Taxi Driver in China Returns $958 Taxi Fare to American Tourist Who Overpaid on WeChat

The driver, identified as Zhang Peng, was checking his WeChat Wallet and noticed that one of his passengers paid him 6,500 yuan ($958) when the fare should have only been around 65 yuan ($9.58), according to Chinese Business Gazette via South China Morning Post.

Based on the timestamp in the WeChat Wallet, Zhang thought the payment was made by a group of people he picked up at a railway station and dropped off at a hotel. He then asked his taxi firm’s dispatcher if they could help him track the group of four down, but they couldn’t offer any help.

Instead, he drove to the hotel hoping that the group was still there. Fortunately, Zhang was reunited with the passenger, identified only by his surname Liu, after he told the reception desk and explained the story.

It turns out that the man was new to the online payment systems in China, and did not know how to use them.

“These systems like WeChat Pay and Alipay are all new to me,” the Chinese-American visitor said. “I don’t really know how to use them. In the US when I pay, there’s usually a space for decimal points, so I thought I had to do the same here and ended up accidentally paying so much more.”

Touched by the man’s honesty, Liu decided to give him 6,300 yuan ($927) as a reward. However, Zhang declined the kind gesture and returned the full amount, minus the exact fare.

“I can’t believe it,” Liu wrote on WeChat in Chinese. “For some people, money is their only goal, and 6,500 yuan is a lot of money. I felt so excited yesterday because you returned it. I really appreciate it.”

Featured Image via Wikimedia Commons / Graeme Bray (CC BY 3.0)