3 days Ago By Yahoo News Australia
An Aussie woman has shone a light on a with a driver accused of "cancelling" her trip before requesting she pay him directly. Melbourne woman Gemma Dimond warned others using the rideshare app to "please be safe", admitting it was a "bit scary" particularly because she was riding alone. Dimond ordered the ride after a night out in on Saturday being sure to "check the number plate and everything".
After confirming the vehicle, she jumped in but shortly after the driver allegedly "cancelled the trip", blaming a glitch in the app for the interruption. "He was like, 'Oh, looks like the app is glitching. Can you just give me your address and I'll put it into our maps and I'll work out how much it would have been'.
He had a separate app to calculate the price," she claimed in a video on . The driver allegedly suggested Dimond pay him directly via bank transfer instead, however, convinced something was off she "told a fib" to make him pull over so she could jump out. She instead waited for an "actual cab" to come along.
"Just a PSA, I don't love it," she said. Unfortunately, it's not the first time a claim of this nature has been made. Previously, another woman claimed she endured something similar While she booked through the Didi App, she claimed the driver also worked for .
In a statement to Yahoo News Australia, an Uber spokesperson said, "Fraudulent activity, such as driver-partners encouraging riders to pay directly in exchange for a trip, is a clear breach of Uber’s Community Guidelines". "This kind of behaviour can result in driver-partners permanently losing access to the app," they said. "We encourage riders to report behaviour such as this through the app, so we can take action right away.
" Uber encourages all riders to "familiarise themselves with the steps to take before entering a vehicle, including checking the driver's photo and licence number, as well as utilising the optional PIN verification safety feature." It's understood Uber work to inform driver partners and riders about those standards and take action to hold them accountable for their behaviour. Responding to Dimond's video, others revealed they too had a similar experience with Uber drivers in Melbourne specifically, particularly when travelling from the airport.
"This happened to me a few months ago when I was in an Uber from Melbourne airport. I didn’t realise what was going on and he made me transfer him at the end of the trip," one said. Meanwhile, another shared, "the amount of unsafe Ubers I’ve had recently is insane.
I’ve gone back to strictly using taxis". However, Aussies have also been in the past with after one passenger's alarming claim. A man claimed the metre jumped up significantly in price without warning.
When approached by Yahoo, the NSW Taxi Council said that while they're "proud of the work majority of drivers do," they're aware of a "handful" of "rogue drivers who think they can take matters into their own hands"..
