04/22/2026
Another reason to not use rideshare...you never know if the person your getting is the correct owner of the Driver account.
While you may get away cheep, thats not the only thing you'll get.
Uber Account Scam Puts Woman in Locked Car Nightmare
A woman calls an Uber Black after a night out. The car shows up, plate matches, she hops in. Seconds later, cops pull up and demand the driver show his app:
"Last week, I took an Uber and my driver was arrested, and I feel like I need to share my story because so many people who follow me are women, and I genuinely did not realize I was in a potentially unsafe situation until my driver was arrested. I ordered an Uber Black at the airport. I got in the car, everything seemed completely normal. And as soon as my driver pulls away, or is about to, a police officer knocks on the driver’s side window and asks him to roll the window down and show him his app. Now at first, I initially thought that this was probably some kind of traffic stop. I didn’t really think anything of it. But immediately, my Uber driver was super stressed and he actually rolled his window back up and locked me in the car with him. He could not drive away because we were in complete traffic.
I assumed that he was just very afraid of the police, and I urged him to follow the instructions of the police officer. And then I actually started recording, because I figured it would be best for my safety and his. Obviously, the situation escalated because he’d actually locked me in the car with him and so more police officers started coming and they were banging on the glass telling him to let me out immediately. And when he realized I was recording, instead of like maybe being relieved, he actually looked at me and said, “Please say that you got in the wrong car.” And that’s when I realized something was super off, but obviously at that point I wanted to exit the vehicle. I did not want any issues and I said, yes, yes, yes, of course, just let me out, just let me out. After that they immediately got me out of the car, pulled me over to the side, asked me to show them my Uber app. And so I showed them my Uber app, and lo and behold, the name of my driver does not match the name of this person when they checked his license. He had bought this account from somebody else and was impersonating another driver. They explained to me that this is happening more and more. That could be because they have some prior convictions, they are an unsafe driver, or potentially even worse that they have assaulted someone or want to assault someone. I was super shocked and I realized that something that I’m not doing that I could have done that could have potentially prevented me from getting in the car with this person, is I don’t really look at the tiny photo in the app of the driver that much. It’s really small, you actually have to click on it to make it bigger. I did not really think about it. I take so many Ubers and I really just thought that as long as the driver had my information and I matched their license plate it was completely okay.
The police were really nice, they obviously did not blame me at all for the situation. They said that I did nothing wrong, but they did urge me to next time open up the profile photo on your app, look at them, and see if it looks similar, and then ask them their name. You are also allowed to ask your driver to show you their license. And if their license photo does not match the name, you just cancel the ride. I feel like he was probably on their radar for things that were not good and I’m just really, really grateful that I was okay, but I hope that this story helps you and that you remember this story now the next time you get into an Uber because I genuinely don't want this to happen to anybody else."
