Topic: done (Read 19790 times)

FYI:

BitPay has android app allowing you to take payments as a taxi or limo service - https://bitpay.com/limocoin

I don't mind spending bitcoins to buy stuff (as a consumer). I just rebuy them on the market.

Personally I would not mind spending bitcoins on a taxi fare.

FWIW, you're right, a bitcoiner is much more likely to buy something online than to pay for a taxi with their bitcoins... but the more real-world businesses there are that accept bitcoin, the better, in my opinion. A bitcoin-only taxi would rapidly go out of business, though.

Having my opinion, is that against the rules in this thread is it?

The majority of people who have bitcoin don't want to spend it on transport, they want to spend it on other bitcoin like services...

Anyway its a waste of my time replying, someone who assumes im a child is really - not informed very well.

Most people who have bitcoins dont want to be spending it on a taxi anyway, just being realistic! Sorry!

lol. this took me a second.

Or even just another city. Do you have any idea of the shipping costs for a car? To say nothing of what those idiot baggage handlers would do to it...

I enjoy riding a taxi when drunk or travelling in another country...

Maybe I'm not an average bitcoin user

I'm sorry, but you need to travel and go out to see the world.

This is such an odd, ignorant, insular post. It has an almost childlike naivety.

I'm not sure where you are from. but in the vast majority of the world, people don't call a taxi because they don't own a car. Also, people who live in huge cities tend not to have vehicles. Are you saying that no one who lives in Central London, Manhattan, or Tokyo uses Bitcoin?

I'm guessing that you haven't travelled much, or even learned much about the outside world. Perhaps you are a young child.

well-said, man. I agree.

Taxis != public transportation.
I'd say that the majority of people who get a taxi do have a vehicle, they just do not have access to them in that moment (or do not want to, like when they're drunk etc).

Im sorry but from a bitcoin client and business overview, i wouldn't want to pay bitcoins for travel... Most people who have bitcoins have a vehicle or have access to a vehicle.

The average person using bitcoin doesn't use a taxi.

However someone did mention, a secure bitcoin " ATM " would be better.

Is there any chance you could call your boss and explain to him that you thought you were doing it for the better of the business. You thought it would bring in more customers, and in the long-run help the business flourish. You had no intentions of hurting or misleading anybody, bring that up too.


I'd also advise you to go out on the street and sell some Bitcoins, it's a lot better than just sitting there making nothing, you could at least be making a few bucks while you wait to find a new job/occupation

/sigh... sad but true.

And if you want investors, you will also get better funding elsewhere. Unless your business plan is so fucking stupid that no one will invest in you in the real world. In which case this forum is perfect, because it is full of stupid people who like to think of themselves as high powered capitalists. Of course all these people have is an abundance of Bitcoins, they have no contacts or guidance that can help you unlike a real world investor. Also most of the really dumb ones lost too much money with Pirate or other ponzi schemes to start getting into new ventures, even if their egos would cream over pretending they were a "venture capitalist"

What you want is to hit the sweet spot between too half assed for real investors and too half assed even for some of the dumb fucks on here. Then you can expect funding.

Reminds me of RealSolid begging for 250 BTC so he could finish "MicroCash" which we are all so eagerly waiting for. lol

Because, more often than not, it's true. Especially when people start asking for money before having a solid outline (also known as a "business plan") of how they plan to use that money.

If you want investors, write up a business plan, post it on here, and see who bites. If you want to beg, get a tin can, and make a sign. You'll get more money on the street corner than here.

It scares me how people didn't realise this was a scam in the first place. It rings all the wrong bells.

The funny thing is, if he had put a little more effort in he could have probably scammed thousands of coins

+1

_{He seems to have no plan.} ^{If he does have a plan,} _{then it's all over the place.}

Firstly, like I stated earlier, why did he not ask his boss?

Secondly, why the hell does he not go to a bank? There are services to help start up businesses. The excuse "it's a recession, banks aren't lending, so there is no investment or growth bla bla bla" isn't good enough. If you look hard enough, you can find it, and it seems like you either can't be fucked or are scamming.

Thirdly, why has he just started to resort to plain out begging? He has been ignoring our Buisness plan suggestions and all he's been saying is "I want a taxi company, gimme some moneh". Then he stopped even mentioning the taxi company, and all he's mentioning is the money!

This is probably not legit.

I call scam on this one. The story doesn't add up and now he's begging hardcore.

I am sure more people would be willing to invest, but without a sound business plan, there's no point in helping.

Mobile bitcoins! Get a mobile cash register/safe, rig up a car with a computer, printer, QR scanner, and so on, maybe a professional scale for exchanging precious metals...

If you have a sound business plan i will consider investing 1000 $ into your bitcoin taxi. Including a huge bitcoin branding on the car.

maybe you should focus your energy on bitcoin, and make a bitcoin business instead of a taxi business?  sure you could become a bitcoin taxi but that is a crazy market for anyone let alone a startup.

find a niche market in germany and jump on it!  

if you can find the 35k funding and pull it off, though, that would be pretty epic as well.  I was shocked when you said it was so cheap, as many others have posted, 300k+ is what I would have expected.  it's certainly do-able. 

Do you know how much a taxi license worth in Hong Kong? It's 850000USD!

If you use a week, or even 14 days to brush up a plan showing how you're planning to do business, and how you estimate you'll be paying back, you wil give confidence to any prospective backers. Just saying 'somebody please help me out' will not cut it. Show that you're willing to do some real effort, and the backers may start showing interest.

Possibly, this could be a good starting point:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/businessplan/index.html

+1

Post your business plan.

As long as you keep track of you BTC earnings and Tax them correctly in € accepting BTC isn't a problem.

The regulations from BAFIN apply when you run a exchange. Then you are considered a financial service provider and you need a license.

Directly buying and selling BTC should also not be a problem.

http://www.bafin.de/SharedDocs/Veroeffentlichungen/DE/Merkblatt/mb_111222_zag.html



@candoo

It would really be awesome to have a BTC Taxi driving around. With Bitcoin accepted decal on the doors and some Bitcoin information material inside.

I and (I believe) many others would give you a interest and risk free loan to pull this off.

Put please provide us with some more informations as evidence that is feasible.

Just something to consider especially in Germany I think there are regulations regarding trading with Bitcoins.  Specifically I believe BAFIN covers them.  While I'm not an expert in German regulation I have spoken to some Bitcoin enthusiasts in Germany who told me that by accepting Bitcoins you are subject to the same regulatory requirements as a bank doing commodities trading.  I think this has something to do with essentially offering a type of money changing service.

If this is in fact the case then perhaps you should be careful with setting up a business in Germany that accepts Bitcoins.

If anyone has any hard facts about this I would be really interested to hear from you.

Thanks

Try the bank for a business loan first. If it fails, then make a business plan, and see if you can get funding from here ?

Try Flinc

I feel for your loss but you should of asked before hand on such a major change like payment methods.  I can see him being upset and not trusting because you took this initiative before consulting him.   Have you heard of Uber?   Get a town car and maybe try that?

We don't have enough information to say that he was unjustly fired. He did this without authorization from the his boss, the taxi license holder. Do you know the German taxi laws and regulations? For all we know, it could put the company at risk of losing a license, jeopardize some exclusive payment processing contract, create insurance issues, or cause any number of other hassles. Even if that wasn't the case, doing something like offering an alternate payment is option is not in the purview of this employee.

I feel bad for the guy losing his job, it seems a little harsh, but saying it was "unjust" is, well... unjust. Premature at least.

I think he understands that he was fired for not consulting with his employer before advertising and  running his own "side business" of trading bitcoins in his taxi.

Sorry but i think your in the wrong, you should have consulted with your boss before accepting another " currency ".


Ive been in a similar situation.

No, but he might if you start an impromptu currency exchange whereby you sell other people dollar bills.  Which is essentially the reason he was fired.

He was not fired for accepting Bitcoins.  He was fired for selling them.

https://btcjam.com/

And what Akka said.

Maybe you should repost the part how you plan to do it from the German section here.

Also a small business plan would do wonders.

And like I said, I give you 10BTC when your plan to make a Bitcoin Taxi becomes feasible.

Let's do a mind trick. Replace bitcoins with dollars. Would your boss still fire you if you accepted dollar bills in your taxi as payment?

Are you sure your city isn't issuing licenses? Have you asked yourself or did someone just tell you? I've run into quite a few people who are misinformed about local rules, regulations, policies, etc.

When you say buying an existing license from another taxi business costs 35,000 USD, is that for the license only, or for the customers as well?

all this talk about whats legal and what isn't, who cares. Law, from the perspective of the morally concerned individual, is at best completely frivolous. One should do what is right even if it is illegal and should refrain from doing what is wrong even if it is legal.

No, you are jobless because you did a stupid. The same would have happened if you had started accepting precious metals or US dollars without getting the OK.

Take it as a life lesson, and move on.

That never stopped anyone here. 

Germany.

Is "here" in your statement above Germany, or at least in the EU? There's no way it would be grounds for immediate termination of an employee in my country.

If something goes wrong the employer can be sued as he holds the insurance. Open your own business and pay your own insurance and dont bludge off your employers network and business costs.

Here's the problem: he was engaging in a secondary business (as a coin exchange) on company time. Can't do that here, not without at least clearing it with his primary employer. This is grounds for immediate termination and no court of labor law is likely to side with him here.

You don't seem to understand. He lost his job by putting a "Bitcoin accepted sticker" on the taxi, which was not his property.

+1 This ^

Then I do not see any legal reasons your boss might have for firing you over accepting bitcoins. Basically what you did never showed up in his/her administration and accounting.

I've paid cab fares in the wrong currency a few times (I'm a frequent traveller). I'm quite sure those drivers weren't fired, and happily accepted the bonus I paid on the exchange rate.

Sorry for losing your job, but I suspect there's more to the story.

Right you judging us makes you not "horrible"?

You are an idiot.

Go plaster your landlord's apartment/home with bitcoin and see what he does.

LOL

I see, but can you answer my first question?

This forum is full is horrible, horrible human beings.

You lost your job for being an idiot.

NO THANK YOU. I'M NOT GAY.

Boo hoo man. How is this thread in anyway related to "service discussion"?

This thread should be moved to the pussies, wimps, and retards subforum. 

@Rudd-O: Thanks, you were just reading my mind (even though candoo's behaviour is debatable and I wouldn't dare to word it like that)

And thanks to candoo for being so keen and accepting bitcoins Also cheer up! Can send Haribos to you if you want!

Were these fares for which you were accepting BTC on the meter?  If they weren't then your boss had every reason to fire you.  If they were then you needed to be giving your boss a written record of those fares at the end of each shift and giving him his portion in the same manner he gets his cut for normal fares (here it's in cash at the end of each shift).

This isn't really any different than if you had decided to accept any other payment method not accepted by your boss - PayPal, Square, Pogs, Zimbabwean currency, whatever.  You still needed to be recording everything accurately, giving him copies of your records, and giving him the cash owed to him in the normal manner.

While it's not "impossible" for him to deal with the accounting issues, there's really no reason why he should feel obligated to do so and it would have been reasonable for him to charge an extra fee for any additional administrative burden created by you accepting Bitcoin.

Start traficking drugs. It's basically the same job for a better wage.

FUCK YOU.

Ignore list being the asshole who shits on a person who was unjustly fired.

First: Seems fishy. Even though you state you couldn't have explained it to your boss, who in their right mind would start accepting a virtual currency, probably never known to him, that fluxuates without permission? I'm not dissing Bitcoin, I think it's wonderful, but without proper planning it's stupid.

Second: If you are telling the truth, would the government be able to crack down on a Bitcoin-only Taxi? Especially if you use a mixer.

Third: How would you have exchanged BTC in a taxi? They must have been pretty Bitcoin-knowledgable to utilise something such as QR Code Bitcoin Notes, because i'm pretty sure you wouldn't have had a laptop with BitPay on 24/7.

Tell us the full story, or take matters into your own hands. It seems fabricated, or you are hiding something.

If the bank doesn't want to give you the loan, you could write up a bond for one of the exchanges: cryptostocks, btct.co, MPEx, etc. This should be an obvious way to get funding for a business which accepts bitcoins.

Yeah, that's the part that seems fishy.  There is more likely more to this story than he's sharing, IMHO.

You are out of a job because you are irresponsible, not because of bitcoin.

(disclaimer: I'm not German, but I am European)

I don't see what the legal reason would be from your posts. You seem to have been an employed Taxi driver, but the car was owned by someone else (with a license). That's the normal setup in my country as well. As long as you're charging the proper fare, turning in the receipts etc you have done nothing contractually wrong towards the owner.

Vague "cannot trust" statements without having given warnings, followup and proven mismanagement on your part do indeed sound as wrongful dismissal. That said, maybe you weren't a salaried driver but on some sort of contract where you yourself is a registered company?

What I don't understand is why you did this without talking to the owner first though.

How much do you spend on gas?

Whenever I'm in Germany, your my new cab driver. License or not.   

Maybe U could using some location apps. When your clients book a ride you could agree to locate them with such apps on their smartphones, so to take them "on the fly" with no need for you to wait anywhere specifically. You would probably need a website or at least maybe a twitter account for that.

Hay, why don't you try to make a Minicar company.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mietwagen_mit_Fahrer_%28Deutschland%29

Getting this licensed should be easier than Taxis + you can use any tipe of car.

Also you don't have the payment restrictions like Taxis have (Taxometer), and don't have the restrictions to drive everywhere you customer want. So you could make it for a fixed prize and in a fixed area. For example 10€ a drive to anywhere in your city.

Or special pic up service in the evening, like: "I pick you up at home and drop you off at the club for 5€".

Only thing is you are not allowed to charge per person, whoever calls you rents your complete car for the drive.

About 190K Euro in Paris or wait for 17 years to get one for free

http://www.licence-taxi.fr/prix-licence-de-taxi.php

BOOOO!!!

I seem to recall Stephen Fry talking about operating an unlicensed taxi. He could pick up/drop off people at will, accept gratuity, and according to Google, be exempt from some traffic citations, just as long as he didn't run an actual business.

Well, that's the point -- not being a 'typical' taxi. You wouldn't have to depend on a chokepoint in transit to offer your services. There is a risk of course - being found out, but then again - maybe you are just a generous stranger picking up people when they need a ride

Sorry to hear about your troubles, it is things like this that irritate me about regulation in governments.

Then that's a glut of taxis in the city -- which is just the other side of the coin of taxi shortages.  Also produced by government.

the number of taxies will increase until it becomes no longer profitable to operate a taxi service than the total number of taxies will either stop increasing or decrease. This happens naturally in a market with out government intervention because you as a taxi driver will only be willing to operate a taxi service if such a line of work offers you a better opportunity than other alternatives i.e. working in the factory next door. The longer the wait between customers the more attractive the alternative offers become. Eventually it becomes no longer in the interest of entrepreneurs to start new taxi services and this happens at what we call the market clearing price. This optimal number of taxies is ultimately determined by the preferences of consumers in relation to how much they are willing to pay extra in order to have to wait less time. That is to say if customers were willing to pay twice as much than you would likely be ok with waiting 3 hours, if they were willing to pay 4 times as much you would probably be ok with waiting longer than 3 hours which means that if consumers are willing to pay extra to wait less time than this will create demand for more taxies over all and if they are willing to pay less in exchange for having to wait longer than this will result in having fewer taxies over all. Only a market can deliver the amount of taxies at the price that most accurately reflects the demands of consumers, the decisions made by a government in this respect will necessarily be a reflection of the mostly arbitrary whims of a bureaucrat which is, for many reasons, not preferable to allowing the number of taxies to reflect the demands of consumers.

"Enough"?  No way that's fucking enough -- that's what we call a shortage of taxis.

Bravo government and unintended consequences: a man loses his job because of all the government-monopoly leverage that his employer has, while everyone else gets to wait 40 minutes for a stupid cab.

Be glad the market isn't as fucked by the government as it is in San Francisco.  A medallion (license) goes for about 350K dollars.

This is a classic example of Government restrictions leaving a decent man without a job.

I would be highly tempted to be an unlicensed taxi, but I understand the risk would be fines and such.

Are there other ways to offer rides to customers with non-traditional vehicles? Are the restrictions specific on type? (Four wheels, car versus 3-wheel 'trikes' used in asia)

If I had no way to provide for myself, I'd risk the fine and just have people pay me in bitcoins, sending me addresses via a website or mobile app.

you would use a gun to force them to accept the number of taxies that you feel is right? who are you to decide how many is "quite enough"? maybe people want more?

And what do you mean protected? the government is protecting you from having to many taxies? please explain to me the danger associated with having 76 taxies instead of 75.

Wait, why is it not legal to lease a license?  What says that you aren't an employee?  You're just an employee on a contract, instead of a hourly wage.  The contract says that you are expected to submit the first whatever amount of fares that you collect per week into the company, and that you are entitled to whatever the remainder of fares may be for the rest of the week.  Easy peasy.  For that matter, you could set up such a contract agreement with the old guy who wants to sell, that after so many years of doing this, you have just bought the license from him by payments made.  Kind of a work-to-own arrangment.

Then negotiate with the guy who is selling his license for a final price, conditional on your abliity to secure a business loan, write up a business plan (there are simple examples online that you could adapt in an hour) and take it to the business branch of your bank.  Show them your conditional agreement, your business plan (no need to mention bitcoin, that would just muddle the waters) and your history as a cab driver.  Be quick about it.

rofl the state doesnt restrict the number of taxies in a city because it is benevolent and protecting you from the danger of having to many taxies. They do it because taxi cab drivers unionize and lobby the government in order to restrict supply. They do this because the law of supply and demand states that if you hold supply artificially low while demand remains constant it leads to higher prices (or in this case higher salaries for taxi cab drivers)

Goto the media and make it a big story. Then ask for donation to open a 1st ever bitcoin accepting Taxi. It will bring international attention and your boss will go out of business.

Then make love to his wife. Steal his children. Then you win.

If the core reason that you were dismissed is that the cab owner can't trust you to be honest with him, but you were a good driver; if you have the moxy you could return to him and offer him a weekly lease to rent his cab and then you keep everything over and above that rate.  Otherwise he still has to hire someone new, or his equipment is under-utilized.  I know it sounds a bit rediculous to make an offer to someone who just fired you, but I done it, and after a few days cooling off period I was able to reason with the old man, and explain that he was just viewing the situation wrong.  Maybe that's just me, but I've found that business owners have historical reasons to distrust their employees, and you just have to be the guy to offer him an alternative that doesn't require that he trust you so much.

Do you have your own car? Did you have regular customers? Bitcoin Mobile imo.

How much would it cost you to "lease" or buy a cab license?  In my city, most cab drivers actually rent the cab from the cab company on a daily or weekly rate, and keep all the fares for themselves.  If you can get this kind of deal, you could hang a bitcoin sign from the rear view, or some other little sign that doesn't stick to the the vehicle.  Then you could compete with your former employer and accept bitcoin however you like, but it would be in your interests to let the dispatcher know that you are the one who accepts bitcoin for fares, if anyone else should call.

The problem is that he likely admitted to putting stickers on his boss's property, the window of the cab.  I doubt that any judge is going to show him much sympathy for "defacement" of company property, regardless of just how rediculous a window sticker might be.

Sue your boss for wrongful dismissal. I presume he or she did not give you a lawful notice of dismissal, and did not retain you to the end of your term.

done