The NY Times does a pice on how some bad guys are acting like Uber rides to get people to get into their vehicle’s and then rob or hurt them…..
People need to take a minute and LOOK at the vehicle they maybe getting into….
The black sedan glided up to the Las Vegas hotel where Elizabeth Suarez was waiting to take an Uber home after a night of gambling. She recalled asking the driver: Are you waiting for Liz? Yeah, he responded. Get in.
She had done it countless times. But that night in July 2018, as the man veered off course toward a deserted parking lot, as he cranked up the radio and ignored her questions, as her real driver called her wondering where she was, Ms. Suarez said she realized with horror: This was not an Uber.
“That’s when he said, ‘Give me your wallet, give me your phone, give me everything you have,’” Ms. Suarez, 28, said.
On busy streets outside bars or clubs, people often hop into a car without a second thought. But the killing of Samantha Josephson, a 21-year-old college student in South Carolina who was stabbed to deathafter getting into a car she mistook for her Uber last weekend, has brought national attention to a rash of kidnappings, sexual assaults and robberies carried out largely against young women by assailants posing as ride-share drivers.
There have been at least two dozen such attacks in the past few years, according to a tally of publicly reported cases, including instances where suspects have been charged with attacking multiple women. In Connecticut, a man was arraigned last week on charges that he kidnapped and raped two women who believed he was their ride-share driver. In Chicago, prosecutors said a man who posed as an Uber driver sexually assaulted five women, climbing into the back seat and pinning them down.
These attacks turn a simple mix-up into a nightmare, showing how easily bad actors can exploit the vulnerabilities of a ride-sharing culture that so many people trust to get them home safe….
image…USAToday.Com