New Scam Alert! Woman charged Rs 4.6 lakh for no trips by Uber; here's what happened

In the age of digitisation, we have everything just one click away, be it booking tickets, shopping, or ordering food. However, with new technology, several scams have emerged in the market. Now, there is a new scam, which is duplicating your mobile number and then using you to book rides on Uber and charging an exorbitant amount for a ride that may have lasted exactly two minutes. A woman recently witnessed this scam when she got an alert on the Uber app on her mobile around 4.30 am on Saturday stating that "my trip had been verified and a PIN has been generated." The woman, a journalist by profession, initially thought that she had booked a ride on Uber by mistake. "The message redirected me to Uber login page and asked me to login with my phone number. Half asleep I fed in the number and turned off the phone and got back to sleep," she revealed.

Hours later, around 11 am on Saturday, she got a call from a Uber driver stating that my Intercity ride for Punjab had been booked and he was waiting at the pick-up location. Confused again by the call, she went on her Uber app to check if she had booked any ride or if there was a scheduled trip booked through her ID. She didn't find any. The woman received at least 40 calls over the weekend, including at 1:30 or 2:30 am. 

Rs 4.6 lakh charged for no trips

The woman said that on Monday, she received a call from her office admin, claiming that Rs 4.6 lakh were charged on her corporate account on Uber. The woman had a company account linked to her Uber App since 2018. She used that account for official work only. "I stopped using that account post-pandemic, but the account was not removed from my app," she said. 

"No trip had been billed to the company for the last 2 years until Saturday. Further inquest revealed that the trips were booked and charged for a hefty Rs. 4,000 to 8,000 for a distance of 2 km or less," she added. Her company has now blocked her number on the app and raised it to Uber. The woman has also lodged an official complaint with the Cyber Crime Cell. Fortunately, no money has been debited from her company’s account or her account.

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