A Bengaluru auto driver allegedly brought a bad name to the city by playing a clever trick on an elderly woman. This auto driver pretended to be an Uber rider and charged the female passenger “almost double
the amount” after reaching the destination, claimed her child in an anonymous post via Reddit.
The incident rekindled discussions over commuter safety and impersonation scams. In their post titled, “Karnataka auto scam: impersonating Uber drivers and exploiting elderly passengers”, the user claimed that the scam took place with their mother after they booked her Uber ride from a different location. Since the elderly woman had no access to the application or specific details about the ride, she didn’t realise when she had been scammed by this auto driver.
Driver Demands Double The Charge
“She is not tech-savvy, so only I could see the Uber app — driver details, trip status, and OTP verification. My mother had no way to confirm from her side whether the trip had actually started or whether the OTP shown in the app had been accepted,” the Reddit user wrote.
The user claimed that their mother was waiting at the designated pickup point when an auto driver arrived and introduced himself as an Uber rider. “Believing this, she got in,” wrote the user, who raised suspicion about the auto driver after noticing the app, where the real Uber driver was still waiting. To gain trust about the authenticity of her ride, the auto driver asked for an OTP from the woman, which obviously was never used.
Karnataka auto scam: impersonating Uber drivers and exploiting elderly passengers
byu/Dense-Bite9331 inbangalore
“The trip on my app still did not start, because this driver was not the one assigned to the booking,” the user wrote. “On my phone, I could clearly see that the actual Uber auto was still shown as ‘at pickup’. The trip had not started, and the OTP had not been verified in the app. When I called my mom, she told me she was already inside the auto.”
When The Driver Revealed He Wasn’t From Uber
It was only when the auto driver had taken the woman far off the pick-up location that he revealed his real identity, stating “casually” that he wasn’t an Uber driver. “At the destination, my mother insisted on paying only the Uber fare shown in the app. The driver refused and demanded almost double the amount, fully aware that she had no practical or safe way to argue or exit the situation. She paid just to end it,” the user wrote about their mother’s disappointing encounter with this auto driver.
The user felt really sorry for their mother and lambasted the auto driver in their Reddit post. They found it particularly “disgusting” when the driver “laughed” over their mother’s plea to pay only the amount they had booked the original Uber ride for.
“The intention is not to provide a service, but to loot people by whatever means are available, for small, short-term gains that don’t meaningfully improve their lives. This was not confusion. This was not a mistake. This was deliberate impersonation and exploitation of an elderly passenger,” the user wrote.
The user also raised a word of caution by their example for others and their parents and elderly relatives, who may also not have enough knowledge about online ride booking applications and could be susceptible of falling into similar traps.
