The “Vomit Scam” is becoming increasingly popular among Lyft and Uber drivers. We were the victim of such scam while we were in Florida at Disney World.
So, it goes a little something like this…
We were at Disney World in Florida for The Summit Cheer Nationals. My daughter’s last (EVER!) cheer competition. We had a hotel room for my family of four, but my daughter wanted to stay with a friend at their hotel one night. Since she didn’t have anything scheduled for the next day, we allowed it.
She calls me the next morning and says that her friend is having trouble with their Uber app and could we call them a ride. My wife has a Lyft account so we just scheduled them a ride via her Lyft app. At our request, my daughter sent us the exact address for pick-up and we proceeded to schedule the ride.
Ten minutes later, my daughter calls me and asks if we are going to call for a ride. We told her that we already did and she was supposed to be in it by now. She apparently doesn’t get the concept of this whole deal and wasn’t even close to the hotel entrance when she requested us to call. She was still in the room, for an additional 15 minutes.
The cost of doing business with children.
So, we check the Lyft app and sure enough, the guy, named “JV”, had already left the area and charged us for the ride. It’s not his fault that my daughter is a blonde, so we tipped him $2 for his troubles, on top of the charge of $9.
My daughter then assured me that she was standing in front of the hotel waiting before we ordered her a second Lyft ride. This is the one she actually got the ride to our hotel in.
Does everyone in Florida feel sticky and gross?
After the very long day of walking around Disney parks, we retreat to our hotel room. It’s ridiculously humid in Florida. The air conditioning in our hotel room was really nice. It’s ridiculously humid in Florida. Did I mention that already?
So, we turn the TV on and my wife begins checking her emails. She sees one from Lyft. They sent her notification that they CHARGED HER $100 FOR VEHICLE DAMAGE!! The email had a link to see the claim on her account. Upon clicking the link, it opened up to the claim page. Thus revealing a picture of what appeared to be vomit on black leather seats. I’ll spare you the photo, you’re welcome.
These ride-share companies have a clause which I think is very justifiable. It is the vehicle damage clause and covers things like spills, physical damage caused by passengers and of course, vomit. The fee is based on the cost of the driver having to have the vehicle professionally cleaned. They will need to remove the offending substance as well as the odor. According to both Uber and Lyft, their fees can range from $50-$250 depending on the severity of the damage.
The claim listed “JV” as the driver of the vehicle. Remember “JV”? Yeah, he’s the one that NEVER even saw my daughter and her friends because they didn’t make it to the lobby in time. JV claims that he drove them for half a mile before kicking them out after vomiting in his car.
I was pissed!! I wanted my wife to request JV to pick me up at the hotel “for a little ride”. But cooler heads prevailed and we filed a rebuttal with Lyft citing several discrepancies.
Gotta love the Internet
While my wife was busy writing up her dispute, I was searching the internet for history on this vomit scam. It appears that the vomit scam is pretty prevalent, not only in Florida, but all over the country. It lists Uber mainly but some tell of Lyft drivers pulling this scam as well. The premise is that after the passengers have left the vehicle, the driver uses a file photo that they may or may not have taken themselves to submit to the parent company. They claim that the passenger vomited in their vehicle and request reimbursement. The parent company asses the damage and reimburses them accordingly, then back charges the passenger for the fees.
In a perfect world, the driver picks up a drunk passenger or two from a bar and transports them home. In the morning, the passenger wakes up to an email. This email tells them that in their drunken stupor, they vomited in the car. The drunk passenger knows that they were pretty messed up and thinks that the vomit claim may be true. So, the fee goes uncontested. The driver wins a free $50-$250, just for being creative.
But my kid wasn’t drunk, or even in the car.
We cited the fact that JV never picked up our daughter, even though he claims to have done so. We backed that up by having Lyft review the records on how we dispatched yet another car to the same location for the same number of passengers only 15 minutes after the first car. This in and of itself may not have been enough to get Lyft to remove their charge for the alleged damage. Maybe I needed more people driven from that location?
Lyft, or it’s driver, had listed the ride’s starting and ending point incorrectly. The starting point was a solid 6.7 miles from where ours was. This was an easy one and may have been the main factor in their decision not to pursue the charge.
But, of course, there was more…
In my internet search on the Vomit Scam, I came up with a few things that may help you out if you are ever a victim of this crap. First, check the photo for Geotagging. Geotagging stamps the photo with a date and location of which it was taken. One important thing to note here, once my wife began the dispute process, she lost her access to the photo used in the claim. So, it’s best to download it immediately so that you have it on file and can do your research. You can also do an internet search to see if that photo was ever used before and its origins. Keeping in mind, the photo may have been staged using ice cream, vegetable soup, or some other food product to create the illusion of vomit. Who says that? The “Illusion of Vomit”? It sounds like a bad “B” movie.
Sharing is caring.
Drivers will also share the pictures of vomit with each other. Like some creepy shuttle driver dark web action. Weird. Makinhg it more difficult for the parent companies to find flaws in the driver’s claims and ensuring that it’s more likely to process the reimbursements.
I went to bed pretty pissed off. When we woke up, my wife had an email from Lyft stating that they would not be pursuing the damage claim and that she should see the $100 replaced in her account within the next few days. No reimbursement of the $11 we paid for the ride and no word on whether they were going after JV for the fraudulent claim. I would hope so, or else he’s out there able to pull the vomit scam on some other unsuspecting prey.
I very rarely use these ride services but, in the future, I won’t get out of a Lyft or Uber ride without taking a picture of the vehicle myself, with my own geotagging. Thieves suck.
Dave
CONS: You can be a victim no matter what you do these days, too many people willing to dupe others out of money for their personal gain, lack of accountability, not the way I was raised, why is it that I tend to write about vomit?
PROS: I’m raising my kids better and hoping that you are too, we got our money back, hopefully put JV out on the street for scamming people, learned a valuable lesson.