NYC Uber Tip Jar Thief Looks Right Into Camera as She Does It
Commenters have branded the incident "horrible."
Shocking footage emerged Monday of an Uber passenger in New York City stealing from a driver’s tip jar while looking directly at his camera. The scene, captured in a two-minute video uploaded to LiveLeak, has been branded “horrible” and “a special kind of low” by commenters. It is brazen.
In the video, filmed in August, three passengers sit quietly as the driver delivers them to their destination. The woman in the middle looks up at the dashcam above the driver’s dashboard. As they leave the vehicle, the passenger puts their hand in the money box located in the center and leaves the vehicle, with the driver only noticing after the passengers have left.
“Well that’s a special kind of low,” said Reddit user PNG_FTW.
Tipping has become a key source of ride-sharing drivers’ income. Interestingly, the clip’s emergence comes after Uber introduced in-app tipping for a number of cities worldwide in June. Customers are prompted to offer a tip of between $1, $2 and $5 when rating their driver, or they can enter a custom amount. The feature was added after drivers pressured the company into changing, going on strike in several cities. Competitor Lyft has offered tipping since its early days, with drivers making over a quarter of a billion total in tip dollars thus far.
Watch the clip below:
“That lady is a horrible person for stealing tips like that,” said Reddit user kmecha9.
In a statement provided to the Daily Mail, Uber told the driver in the video:
We understand your frustration with this experience. We’ve attempted to contact the rider by phone and email, but haven’t been able to resolve this issue. The rider responded to us and advised us that she didn’t steal your cash from the tip jar. If you believe the rider has your cash as captured from your dash cam and is refusing to return it, you may want to initiate a formal investigation via the police.
Following the statement, Uber reached out to the driver to offer further support. The driver decided not to file a police report as he was too busy with work. The thief in the video has had her account deactivated and is now barred from using the service.
