Every time I experience or hear about another scam that some UBER drivers participate in, I think I’ve heard it all. So far there’s been:
And these are all things we’ve experienced or others, who also follow the seven rules of being a good Uber/Lyft passenger, have.
But nope, I haven’t heard it all yet, because I just heard of yet another scam invented by ride sharing drivers…
Some friends had been in China and they wrote this incident that happened as they got home:
…had an odd experience last night with an Uber driver. We got into Orlando airport @2am this morning after our China trip and called Uber. A driver responded, pulled up, and then said he was too tired to drive us home, so we should cancel him and get someone else. Why would he respond and then turn us down?
The first, rather innocent thought would be, “Aw, how nice! He’s thinks he’s too tired to drive so he was smart and instead of risking getting into an accident, he asked you to cancel and call for another driver. How responsible of him!,” right?
Wrong.
It turns out that if a driver cancels, nothing really happens. But if a customer cancels, the driver gets paid $5 (and the customer gets dinged, as well – the amount depends on what size/type of ride you requested, but it usually varies between $5 and $10).
Another friend of these friends actually is an Uber driver. She says it’s a scam – the driver just gets someone, ask them to cancel, and does it over and over. In the course of an hour he could make around $40 if he does it to about 10 people at the airport.
Fortunately, unlike some of the other scams we mentioned above, Uber seems to be onto this one and may be willing to waive the fee if the passenger is not at fault. Click here to see how to do it – note that the last option under “Select an issue/I was incorrectly charged a cancellation fee/Tell us more” is “My driver asked me to cancel.” Of course, it doesn’t guarantee a refund for your fee if you submit a claim, but it’s certainly worth a try, right?
*** Thanks to Cookie W. (as well as Julie and Sarah) for their assistance in writing this post
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
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