TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – An Uber driver is off the job after multiple customers complained about fraudulent cleanup fees. 8 On Your Side reported about one case Wednesday night.
A second customer stepped forward to 8 On Your Side, saying he too was charged a fee for a mess that wasn’t his. “I get home in the morning and I received an email saying, ‘Your fare has been adjusted and to account for the mess that you all made, we took out $100.’ It was laughable. I thought it was like eggs,” Tampa attorney Alex Serrano said. He received the charge after a Saturday night Uber ride in north Tampa.
Serrano tried many times to clear up the charge with Uber. “My final response was basically, ‘Look I’m going to take legal action against you’ and I let them know I was an attorney,” Serrano said. But Uber refused the refund, telling him the company has a “policy” and then sending pictures to Serrano of his mess.
“My aggravation was with the fact that we knew what happened in that vehicle. no one threw up in the car,” Serrano added.
The pictures of the mess sent to Serrano were very similar to pictures sent to Cody Dawson by Uber this week. Dawson was also charged a cleanup fee of $200 that Uber refused to refund until after 8 On Your Side reached out to the company.
Serrano saw Dawson’s story and told the company he too had been in contact with 8 On Your Side. Hours later Uber responded to Serrano apologizing and refunding his money.
Here is the message Serrano received from Uber:
“Hi Alex,
This is Alex Uber advanced support. First of all Thank you so very much for the effort reporting this fraud issue and for all of the valuable time you have invested to let us know this situations was happening not only you but other riders. I´m truly sorry you had to live this experience, but thank you for not giving up. I want to let you know that we have rejected this driver from our platform, and that we will take actions on this. Also I already refunded the $100.00, as well as the fare for the trip, so the final fare will be $0.00 on this trip. I can not express how embarrassing this is to Uber but I hope you give us a second chance to prove we can give you an excellent service. Thank you once more for your commitment let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.
Have a wonderful day!”
“Based on that, they apparently had been investigating this particular driver and that’s when they let me know they’ve refunded my money. I’m glad I saw the report,” Serrano said. He thinks Uber should take another look at its policy.
“The report from the driver comes apparently and then they just take the money right out of your account. (The driver) could target basically bar patrons who would then be defenseless to these allegations,” he added.
