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Showing posts with the label Roadshow

Con artists are fleecing Uber drivers

It was business as usual for an Uber driver who'd been picking up and dropping off riders in Los Angeles on a Wednesday afternoon in early June. He'd just accepted a new trip in Beverly Hills and was driving to get the passenger when he got a strange phone call. It was from San Francisco's 415 area code. The caller, with a heavy Spanish-sounding accent, said he was from Uber. "They tell me to pull over and cancel the trip," says the driver, 31, who asked us not to use his name. "They tell me I need to verify my account. They sound very professional and very poised and say things like, 'We really appreciate how good a job you're doing for Uber.'" The caller told him the passenger requesting the trip was disabled, so Uber wanted to send an SUV instead to accommodate a large service animal. That sounded reasonable to the driver, who'd been working for Uber for only two months. What he didn't know was that he'd jus