New Year. New Uber Scams.

If you’ve taken a cab in India recently and felt something was off about your fare, you’re not alone. Two scams are actively targeting ride-hailing users across major cities—and apparently Uber/Rapido support has been notoriously unhelpful in addressing them.

Let’s break down exactly how you’re being taken for a ride.

Scam 1: GPS Spoofing & Fake Fare Screens

How It Works

Drivers use GPS spoofing software to manipulate their location data. This allows them to:

Show they’ve arrived at your pickup point while actually sitting elsewhere
Display a longer route than the one actually driven
Inflate the final fare by 3-4x what the trip should cost

At airports like Bengaluru (BIAL) and Hyderabad, there’s a nastier variation. The process at these airports works differently—you get a PIN, walk to a pickup zone, and are assigned the next available cab in queue. The driver asks for your OTP but never actually starts the ride in the app. When you ask why it’s not showing in your app, they blame it on some technical issue with the Uber app.

At your destination, they show you a fake payment screen—a screenshot that looks identical to the real fare confirmation—demanding ₹4,000-5,000+ for what should be a ₹1,000 ride. Your app? It shows the ride as cancelled. No driver details. No way to complain effectively.

The Support Black Hole

Victims report that Uber, Ola, and Rapido support rarely acknowledges these frauds. Without trip data in your app (because the ride was never properly started), you have almost no recourse. The driver walks away with your money, and likely continues scamming others.

In case of GPS spoofing, even though Uber can probably verify it with customer location data (or the fact that customer has a boarding pass so must be at the airport), they choose not to. I was once a victim of one driver fraud on Uber. And Uber, being Uber, refused to help. It felt like sending messages to a black hole far far away in a remote galaxy, while constantly reminding myself - Don’t Panic!

How to Protect Yourself

Verify the ride started: Watch your phone when the driver enters the OTP. Your app should show the trip in progress with driver details, route map, and ETA.
Don’t move until confirmed: If your app shows “cancelled” or nothing at all, get off the car.
Use prepaid/card payments only: If the ride never starts in the app, no payment can be charged. Cash/UPI payments bypass this protection entirely.
Screenshot everything: Driver’s face, license plate, the OTP screen on their phone.

Scam 2: The Fake UPI App Cash Swap

How It Works

This one’s more insidious and has been reported on Uber, Ola, and Rapido. The driver asks for cash payment—they’ll have an excuse ready: “UPI server is down,” “I need cash for fuel,” “Emergency at home.”

Here’s the deal they offer: “Give me cash, I’ll UPI you the balance right now.”

They open what looks like GPay, PhonePe, or Paytm, make a show of entering your number, and show you a “Payment Successful” screen. You hand over the cash.

The app is fake. It’s either a modified APK or a purpose-built scam app that generates convincing payment confirmations without sending a single rupee. By the time you check your bank account, the driver is gone.

The Scale

UPI fraud isn’t small-time. In FY 2023-24, India reported over 13 lakh cases with losses exceeding ₹1,087 crore. And that’s just what got reported.

How to Protect Yourself

Never accept “I’ll UPI you”: If they need cash, that’s their problem. Pay through the app or not at all.
Check your own app: Don’t trust their screen. Open your UPI app and verify the money actually arrived.
Wait for the bank SMS: No SMS, no money. Period. And verify the SMS is from bank’s official ID and not a random number (fake apps can send fake SMS).
Report immediately: Call 1930 (National Cyber Crime Helpline) if you’ve been scammed.

Good to Know

Why Platform Support Fails You

These platforms operate as aggregators—they don’t employ the drivers. When fraud happens, there’s limited accountability. If the ride never officially started, there’s no data trail. If you paid cash/UPI directly to the driver, it happened “outside the platform.”

Rapido in particular has drawn criticism for only accepting cash/QR payments to drivers, making chargebacks impossible. Their complaint system reportedly just dumps refunds into a Rapido wallet you can’t use elsewhere.

Their systems are designed for scale, not dispute resolution. Bot-based support, no escalation paths, and a general attitude of “not our problem” are standard.

What Actually Works

Always use card/wallet payments through the app. This creates a paper trail and allows chargebacks.
Enable ride PIN verification in your Uber/Ola settings—the driver can’t start the trip without it.
Track your own ride. Keep your app open and watch the route. If it diverges significantly, speak up immediately.
Rate and report. It may feel useless, but pattern detection depends on volume.

Verdict

These aren’t random incidents—they’re systematic exploits of gaps in ride-hailing platforms. GPS spoofing apps are easily available, fake UPI apps can be downloaded in minutes, and platform support is essentially theatre.

The burden of protection falls entirely on you, the rider.