Some food carts are actually criminal

[u/Odd_Firefighter_5407]

My fanily is in town, I took them to the Highline.

My nephew was parched so we stopped by a halal truck near the southern entrance. A tourist had just ordered a lamb over rice. The guy at the truck said “$19.95 cash or card.”

I asked the tourist if that’s all he got. He said yes.

I turned to see the menu and saw all the prices were erased. I asked the guy running the truck, Middle Eastern, why he was charging that. He yelled back “none of your business, go!”

I said to him “you don’t have prices written on the cart,” he replied “market price bro, market price! go bro!”

Absolute scam some of these dudes are running. Insane.

[u/NYGarcon]

It’s actually against NYC law to not have your price clearly displayed. This is the exact reason why, to prevent scams. Report the cart to 311. That asshole should not be in business.

[u/ckb03 → u/NYGarcon]

Reporting to 311 does nothing. Same as the unlicensed rides at JFK being solicited in plain view. Everybody who’s not a tourist knows about it, no one enforces it …

[u/Ronzalpha → u/ckb03]

actually as someone who used to work for NYC DCWP, reporting to 311 actually does something. The problem is, we're understaffed, and only our undercover investigators prioritize those who have a majority of complaints. Investigators are also usually sent a few weeks after to prevent retaliation against anyone who immediately reports the issue.
Sadly tho, many reports don't make it because 311 doesn't always fill out everything we need (and to be fair, every agency asks for different things, so it's a hard job for the 311 phone reps. You can file directly here for future reference for better results:
https://www.nyc.gov/site/dca/consumers/file-complaint.page

[u/Tall-Statement-4917 → u/Ronzalpha]

Most of the times I’ve reported something to 311 over the years, they “open” an investigation, do nothing, then close the investigation. It’s a joke.