Opinion | Cabdrivers Like Me Don’t Want Charity. We Want Justice.

I came to America from the Ivory Coast in 1993 at the age of 21 in pursuit of a better life. In the early days, I worked in a warehouse until a friend of mine talked to me about being a cabdriver. In 2001, I started driving a yellow taxi, leasing a medallion — the city permit that granted taxis’ exclusive rights to pick up passengers. I thought I had achieved my dream in 2004 when I was able to buy my own city taxi medallion.

Instead, years later, because of all the fraud that city officials allowed in the medallion financing industry, my family’s finances became a nightmare. Like thousands of cabdrivers, I am now living under a crushing amount of debt.

I was glad that the New York State attorney general threatened to sue New York City last week because the commission had helped inflate medallion prices and that her office was seeking $810 million in restitution for drivers. Seven city agencies knew the medallions were overpriced, but the city continued to auction them off to help balance its books.

The prices kept going up even after 2011, when the city began letting car services like Uber operate with few rules, violating what we were told was our exclusive right to pick up street hails. Before the bubble burst in 2014, the city made more than $850 million in medallion sales.

I paid $390,000 for my medallion. I had saved $10,000 but I had to put another $10,000 on credit cards for my $20,000 down payment. For an immigrant like me who arrived penniless, it was a promising investment: New Yorkers needed help getting around, the city was growing. I had an asset that was increasing in value, year by year, that let me earn a stable income. At one point, my medallion was valued at over a million dollars.

But the city’s medallion brokers — middlemen who arrange sales and loans of the permits — kept pushing me to refinance. They told me not to worry about all of the fees or the surcharges and just to think about the money I could get to support my family. They’d call and say: “You know, you have some equity here. Why don’t you come and get it? You owe only $330,000 but your medallion is worth $600,000. You can come and get $100,000 today. Just come in and sign the papers and you can walk out with the money. We can give you cash right now.” I had to pay for their lawyers, and other fees, including a $25,000 fee one time just to refinance.

It still made sense to me because the city kept auctioning off medallions at higher and higher prices. The taxi commission repeatedly assured us drivers that the medallions were a solid asset. The city ran ads bragging that an investment in medallions was “better than the stock market.” As Attorney General Letitia James said in her announcement of the accusations, “The very government that was supposed to ensure fair practices in the marketplace engaged in a scheme that defrauded hundreds of medallion owners.”

By 2013 I owed $775,000. Then came Uber and Lyft. I don’t mind competition so long as it’s fair. But how can I compete against a company with billions of dollars, fewer regulations to follow and tens of thousands of vehicles on the road? Before Uber and Lyft came to New York, I was doing over 4,500 trips a year. Since 2017, I have been doing fewer than 2,000 trips a year. I’ve lost 60 percent of my income.

As of this week, I owe $632,000; my medallion is worth no more than $100,000. Seven days a week, I go to work from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., but I often come home poorer than I was when I left because I haven’t earned enough in fares to cover both gas and my medallion payments. I have four kids and a wonderful wife, and I support my 95-year-old mother. My dream is to secure college funds for my kids. I want to give them chances I didn’t have. Now I don’t know what will happen.

I’m not alone in my struggle. Nine of my fellow New York City drivers have committed suicide since this crisis began. My union, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, is fighting for debt relief and justice for medallion owner-drivers betrayed by the city. The attorney general’s actions could help us at last.

The city ought to buy back our medallion loans and cancel our debt. If the attorney general wins restitution, it could also help older cabdrivers who were counting on their medallion value for their retirement savings.

I came to this country believing it was the land of opportunity where chances are given to everyone to better their lives. But the city helped swindle immigrant drivers like me, profiting from us while their broken promises pushed us into poverty. Now we need relief. We are not asking for charity. We are demanding justice.

Mouhamadou Aliyu is a cabdriver in New York.

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