A SCAM victim has huge regrets after sharing personal information when he was duped by an imposter pretending to be his boss.
Rudy Hairston is a Lyft driver based in Washington DC who has completed over 20,000 rides.
However, the hard-working driver has now detailed how he was scammed out of $1,000 in a phone-call scheme targeting drivers across the country.
Hairston received a phone call from someone claiming to be from Lyft who was asking for his personal information.
After sharing it with them, Hairston was locked out of his Lyft account and unable to access his earnings.
“At that point, he was controlling my app. How I don’t know,” the driver told WTOP news.
“They hit me for $255 on a MoneyGram,” he added.
This was followed by another charge of over $300 for a florist in Brooklyn, New York.
Hairston had also linked a $500 cash card to his account which was also stolen in the scam.
“That’s just a scam completely, that was my fault,” he said.
“I should have never done that, but I did,” he said of giving out his personal information.
Hariston’s account was later secured and refunded by Lyft.
Numerous other drivers have reached out to Fox News affiliate KDVR to report that they too have been scammed over the phone and have lost anywhere between a couple of hundred dollars and nearly $2,000.
They told the news outlet that they had no luck getting their money back after contacting Lyft.
One driver told KDVR that she accepted a ride and then shortly got a phone call from someone claiming to work for Lyft customer service safety team.
They informed the driver that a passenger had complained about smelling alcohol and so they asked for some of her information to clear up matters.
After that, she was unable to access her Lyft account.
“It just said wrong ID, wrong email, wrong password, and I just simply couldn’t use it,” the driver told the outlet.
“It was over $600 or $700.”
Drivers are told to immediately report any suspicious activity on their account but this driver said she heard nothing back.
“There’s no sense of urgency for the driver,” she explained.
“It’s their responsibly to shore up those holes and to go after those fraudsters who are using their platform to gain people’s financial institutions and bleed them.”
Lyft informed KDVR that it would work to help the drivers who contacted the news outlet.
The Drivers Union issued an alert over the summer to Uber and Lyft drivers warning them to be “on the lookout for suspicious calls or in-app messages that may be attempting to gain access to your accounts.”
“Most of these scams work the same way,” the alert stated.
“Scammers will contact drivers, either over the phone or through in-app chat, pretending to be Uber or Lyft.
“The scammers tell drivers that they need to gain access to their account to fix some problem.
“Once they’ve obtained the drivers’ login information, they’re able to upload their own payment method and steal the drivers’ earnings.
“They may also edit the drivers’ account information to prevent them from logging back in.”
The U.S. Sun received the following statement from Lyft: “Safety is fundamental to Lyft, and we take reports of fraudulent behavior incredibly seriously.
“As soon as the driver reported the alleged suspicious call, we contacted him and provided support.
“Drivers should contact Lyft immediately when they notice any suspicious activity on their account so that we can help address the situation.
“We remind drivers not to share personal information and security codes with unknown persons.”
