UBER DRIVER HOLDING RANSOME
GUYS C'MON MAN
On Friday morning (July 6th) from my house in Kew, I took an Uber with driver "Abram" to Cresta for a meeting. My meeting was scheduled for 30 mins so we agreed that he would wait for me and if I took longer, he would let me know he was leaving.
1hr 30m went by as I exited my meeting only to find out that he had left, without letting me know and that he had left with my cell phone.
I had to pay to use a security guard's phone to try get hold of someone to get me back home/ to the office and out of the cold. I called my phone only for him to pick up and say that he has left and is Sandton, and hung up afterwards.
I called back a few minutes later when he told me to give him the password to my phone so he can request a trip on my account and drive my phone (on Trip) to me and then continue the very same trip back to sandton. Besides the finances associated with this request, I obviously wasn't going to compromise the security of my personal phone.
I then suggested that instead of all that, I make my way to Sandton in about 30 mins where we will meet and he will give me my phone back. He agreed. I called a friend and she managed to get me an Uber back to the office which took roughly 30mins.
As agreed, I ring him back as soon as I get to the office and he says "I am in Centurion" "If you want your phone you must E-wallet me R200 and I will bring it"
it is now roughly 12:00PM
At this point I contacted Uber support via Facebook/Email/Twitter and phone.
I was blocked on Facebook, Got "copy and paste" replies from uber email support, Twitter support gave autoresponses the entire chat and the phone line is "dedicated for life-threatening situations only"
After not hearing back from Uber on all platforms available the entire weekend, I called the driver back on Monday and still he insisted that I pay him R200.00, now , for his petrol to travel from PTA to Sandton
I asked my colleague who lives in PTA if he would be able to meet up with the driver at a central location in PTA so that he does not have to travel anywhere out of his way thus eliminating the R200 "petrol Cost"- he agreed so I phoned the driver back.
I insisted that they meet at the McDonalds at Retail park opposite Menlyn as there would be less confusion to arrange a meet than it would be in the mall. The driver then insisted that they meet at Ocean Basket inside the mall at 18:30- this plan was set in motion at roughly 15:00
My colleague drove to Ocean Basket and arrived at 18:20, called the driver who at first didn't pick up, he picked up on the second attempt and said the Uber had instructed him to not give that phone to anyone. He also stated he had not spoken to me at all during the course of the day and the arrangement we had was non existent as far as he was concerned. When asked to drop the phone off at the Uber offices in PTA he refused and then hung up.
It has been 5 days since he has had my phone and I still cannot get a hold of someone at Uber to help me sort this out despite days of trying.