Imagine being a rideshare driver for a company like Uber and your passenger refuses to pay for the ride.
What would you do?
In today’s story, the driver isn’t sure what to do at first, but then has a brilliant plan that teaches the passenger a lesson while also getting her to happily leave his car.
Let’s see how the story plays out…
In 2018, I lived in southern CA while I was finishing up graduate school.
Uber was more popular than ever and given how spread out CA is in general was an easy side hustle to shuttle people back and forth.
However, I only did it for a little while because I’m not really the most patient person and eventually got tired of people’s BS and attitudes.
This is a horrible way of cheating the system.
One of the common tactics for customers looking to screw a driver was to “cancel” their rides in the middle of the trip to avoid paying the fare.
They would often say how they did it “accidentally” and then ask me if I could just “finish the trip since we were basically there anyway”.
This happened to me three times.
The first two times, I pulled over and told them to get out of my car to which they complied (albeit they called me several names and threatened to kill me).
The third time happened on a Tuesday afternoon.
The third time is the subject of this post…….
It was about 430 in the afternoon on a Tuesday when I decided to log on and catch some fares.
Most people go into the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays and are looking to get rides home between 4-5 pm to beat the traffic.
At this point, I should mention that I was living in San Diego.
If you know the area, you’d know that many people work in the city and live in the outer areas (Chula Vista, Imperial Beach, Escondido, Pacific Beach) because its cheaper.
The passenger clearly wasn’t poor.
The day of the event (oh yes it was an event lol), I picked up a middle aged girl who was a student at the local the community college downtown.
Although she was in community college, I could tell she had money by the way she dressed and where she was going (La Jolla).
She gets in my car and starts to make conversation with me.
The passenger canceled the ride.
I am driving through town and as I am about to get on the highway I hear the cancellation ding.
I pull over to a parking lot and let her know that she cancelled the ride and I could not drive her until she rebooked it.
She gave me the “it was an accident” excuse.
I told her not a problem and to just rebook the route.
The price was more than she wanted to pay.
Well at this point, all those people I told you about earlier had just got off of work and we were in what I call the “Power Hour” of maximum surge pricing.
La Jolla is like 25-40 minutes from downtown San Diego depending on traffic.
I looked and the trip would have cost her $70.
She told me that she wasn’t going to pay that.
She won’t get out of the car!
I said fine and I asked that she exit my vehicle.
SHE REFUSED and told me to take her home like I was her chauffeur.
At this point, I was mad and wouldn’t have done it even if she gave me $100 cash (I didn’t really need the money).
I asked her politely again.
She refused.
He contemplated what to do.
I had never really gotten to this point before.
The other two people were guys and I would have had no qualms about yanking their butts out by force and beating them in the middle of the highway.
However, that wouldn’t have been a good look in this situation.
I thought about going to the police given we were 3 blocks from the headquarters but I wanted her to feel the burn.
She thought she was getting what she wanted.
Cue Malicious Compliance…..
I asked her if she wanted a “free ride”……she suddenly perked up and said “I knew you’d come around, you are such a nice guy”.
I said buckle up and we got on Interstate 5.
He told her where they were going.
Here is the part where I tell you that San Diego is 16 miles from the Mexican border.
I also keep my passport in my glove compartment because I did volunteer work in Rosarito every so often.
We were about 4 minutes into the ride when she asked where we were going.
I turned around and told her “I’m going to Tijuana and I’m glad you could join me. I hope you brought your passport”.
NOW she wants to get out of the car.
At first she didn’t think I was serious but by Exit 4 she started to panic.
I told her she was welcome to get out at anytime but she needed to make a decision soon because after we passed exit 1 there was no turning back.
I also told her that I wasn’t taking her back.
Well she got the message and pleaded for me to pull over.
I pulled over and dropped her off at the outlet mall in San Ysidro at the border.
Now she would have to pay even more to get home.
Just for giggles I checked the Uber rate from the mall to La Jolla and the cheapest rate was $87 for a pool ride.
I didn’t make any money that night but that was the richest experience I had while being a rideshare driver.
I stopped about 1 month later and sold my car.
That was a clever and effective plan!
Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story…
This is probably how she spun it.
This reader thinks being a rideshare driver sounds like a bad idea.
Another reader worried about ending up in Mexico.
I like this idea!
I agree. She should have to pay something.
This is a good question.
She might be scared to take an Uber after that ride!
When she did, I’m sure she paid the fare.
If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.
