I was online last night when I got an Uber request for a pick up at my local hospital.
The rider called me, which is common for our hospital riders, most likely to tell me where to pick them up. I answered and was suprised to hear a voice announcing that he was with Uber Support. At that moment the ride was cancelled.
The caller told me that there was a customer complaint that I looked different from the photo on my driver profile. Having grown a beard over the winter, I thought that could be the reason and explained to the alleged support person. He told me to go off line and my account would be temporarily deactivated until I could verify who I was. He asked me to verify my phone number and told me he would disconnect the line and call me back on that number. I didn't see any harm in that so I gave him that information. He also aksed me for my license plate number for verification. No harm in that so I gave it to him.
Then he asked me for my uber balance and to log into my bank and give him my balances. On that, I started getting suspicious and gave him false numbers.
This guy was good. He had searched my phone number and had my address as well as the name of my wife. When it started to smell phishy I asked him to verify himself by naming my wife who is named on the vehicle registration, which he did.
When he said that it matched the information he had red flages with up. He then told me that I was verified but a notification came up from my financial institution regarding my account number. He wanted that number to clear it up on his end.
I told him no way, and at that point he told me that he had no other option but to deactivated me.
You could smell the BS coming over the phone line. I said go ahead and hung up.
I then called Uber Support and notifed them of the Phishing scammer. I gave them the ride request time and pick up location as well as the telephone number they used to call me. Hopefully they got deactivated from the platform.
I then did a search of the phone number to discover it was a Google Voice number. Google was closed last night and they rarely talk to humans so notifying them would be a waste of time. I did file a complaint with FTC.GOV, giving them the number and the details of the scam call.
This serves as a warning to all to never give out account numbers over the phone to anyone saying they are with Uber or Lyft.
