Uber - Snatched Phone
Here's a story. I would be interested to know whether this rings true with anyone else’s experiences.At 1 am this morning I was trying to order a Uber from the City (Barbican) to get home in the country. It's a £155 trip (but I had no other way home). It's difficult to get Uber drivers to accept for such long journeys, so often you get told that a driver is on his way, then cancels.As I was standing on the corner, looking at my mobile phone, it just vanished from my hand (literally, just like that) and as I looked up someone was cycling away with my phone in my hand, with the Uber app still open. After faffing around with calling the police (fortunately I also had my work phone with me), I eventually gone home after my wife organised a minicab to pick me up. In the meantime I was able to call EE to block my phone's SIM.So I got home about 4am absolutely knackered as I have had just 3 or 4 hours sleep each night this week, working on a deal which had to be completed by midnight. And no doubt the fact that I was absolutely exhausted meant I was less alert.This morning I checked my credit cards linked to my phone. A charge for £155 had gone through for Uber (my Uber account is liked to the credit card). I called the card company, who told me that Uber had already cancelled the charge.And my thought is this. I was in a very quiet area (the new Crossrail entrance to Barbican, on the corner of Smithfield market). Not an obvious place to look for victims for an opportunistic phone snatcher - and the bloke was obviously a professional - he shot past at full speed, and grabbed the phone from my hand so swiftly I did not even feel it go - it was there, then it wasn't there.The Uber app was open, because I was looking at it to see if a car was on its way.Then an Uber charge appears on my cardfor a ride that was never accepted or took place.Am I being completely paranoid here or was I set up? I.e. was the snatcher working in cahoots with an Uber driver knowing that at 1am on a Friday night it was possible that people ordering rides might be a bit worse for wear (in my defence - I had had two small glasses of celebratory champagne – but I was certainly not sizzled – just absolutely knackered after an intensive week).The snatcher would have had very precise details of my location, and know that I would have phone in hand on the roadside.Has anyone else’s heard stories that suggest that people ordering Ubers at night might be being targeted by phone snatchers, woking in cahoots with Uber drivers?
T P Howell ● 1514d6 Comments ● 1513d