A Tempe woman said a man posing as a Lyft driver tried luring her into his car. Around 9 p.m. Saturday, Bradie Trippi was waiting to be picked up in a parking lot near Broadway Road and Mill Avenue.
The Lyft app showed her driver was a minute away when a man in a gold Infiniti sedan pulled up next to her, she said.
“He says, ‘I’m your Lyft’ and then took a phone, flashed it in my face,” Trippi told ABC15. She said the man showed her the passenger app — not the driver app — and the letter “f” of the “Lyft” emblem on his car was backward. Given the fact the man did not match the photo of her driver or description of her driver’s car, Trippi declined to get in the car.
“He got aggressive,” she said. “Told me to get in the car, he’s gonna kill me, called me the ‘b word’, started yelling the ‘f word’ at me — I got kind of scared.”
When her actual Lyft driver arrived, Trippi said the man sped off.
Lyft and Uber spokespeople told ABC15 passengers should always check to make sure the photo of their driver, description of the vehicle and license plate match up before getting inside. Passengers should ask open-ended questions to their driver, like “who are you here to pick up?” Instead of “Are you here to pick up [name]?”
Trippi and her actual Lyft driver described the imposter driver as a bald, African-American man with an accent. Tempe police said there have been no other recent reports matching that description.
