another Alan 6 fact is that he had the first Citroen C5 plated in our area. Sadly it went back to Cab Direct after he failed a breath test one Boxing Day morning despite plod driving him the long way back to the station.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Your mention of the credit scam reminds me of the “ £100 a week “ scheme offered by a local Gangster/ car/ pharmaceuticals dealer in the mid 90’s . As it’s name suggested for £100 a week for a set number of weeks you could buy a car to cab. Only open to PH drivers and no deposit, no questions asked. He would even present it the Council for its first plate before you paid anything.
Thing is the cars weren’t exactly usual cab stuff. BMW 5 series (e34) Discoverys, XMs, XJ40s etc , the sort of drivers that took these on were never going to keep up the payments and miss one week , it got taken back. The more sensible people looked on it as rental as the car would inevitably be fucked by the end of your 100 weeks or whatever.
I’d known Dave since we were teenagers and had even done bits of business with him, one which got me as close to being shot as I ever want to be, when a London contact of his put two rounds into the side of a 944 Turbo I was brokering the return of by a little scrote I rented a barn to. Said scrote nicked the wrong car off the wrong person and was too scared to return it. Turns out the owner was a total psycho who to prove he didn’t care about the car just the principle shot the rear wing. Still, £300 finders fee was a good nights work in 1990.
Anyway , he confided the scam to me one day. He paid the wives of people in prison to get finance on the cars , let them drive them around for 3 months or however many payments you have to make to mean you haven’t stolen it , then bring the cars to MK “ sell “ them on £100 a week never paying another penny to the legitimate finance. The cab drivers didn’t change the logbooks so the finance companies never knew where the cars were.
On the odd occasion one did get found and repo’d he just got the driver a other car.
At one time he had about 25% of Milton Keynes cab drivers giving him £100 a week for cars neither he nor them would ever own.
He even used to sell them insurance as well. I say insurance... An insurance cover note, that would stand a producer and crucially enable them to get licensed.
I remember my mate Geordie Lenny hitting Sierra head on on a £100 a week XM, Dave paid for the Sierra and a drink for the driver, making Lenny pay an extra £30 a week to cover it, telling him it was worth it to keep his No Claims!! He could have sold snow to eskimos.
Dave made a lot of money out of property , sadly he couldn’t talk his way out of cancer and died at 52. Ive never seen so many black Range Rovers in one place than at his funeral.

[Warren t claim]

176007299_10226611377094474_5313687111196959587_n.jpg (114.99 KiB) Viewed 2233 times

It looks like the last Mk2 Mondeo ph car on Merseyside has retired.

[mercrocker]

Great tales here, from WTC and NnW......Loved that era for dodginess (not the music or owt of course). The Triumph 1300 swap was genius level stupidity but it seems to have worked! There was a scam at Southampton Airport involving cars left by passengers - the Airport kind of operated like the Passenger Terminal did down at the Docks and there was a "premium" car park for well-heeled customers. Said punters were well advised to check the mileage as quite a few S-Type Bentleys and MkIX Jags did weddings in the town whilst their owners sunned themselves in Cannes.

Sad to see the meter go off on that Mondeo, that's the end of another era alright....

[LynehamHerc]

An old boss of mines Dad was the chairman of Burmah Oil until it was taken over. He was very surprised and annoyed to see his company Roller in The Lakes when it was supposed to be being serviced in Darlington.

[Bangernomics]

176007299_10226611377094474_5313687111196959587_n.jpg

It looks like the last Mk2 Mondeo ph car on Merseyside has retired.

That will have been bought on a ticket no doubt.


Less annoying tag line.

[Warren t claim]

Operators. The Good. The Bad. And The Ugly.

Over the years I've had the good fortune to be despatched jobs over the air from a wide variety of base operators. Some good, some bad, some corrupt, and some totally out of their depth.

Make no mistake, there are very few people out there who are capable of answering the phones, logging the jobs, and working a radio all at the same time. There's been plenty of times when I've had to man the set to cover an oppo's break and even I struggled!

I've worked with oppo's who wouldn't have a clue how to get from one place to another but know every side street off a main road and can dish the jobs out perfectly.

An operator is in a position of power and a fair few have been tempted to favour their mates on the road or take bribes for sending out the best jobs.

One of the best I worked with was a bloke called Mickey. He worked the desk on the busy Friday and Saturday night shift and could handle the pressure. Mickey had a way of coping and that was amphetamine, something plenty of us drivers were indulging in as well back in 2005. Quite often I'd be shouted over the radio to "pick Billy up at Jimmy's house on ********* Lane" which was the code for scoring some speed. Sadly, the whizz seemed to be getting the better of Mickey. One Friday evening I was shouted over the radio to go and collect him from his flat to take him to the office, usual practice for firms to both pick up and drop off the office staff at the time. I knocked on his door and when he answered he told me to wait in his hall as he won't be a minute, fair enough I thought. Mickey then appeared wearing a pair of women's knickers and carrying a tin bath! He fills the bath with cold water, jumps in, gets out and then gets dressed before walking to my cab as if that was the most normal thing in the world!

Mickey liked to live dangerously. One day he burgled the lobby of some flats stealing some furniture but rang the police to add to the excitement! Needless to say, he was nicked for this endeavour!

During the middle of one stressful Saturday night shift, after being fucked over by Frank with his wages, Mickey did a DLT. No, I don't mean he touched up some 14 year olds on the Radio 1 Roadshow, but quit live on air broadcasting his grievances over the airwaves to all the drivers and passengers in their cars! Frank was forced to quit working the road that night and attempt to operate for the rest of the shift, a task he was totally shit at!

More to follow if you fancy hearing more. x

[LynehamHerc]

Definitely.

[Warren t claim]

Kay was an interesting lady. She was the girlfriend of Andy Patch who I'm sure I've talked about earlier on this thread.

She was a part time operator, part time prostitute, and full time crack and heroin user.

Having said that, she was a decent lady to work a night shift with. I had a deal with Frank to pay her out of my takings at the end of her shift and he'd deduct it from my base rent. As you've probably already guessed, I had a deal with her that involved me sorting out her "stones and bobby" throughout the night in exchange for the best jobs. As a bonus, I also got first dibs on whatever her and Andy had managed to shoplift throughout the day.

Yes I know that I've painted her, and possibly me, in a bad light! The truth is she was actually a great oppo! She never got stressed and was great with the punters over the phone.