A Melbourne influencer and former Love Island star experienced a terrifying ordeal at the airport over the weekend when a rideshare driver attempted to scam her mid-trip.
Emily Ward, 26, said she had just landed at Tullamarine Airport and was on the way to visit her family when the driver cancelled her trip and asked for a ‘bank transfer’.
Detailing the ordeal in a TikTok video, Ward said she started to ‘freak out’ as he tried to drive off with her still in the car while they weren’t ‘being tracked’ by the app.
‘The car starts moving away, and then I get a notification on my phone telling me the driver has cancelled and I’m being matched with another driver,’ she said.
‘I immediately flag this with [the driver] and I’m like, “Hey, this is what’s happening, maybe you pressed cancel by mistake.” This is where [the scam] starts.’
Emily Ward, 26, (pictured) experienced a terrifying ordeal at the airport over the weekend when a rideshare driver attempted to scam her mid-trip
Emily went on to say that the driver told her: ‘It must be a mistake with the app, I just confirmed your address, did you press something maybe?’
‘He keeps insisting it’s something I must have done or the app messed up, but basically, there’s a problem,’ she explained.
‘This is where I start to get really scared actually because right now all of my belongings are in this man’s car.
‘I’m strapped into this man’s car which he is trying to slowly edge out of the airport pick-up area. I’m by myself and now my ride isn’t being tracked.’
Ward, 26, said she had just landed at Tullamarine Airport and was on the way to visit her family when the driver cancelled her trip and asked for a ‘bank transfer’
Emily said the driver then asked her to ‘bank transfer him’ the rideshare fee because she ‘was already in his car’.
Despite him insisting it would be ‘easier’ to just continue on with the trip, Emily demanded to be let out of the vehicle with her belongings.
‘As a woman by myself in that situation I start freaking out. You get that gut feeling that something isn’t right,’ she said.
The driver relented after a few minutes of arguing and ‘guilt tripping’, but Emily was shocked to see him attempt the scam on another unsuspecting passenger after her.
Emily said when she realised someone else was being scammed by the driver, she flagged a patrol officer who told the driver to leave without picking up a passenger.
It was then Emily suspected she knew what the driver was attempting to do, saying he may have wanted to avoid the rideshare fees and pocket the full fare.
‘I feel bad because I’ve just ruined this guy’s scam because he’s trying to make more money for himself, but at the same time that’s so illegal, so dangerous,’ Emily said.
‘He would absolutely lose his license. I’m still contemplating reporting him because he would lose his license to rideshare and he’d lose his whole source of income.’
