Woman Receives $31 Credit From Uber After Being Sexually Harassed by Driver
After complaining about being sexually harassed by a taxi driver in London, Uber offered the woman a £20 ($31) credit.
According to an exclusive report published by Newsweek, the female passenger, who has not been identified, sent a complaint to the taxi service company about the driver, describing him as "very forward and quite creepy."
He "asked me if I wanted him to go down on me. Not cool," she wrote in an email explaining the incident, which took place in March.
In response, a marketing manager apologized about the "intrusive experience" and assured her that their driver operations manager was "already investigating this with [the driver] and I can assure you that the necessary actions will be taken to avoid a similar incident in future".
The email also thanked the victim "for raising this with us - while painful to hear, it's the best way for us to address any incidents like this."
However, the woman says she felt dissatisfied by the response, and sent another email with more details about the incident. She said the harassment began after she took the driver's invitation to sit in the front seat because she began to feel car sick. That's when he started questioning her about her relationship status, while using inappropriate language.
"Towards the end of the journey he was asking if I liked blow jobs, saying that he was very good at going down on girls or giving 'sucky sucky' to girls and did I want him to do it to me. He even suggested that he could pull over into a side street and do it now if I wanted, which was I think the scariest part of the drive."
She continued on saying that he made her vulnerable and uncomfortable being that she was alone in the car.
"I am aware that this kind of thing becomes very much a he-said, she-said kind of deal, but I did want to make you aware of it as I feel that people really trust the Uber name (as I do) and my trust was completely violated. I am pretty relaxed and outgoing and I feel that I can take care of myself, and if I felt so uncomfortable I dread to think how a more timid girl would have felt. I won't be taking this any further but I do implore you to take this quite seriously as I worry for other women who could find themselves in a similar situation," she concluded.
A different Uber marketing manager replied to her second email and offered another apology.
"While things like this should definitely not happen in the first place, in the unlikely event that they do occur we have the full details of the driver, trip and rider on our systems so that we can immediately investigate any concerns raised," reads the email.
The Uber manager went on to say that the trip had been refunded and £20 had been credited to her account "in hope that you will give us a second chance". The email concluded with: "Sorry again for such an un-Uber experience."
A spokesman told Newsweek that while there is no company policy to address such a situation, "we take all allegations incredibly seriously. Any driver who is accused of acting inappropriately is suspended from the platform while an investigation is undertaken. We would of course refund a trip if an incident had occurred or the rider was not happy."
"Fortunately incidences of this nature are so rare that an official policy is not needed. Any incident is handled on a case-by-case basis and taken very seriously. We do of course often refund a trip after a negative experience of any sort, as our customers expect only the highest standard of service from Uber," said the spokesperson.
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