The MTA is again taking aim at subway scammers who siphon millions of dollars from the system each year.
In a secret pilot program, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority last month modified turnstiles to reject any MetroCard repeatedly being swiped in the same station.
Even a rabid bicyclist like MTA board member Andrew Saul knows knows how the discount-offering thieves operate.
Using unlimited-ride MetroCards, they get riders through turnstiles for less than the $2.25 base fare.
They get arrested from time to time, get their wrists slapped by judges and go right back to work.
The scammers commonly gin up business by vandalizing MetroCard vending machines. Riders who ordinarily would avoid such skells wind up putting a buck or two in their palms when they can’t legally buy a card.
It’s better than hiking off to find a token booth actually staffed with a human who could help them.
In the test program, the MTA targeted 28 stations where MetroCard records indicate high rates of fraud. Turnstiles were tweaked to reject a time-based card that had been used in the same station in the previous 36, 48 or 60 minutes.
For decades, the lockout time has been 18 minutes, but that’s easily skirted by rotating through a series of cards.
The MTA’s theory: increase the lockout time and a scammer needs more MetroCards to make the investment in time or money worth it.
If the MTA does extend the MetroCard lockout, it will be the latest in a long list of anti-fraud maneuvers.
It has modified turnstiles at least twice to reject expended MetroCards that scammers bent a certain way to provide one more ride.
It put magnets inside MetroCard receptacles to erase data on discarded MetroCards so they couldn’t be manipulated to give up additional trips. It even equipped MetroCard vending machines with surveillance cameras, which will come in handy when the next scam emerges.
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11 Responses
I love this article. Even the board member of MTA knows how the scam works. Woopty Do! He works for them, he better know such obvious facts.
Also I can not put my head around this sentence: Riders who ordinarily would avoid such skells wind up putting a buck or two in their palms when they can’t legally buy a card.
Who doesn’t have “skells” to buy a card? Who can not legally buy a metrocard. Last time I checked, the machine is in 3 different languages and no one can illegally buy a metrocard.
That’s going to make it difficult for couriers and other people making quick stops in and out via the train.
they meant ‘shills’ not ‘skells’
#1, your reading skills need improvement.
#2, a 60-minute lockout may be too long, but it’s rare for a legitimate user to swipe himself into the same station twice in 36 minutes, or even 48. Even the shortest trip for which you’d bother taking the train is about 10 minutes, plus an average of 5 minutes’ waiting time; so figure 15 minutes there, 5 to make the delivery, 15 back, and another 5 to pick up the next delivery and make your way back to the starting station.
Milhouse, I was just locked out at 28th St by my office, after a very short trip. I complained to the MTA, who didn’t tell me (of course) about the longer lockout at my station. Instead, they just told me I could mail my card back in for a replacement. Why can’t they just tell the truth?
Awacs, how long had it been since the last time you’d swiped at that station? I’m curious as to the minimum time it takes to go somewhere far enough away that you would take the train, do whatever you need to do there, come back, and start a new trip. The most likely scenario I can think of for a lockout is if you swiped yourself in and then realised that you forgot something and had to go back for it; in such a case I can easily see how the lockout would be a problem.
It was about an hour; I’d made a round trip.
#1 – you missed the point. It says that they also vandalize the metrocard vending machine, so that even honest metrocard buyers might have to resort to paying the scammer for entry. The alternative would be to walk to a different station to buy another card.
This relates to the fact that many stations are unmanned, or at least at some of the entrances, or that there might be a long line at the manned booth.
But you do make a hilarious point about the MTA Board member!! I missed that myself!
I was intrigued by the article because I occasionally have to swipe the same card many times in a row when I take my family somewhere. But upon further reading I see that it is only for unlimited cards, not a full price payment. It makes sense.
#7, if it was about an hour, then perhaps you were not experiencing this “extended lockout”, but a genuine malfunction, exactly as they told you.
#3, no, they meant “skells”. Why would they mean “shills”? The people selling swipes are not shills, but they are usually skells.