Busted: Uber Driver Confronted About Cancellation Scam

I’ve gotta say, I’ve been mighty tempted to do something similar, and I admire the dedication…

Uber customer approaches driver who stops responding

In general, I very much appreciate how rideshare apps make ground transportation easier than in the past. However, as apps like Uber and Lyft have grown over the years, they’ve also had an increasing number of bad apples, and the general level of service has definitely deteriorated.

Many years ago, I wrote about a frustrating Uber cancellation scam. The idea is that a driver accepts your ride request, but then the car doesn’t get any closer, and the driver also doesn’t respond to any calls or messages.

A vast majority of the time, it seems that this is basically done as a scam, with the driver trying to get the rider to cancel, so that they’re charged a fee. In fairness, I’m sure sometimes there’s a legitimate reason that something like this could happen, like if there’s a glitch in the app, or something along those lines. However, I think that’s the exception rather than the norm.

Anyway, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to confront one of these drivers who doesn’t move any closer to the pick-up point, and also doesn’t respond. Well, that’s exactly what someone recently did, as flagged by View from the Wing, and they even took a video of the interaction.

That video has gone viral, with nearly five million views in just a couple of days. The Uber customer claimed to have ordered an Uber, and was told the car was three minutes away. However, after 10 minutes, he noticed that the Uber still hadn’t moved, and the driver wasn’t responding to any messages.

So this guy did what anyone who really wants to prove a point would do — he drove to the Uber driver to confront him. The driver was in a parking lot, interestingly, in the back seat of the car, just chilling. The customer confronted him, saying “you got a booking that you accepted, what are you doing?”

Before the guy even had the chance to fully explain his actions, the customer said “you need to cancel it, you’re not gonna get paid off of me today.” The driver then canceled, and the man walked off.

I just wish that the customer had done a bit more listening rather than talking, as I’m curious how the driver would’ve responded if the customer just acted confused, and asked what was going on.

I still don’t fully understand the motivation here?

This Uber scam happens a lot more often than it should, but I still can’t fully wrap my head around it. Sure, the driver might earn a few bucks on a cancellation, but is that really worth it?

• It can often take 10-15 minutes before people cancel, so is that really worth it for a few bucks?
• When drivers dispute the cancellation charge due to how long they have to wait, they often get refunded; does the driver still get to keep their cut?
• Does Uber not ban drivers who are found to repeatedly face cancellations, with complaints for customers?

The only thing I can come up with is that drivers do this when they just feel like taking a break and chilling, so they still accept rides, and hope they’ll generate some amount of money in fees. Is that accurate, or how does the math on this hustle otherwise work?

Bottom line

An Uber customer decided to confront a driver who accepted a ride, but then didn’t actually start driving toward the customer, and also didn’t respond. I’ve dealt with this many times over the years, and if it were practical, I sure would’ve liked to actually reverse the script, and show up at the driver’s car. However, I don’t usually have quite that much will.

What do you make of this Uber cancellation situation?