BELLEVILLE, Ill. (KTVI) – A rideshare driver in Illinois was supposed to take Kristina Caruso home early on Saturday morning. Instead, Caruso said the driver ordered her out at a gas station at about 2:30 a.m.
Things only got stranger after that.
Caruso had earlier ordered an Uber to pick her up outside a friend’s home in Belleville, Illinois. Being a “very cautious person,” she took a screengrab from her Uber app before going outside to meet a driver named “Sara” who pulled up in a black Dodge Avenger.
“I always snapshot my driver before they pick me up to send to who I’m with,” Caruso said.
Caruso’s friend Katie walked her outside to the car.
“It was dark, but the car looked like what was supposed to be picking me up,” Caruso said. “It took me a second to realize we were going the wrong way because it was dark out. I was in the back seat not really paying attention, and then we pulled into a gas station. She pulled up, and she said, ‘Your payment didn’t go through. Get out!’”
Caruso said she knew her payment went through because it showed up on her account as an Uber charge that she also screengrabbed. She said the driver was adamant that she get out.
“There were two men to my right and one man to my left,” Caruso said. “As soon as I got out of the car, they were asking me if needed a ride. They were asking me to get in their car.”
Thankfully, her friend Katie Davis was tracking her on her iPhone. When Davis walked out of her house to go pick up Caruso, she found another Uber parked outside.
“He asked if I was Kristina, and I explained to him, no, that another Uber picked her up and then dropped her off at this location,” Davis said. “He said, ‘That was very strange — that it doesn’t show she was ever picked up and that she was still needing a ride.’”
“I’m wondering who the hell picked me up,” Caruso said.
Uber refunded her payment, and when Nexstar’s KTVI called for a comment, the company gave her an additional $15 to use later. But Caruso wants more answers about rider safety.
KTVI found a recent case in Kansas City over which attorney Andy Smith, of Humphrey, Farrington & McClain, is suing. He alleges an Uber left his client on the side of Interstate 35 back in November.
“[She was stranded] in a manner that really left her with no options but to walk along the highway to try to get somewhere,” Smith said. “She was trying to do that and was struck by another party and killed.
“It sent chills down my spine,” Caruso said, “because I got lucky.”
Caruso hopes video surveillance at the gas station can reveal who the mysterious driver was. The screenshot she took offers one of the few clues, but it shows a plate number with at least one too many digits to be legitimate. And that trip, she said, no longer shows up in her history.
“It completely disappeared from the Uber app after I was dropped off,” Caruso said. “There’s zero evidence of it other than I always screenshot my rides. The actual Uber driver who came — not knowing somebody else had grabbed me — that trip is still in the app, available, and it looks like a canceled ride because I wasn’t there to be picked up.”
KTVI has been in contact with Uber over this case, but the company has declined to comment other than to confirm an active investigation.
