At 3AM in a condo and apartment block section of North Broadway Avenue in Chicago, I stopped my Uber HR-V. Two men waited about where I expected my rider. I didn’t see an address visible on the nearest building. As the two white men in their mid-twenties got settled, I said the name of the rider shown on the Uber app, “Javier?”
One man said, “Uh, yeah.”
That was an odd response and neither of them looked like Latino so I decided to confirm the destination. “We’re going to the 1400 block of Carmen Avenue?”
The man said, “No, we’re not going there. We’re going to 4141 Blackhawk.”
That was in a totally different neighborhood, quite a distance away. Something didn’t seem right so I said, “Would you please change the destination in the app?”
“Yeah, I can do that,” said the man.
As I navigated southbound on Broadway into busy Boystown, the men chatted away in the back. But, the one didn’t ‘update the address. It is a simple process and one drivers should demand of riders who want a change.
I took the soft right onto Halsted Street. Because he hadn’t updated the destination to Blackhawk Street, the GPS still had the Carmen Street address; I know of Blackhawk Street and knew I needed to head in a southern and western direction.
My phone rang. I picked it up with a premonition it was about this ride.
“Hello, it’s John with Uber.”
“Dude!” The voice on the line was upset. “This is Javier. You drove right past me!”
“I’m sorry, but someone else got in the car. Let me get them out and go back for you.” I immediately stopped the car in the first open parking spot on the street.
“OK, you guys have to get out.”
“No, finish our ride first,” said the man who had been quiet before.
“No,” I said. “You’re on the wrong ride. It’s on someone else’s account.”
That man seemed resigned to leave and opened his door. The other turned nasty. He smacked his fist on the seat in front of him. “Just finish the goddamn fucking ride!”
“No,” I said. I realized I might need to dial 911. I felt fortunate I was parked in a stretch of Halsted Street with people all around, even in the 3 o’clock hour.
“No!” he said.
“You have to get out,” I said.
He lurched out of my car and, then, slammed the door as hard as he could.
I drove off and U-turned. Coming back north on Halsted, I saw the two men piling into a taxi. That meant they weren’t in the wrong Uber; they had tried to commit fraud with a free ride.
I soon had Javier in the car, en route to Carmen Street.
As an Uber driver, always confirm your rider. More often than you might expect, the wrong rider will get in. They usually are honest mistakes, easily rectified, although my example is of attempted fraud. It could be dangerous to have these strangers in the car. In those instances, Uber will credit the customer whose account has the wrong trip on it, leaving the driver out the time and gasoline, a victim of Uber fraud.
Milwaukee Avenue 