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A couple of days ago, the Miami Herald published a story concerning a scam labeled as "Vomit Fraud", with a claim that various Uber drivers in South Florida have been ripping people off with this latest bit of bunco.
"Vomit Fraud" is accomplished as follows: the Uber driver claims to Uber's management that he or she had to clean up barf left behind by a drunken customer who hurled during the ride. Uber's policy in such cases is to notify the client of the matter, while also tacking a charge of 80-150 bucks onto the credit card used by the client.
Uber's business policy entails an $80 minimum cleanup fee for the spillage (or other deposit) of human fluid nastiness, but the company's guidelines allow for a fee of up to $150 for the cleanup of "significant quantities of body fluids (urine, blood or vomit) in the interior of the vehicle."
No word on what they'd want if somebody got into a serious shit-smearing session...
As noted, the victim becomes aware that he or she has been scammed when Uber contacts them with a cheerful communiqué advising that there has been an adjustment to the bill. And that's when things become a bit more vexatious, according to some claiming to be victims of this particular hustle.
This is because there is only one way to contact the overlords of Uber, and that is by going to the company's website or app and clicking on the "Help" button and then typing in one's complaint.
After doing that, the complainant can generally expect to receive a friendly response in which the company expresses its regret that the complainant is such a slob; this message comes complete with a photo of the mess sent in by the driver. After that comes the inevitable exchange of messages back and forth. In some cases, the client has gone to his or her credit card company to dispute the charge-- whereupon they ended up on a sort of blacklist maintained by Uber.
Uber has admitted that it occasionally finds itself with drivers who might perpetrate this sort of thing, and that it investigates these complaints and takes action against those who perpetrate fraud. Of course, Uber declines to say just how many such cases have come along so far or what one of their "investigations" actually amounts to... though at least one of the multiple cases reported in Miami was resolved in favor of the client.
In that case, a person who was supposed to get a ride from Uber at Miami International cancelled and was subsequently billed $6 for the cancellation, $16 for the ride she never took-- and $150 for the nasty mess she supposedly left in the car on the ride she never took. But as it happened, the woman was a reporter for the Spanish-language Miami newspaper el Nuevo Herald, and submitted a story to the paper she worked for. Uber seems to have been in a hurry to mollify that particular client... but others have said that every message they got from Uber shut them down and totally favored the driver.
One guy utilized two different Uber drivers on the same evening-- and ended up being charged a total of $300 for puking in both vehicles!
The Miami Sun Sentinel did a rehash on the same subject today, adding a few details along with the observation that apparently Vomit Fraud is not just a South Florida kind of game for some Uber drivers to play. One additional bit of information the Sun Sentinel provided was to say that the same scam is being reported frequently in Australia.
People! Is there anything they can't turn into some sort of shitty racket?
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article215299675.html
--R
"Vomit Fraud" is accomplished as follows: the Uber driver claims to Uber's management that he or she had to clean up barf left behind by a drunken customer who hurled during the ride. Uber's policy in such cases is to notify the client of the matter, while also tacking a charge of 80-150 bucks onto the credit card used by the client.
Uber's business policy entails an $80 minimum cleanup fee for the spillage (or other deposit) of human fluid nastiness, but the company's guidelines allow for a fee of up to $150 for the cleanup of "significant quantities of body fluids (urine, blood or vomit) in the interior of the vehicle."
No word on what they'd want if somebody got into a serious shit-smearing session...
As noted, the victim becomes aware that he or she has been scammed when Uber contacts them with a cheerful communiqué advising that there has been an adjustment to the bill. And that's when things become a bit more vexatious, according to some claiming to be victims of this particular hustle.
This is because there is only one way to contact the overlords of Uber, and that is by going to the company's website or app and clicking on the "Help" button and then typing in one's complaint.
After doing that, the complainant can generally expect to receive a friendly response in which the company expresses its regret that the complainant is such a slob; this message comes complete with a photo of the mess sent in by the driver. After that comes the inevitable exchange of messages back and forth. In some cases, the client has gone to his or her credit card company to dispute the charge-- whereupon they ended up on a sort of blacklist maintained by Uber.
Uber has admitted that it occasionally finds itself with drivers who might perpetrate this sort of thing, and that it investigates these complaints and takes action against those who perpetrate fraud. Of course, Uber declines to say just how many such cases have come along so far or what one of their "investigations" actually amounts to... though at least one of the multiple cases reported in Miami was resolved in favor of the client.
In that case, a person who was supposed to get a ride from Uber at Miami International cancelled and was subsequently billed $6 for the cancellation, $16 for the ride she never took-- and $150 for the nasty mess she supposedly left in the car on the ride she never took. But as it happened, the woman was a reporter for the Spanish-language Miami newspaper el Nuevo Herald, and submitted a story to the paper she worked for. Uber seems to have been in a hurry to mollify that particular client... but others have said that every message they got from Uber shut them down and totally favored the driver.
One guy utilized two different Uber drivers on the same evening-- and ended up being charged a total of $300 for puking in both vehicles!
The Miami Sun Sentinel did a rehash on the same subject today, adding a few details along with the observation that apparently Vomit Fraud is not just a South Florida kind of game for some Uber drivers to play. One additional bit of information the Sun Sentinel provided was to say that the same scam is being reported frequently in Australia.
People! Is there anything they can't turn into some sort of shitty racket?
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article215299675.html
--R
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