‘Fraud all over the place’: Taxi giant’s former integrity insider blows whistle on rampant rip-offs

Taxi giant A2B had no interest in effectively tackling the rampant fraud inflicted on customers and passengers using its products around the country, say former anti-fraud officers at the company.

Former federal police officer Kim Whitman, who was recruited in late 2022 to improve integrity measures at A2B, which owns 13Cabs, Silver Service and Cabcharge, said she not only discovered systemic failings but an unwillingness inside the company to meaningfully confront and reduce rip-offs.

“The fraud is all over the place and is all over Australia,” said Whitman, warning that the victims were often state and federal government agencies that subsidised Cabcharge and taxi fares for disabled and aged Australians.

“The government should not be spending public money and engaging with an organisation that cannot guarantee the safety of public money or the safety of the people using the product.

“I was hired to clean up product trust and integrity but there were massive issues. I was looking at how poor the systems were. A2B has no compliance. They could have put in place mechanisms to mitigate fraud but they didn’t,” Whitman said, while describing how she had escalated her concerns to A2B’s senior management.

Whitman said some of the fraud she had discovered was breathtaking but at A2B, there was “no appetite” for taking it on.

“You have [A2B’s] Cabcharge products from 75-year-old people who are bed-ridden in Queensland being traded among drivers in Melbourne who are charging them for four-hour rides they could never have taken.”

Whitman said A2B had failed to properly deal with its problems prior to a recent takeover by Singaporean global transport firm ComfortDelGro, which separately provides transport solutions for state governments and is seeking to win more public transport contracts across Australia.

At the weekend, this masthead and 60 Minutes released the Taxileaks files that detail systematic fraud by drivers enabled by gaping holes in the products and payment systems supplied by A2B. The Australian taxi giant not only owns the biggest cab brands in the nation but supplies the bulk of the country’s taxi payment terminals.

Whitman said she lasted at A2B for about a year and retired from the firm in disgust.

Her views were backed by A2B veteran Marian Breakspear, who spent 16 years at the taxi giant before being made redundant last year.

Breakspear told this masthead that she left A2B after she refused to stop raising concerns about the company’s failure to tackle fraud in taxis and the misuse of its products.

“The company has no integrity. Its dishonesty is beyond belief. They are fully aware of the fraud problem,” said Breakspear.

“I got shot down in flames because I used to say that the anti-fraud program is not sufficient, and I didn’t agree with their approach.”

Breakspear claimed that A2B had failed to fully refund large clients, including NDIS and aged care facilities, for Cabcharge fraud and believed the problems inside A2B were entrenched.

“I couldn’t put a figure on the fraud. It is endless. You get these drivers that know how to rort the system and A2B could stop them but doesn’t,” she said. “It is a shame this company has come to this.”

Asked about warnings about fraud from staff, including a leaked presentation from Whitman, A2B executive David Samuel defended the company’s record and pointed to recent technological improvements.

“I would argue that management hasn’t failed to combat it or tried to combat it,” he said. “I would challenge the notion we facilitate fraud. I’m aware that issues were raised, that’s how we become aware of a problem and then we work to solve that problem.”

Federal Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth said the government had zero tolerance for fraud but it would not comment on specific allegations.

Opposition spokesman on government waste, James Stevens, said stronger action was needed.

“Vulnerable people who genuinely need this assistance deserve to receive it without being taken advantage of,” he said in a statement.

“The government needs to reassure the public that any fraudulent activity will be punished and outline what steps they will take to prevent this occurring again in the future.”

Jessica Hall is fed up with her charity being ripped off by taxi drivers.Credit: Photograph by Chris Hopkins

Since the Taxileaks series broke on Saturday, this masthead has been inundated with complaints about overcharging.

Jessica Hall, an administrator with the Royal Melbourne Hospital’s Neuroscience Foundation, said she was fed up seeing her organisation – which advances medical research for serious neurological conditions such as dementia and multiple sclerosis – being overcharged, so took matters into her own hands.

“I actually keep a list on my phone of the repeat offenders, and I will check for the taxi plates when I exit, just to see if I can tell someone off ... So I say, ‘Hey, do you realise that you are robbing a charity?’” she said.

Hall said the foundation’s patients were mostly too sick and frail to challenge the cabdrivers ripping them off, describing an elderly woman who travelled from the hospital every fortnight and was getting scammed on “four out of five of her trips”.

Hall said she had spent years crosschecking trips taken by patients, who were given Cabcharge vouchers to cover the cost of travel to and from the hospital, and had lost countless hours trying to claw back costs.

She said at its worst, she would be manually handling 10 disputes at once while A2B was chasing the foundation for unpaid invoices that were being challenged as fraudulent.

Hall said though Cabcharge’s dispute-resolution process had become faster over time, meaning the money was returned sooner, the scams never slowed and still needed constant surveillance.

“[As a not-for-profit], we have to account for every dollar … It all adds up,” she said.

Hall said a favourite method of dodgy drivers was to add an obscure “other” fee to the fare – a scam detailed in this masthead’s Taxileaks investigation.

“There needs to be consequences for the drivers ... It is literal theft, and there just needs to be some more consequences for it,” she said.

In response to the weekend’s revelations, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan vowed to clean up the taxi industry, saying that cases involving the rorting and abuse of disabled passengers “disgusts me to my core”.

Allan said the Department of Transport and Planning was looking at enforcing more rigorous checks for driver accreditations.

“The Department of Transport and Planning is undertaking a review, looking at how we can strengthen the procurement practices, strengthen the accreditation practices, and also using technology as well. This is disgusting behaviour,” she said.

Opposition consumer affairs spokesman Tim McCurdy called for Safe Transport Victoria chief executive Tammy O’Connor to be sacked over the saga.

“It is time for change,” McCurdy said. “Victorians deserve to be safe from abuse and exploitation when they book a cab – and that starts at the top with the regulator.”

Safe Transport Victoria declined to comment.

In NSW, two government officials said the office of the state’s taxi regulator, the Point-to-Point Commissioner, was facing internal claims that it was ineffective and dysfunctional.

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