The cash-strapped MTA is being ripped off every day by hordes of crafty riders who scam free fares by activating expired or spent MetroCards with a bend along the magnetic strip, a Post investigation has revealed.
A black market in altered cards is flourishing across the city, as peddlers reap hundred of thousands a day selling bent cards, cops said.
The cards are sold to straphangers – everyone from schoolkids to hard-up office workers to senior citizens – usually for 50 cents or $1, dealers told The Post.
The abuse is so rampant that cops have recently deployed special MetroCard fraud units across the city to crack down on the problem and are pushing for more felony charges to be levied against the scammers, law-enforcement sources said.
Dealers in the South Bronx can make $200 a day selling bent cards or single swipes, a transit cop said.
He estimated that dealers in Manhattan are making up to $1,000 a day.
The abuse of MetroCards began soon after the cards were introduced in 1994 but has exploded in the past year.
Last week, Post reporters found dealers and straphangers using bent cards practically everywhere in the subway system, including stops in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx.
Dealers said the best places to create the bent cards were at subway entrances and exits where there are no station-booth attendants.
The Transit Authority – which runs the subways and buses and is currently pushing through fare increases because it is bleeding cash – says fare evasion costs the system $16 million a year, a figure that also includes turnstile jumping and “swiping” (illegally selling rides off of an unlimited card).
“Bendies,” it claims, cost the system $260,000 a year – or 500 rides per average workday.
But The Post found evidence that fraud from bent cards was far more widespread than the TA acknowledged – and one transit official confirmed it is a concern.
“It’s a real problem,” said the insider. “It’s not an occasional thing.”
In the past, scammers bought unlimited cards and sold countless swipes to other riders.
Now they appear to favor bendies – possibly because the price of daily unlimited cards nearly doubled last year, shooting up from $4 to $7.
At the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station in Brooklyn, a pile of more than 20 used cards was discarded at one turnstile – and each was bent in exactly the same way.
“There’s a lot of people who use ’em and a lot of people who make money off ’em,” said former scammer Bradley Wood, a 38-year-old homeless man who hangs around at the B and C line station at Central Park West and 72nd Street.
Wood gave The Post a lesson in how he “programs” expired cards so they work again.
He picked up one off the floor at the station and swiped it several times through a reader, one of the machines that tell you how much is left on your card.
This card had no value – until Wood bent it in a specific manner, which The Post is withholding, and swiped it again through the reader.
He then slid it twice into the slot at the turnstile, which finally read “go” and allowed a reporter to go through for free.
Woods’ technique was not the only one.
“There are at least five different ways to get another ride,” said one bender at the 125th Street station on the Lexington Avenue.
Robert Brown, 25, an ex-con from the Upper West Side who has been arrested “four or five times” for using or selling bendies, demonstrated his card-bending method at the West Fourth Street station on the IND line.
He gave the card a subtle crimp along the magnetic black strip – so small it could barely be detected.
“That way the police can’t say you did anything,” Brown said.
Other dealers showed how they used coins or fingernails to bend the cards.
Most bent cards are good for only one ride, but some can be used over and over again.
“A friend got one and he used it for a month,” said a homeless man named David as he ate a free lunch at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Chelsea.
The use of bent cards is so common that some virtually never pay to get on the subway.
“Using these free MetroCards is our bread and butter,” said a woman who wouldn’t give her name at the 4/5/6 station at 125th Street and Lexington Avenue.
The Queens Plaza station, where the E, R, V and G lines run, is a busy market for benders and swipers, with college students and young professionals among the biggest buyers.
A rainy Thursday sent the scammers indoors for the afternoon, which irritated one young man who said he was in need of “a swipe.”
“They’re usually always here,” he said. “I tried the Queensbridge [F train] station, too, and couldn’t find anybody. I have to pay full price now because I’m late for work.”
A 19-year-old student at the Park West HS/College on West 50th Street in Manhattan showed his own technique for card bending and said there were plenty of peddlers near his home at 103rd Street and Lexington Avenue.
The market skews even down to the preteen set.
“You got kids, 9, 10, they’re swiping – they learn from older people,” said Brown, the dealer. “Everybody knows how to do this now.”
A cop on patrol at the 23rd Street station on the C line, where there is no booth, said he’d been sent there Wednesday specifically to try to catch bent-card fraud.
“It’s a machine – it can be beat,” said the officer. “That’s why they have me here.”
Asked how he could spot someone using a bendie, the cop said, “Sometimes, you’ll see them manipulate the card right before they go in.
“Another clue is seeing people swipe multiple times.”
The TA first launched a major crackdown on people who bend cards in 1998, when turnstiles were reprogrammed after transit officials became aware that it was becoming an increasing problem.
The software made it harder for people to get free trips by bending passes but did not solve the problem.
The TA said it could install “more aggressive” software to foil scammers, but the effects would cause headaches for regular riders who would be forced to swipe repeatedly before being able to pass through.
At the moment, the benders appear to be winning.
“A criminal is always going to know how to make money,” said one dealer. “It’s man against machine.”
Subway fare evasion arrests have risen sharply (below), resulting in a $16 million per year loss to the MTA, while ridership has risen by 800,000 riders to 4.5 million since 1996.
2002 12,306
2003 15,180 Up 23%
2004 *12,678 Up 15% * through September