The midnight hustle: How a fraudster tricked a sleepy Uber driver and cleaned out his account

Sunday, 5 July 2026

Driver Dhruva Javkar had his weekly earnings cleaned out of his Uber account by a scammer who pretended to be from Uber support.

Frustrated with the response from Uber, he contacted Stuff.

Within a day of us asking questions, Uber had reimbursed him.

It's Solving stuff Sunday! For the past 10 months, Stuff has been solving your problems via our Solving stuff initiative. Today we're running a special edition looking at four reader complaints. You can read about a woman’s lost luggage here, Auckland airport over-charging here and a couple’s problem with wayward golfballs here.

In this instalment: A scammer pretending to be from Uber support gained control of a driver’s account and cleaned out his earnings. Stuff set about trying to get his money back.

The problem

Uber driver Dhruva Javkar was driving his car in Wellington in the dead of night on June 21 when he received a phone call.

The man on the other end said he was with Uber support; there had been a complaint that someone else had been driving Javkar’s car using his account - an offence under New Zealand law.

“The reason I believed him was, he called me at 3am and knew I was driving on nights - he said, ‘I can see that you’re driving right now’,” Javkar says.

“Also, it was a Kiwi accent, that sounded more legitimate to me.”

It was a short call - the man said Uber support would investigate and get back to him.

“I finished my shift at 4am, I came home, I went to sleep and at 11 o'clock I again received a call from him.

“I was in a super deep sleep, but I picked up the call.”

The man advised Javkar that the complaint against him was “fake” and he was closing the case.

“He said, ‘In order to close your case I need a code from you, which I have sent to your number’.”

Sure enough, Javkar’s phone pinged with a four-digit code from what appeared to be a legitimate Uber number.

“I was like, ‘ok, fine’. I wasn’t using my brain because I was in a deep sleep when he called.

“I ended up giving him the code.”

“He said, ‘Your case is closed, you don’t have to worry’ and I thought that was the end of it - I went back to sleep.”

What went wrong

Javkar isn’t sure how the scammer got hold of his phone number, but he suspects he used it to attempt to sign into his Uber account on a laptop, prompting a code to be sent to the phone, which he then convinced Javkar to provide.

That evening, he saw an email from Uber saying there had been a login to his account from a new device, including the IP address and where the person was logging in from: Auckland.

“That's when it hit me, that I’ve been scammed.”

He went into the Uber app on his phone and checked his payments account.

“I found that my bank details were deleted and he had changed it to his bank account number.”

Javkar was hopeful that he’d spotted the hack in time, as his weekly earnings weren’t due to be transferred from his Uber ‘wallet’ to his bank account until the following day.

He quickly changed the bank account details back to his own, and changed the password.

But he was too late - Uber also has an instant cash-out option so drivers can access the money in their wallet more quickly, and the scammer had done this, cleaning out the $726 that was in the wallet.

Javkar thinks the scammer might be a former Uber driver or employee, or someone who knows the company’s systems.

He laid a complaint with police, providing the information that he had, including the possible IP address used to log in to his account.

He reached out to Uber support on the social media platform X, even tagging in CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, asking if Uber would consider reimbursing his stolen wages in the circumstances.

Someone got back saying the matter had been escalated to the appropriate team.

In a later email, an Uber representative said “it appears that your account may have been accessed illegitimately using your login credentials through a third-party source” and advised him how to better secure the account.

Javkar wasn’t satisfied, asking that Uber clearly indicate whether it would be reimbursing his money.

He told Uber he took responsibility “for being deceived by a sophisticated scam”.

But he questioned the company’s security measures, given someone had been able to change his bank account details, instantly withdraw his earnings and do both without any additional identity verification.

He asked that Uber carry out a full investigation and provide more information, such as the full bank account number his money was transferred into, to help police.

He also asked that it implement stronger security protocols, such as mandatory verification through an authenticator app before changing bank account details and a “cooling off period” before newly added bank accounts could receive funds.

Javkar says it was frustrating not being able to get hold of anyone from Uber locally.

“When I called it went to a call centre in India.”

He says his main motivation in reaching out to Stuff was to warn others - already several people on an Uber drivers community page on Facebook have said they’ve been hit by an identical scam.

What we did

Stuff contacted the Uber global press office, based in California, with Javkar’s concerns.

Within a few hours Uber had reimbursed his lost earnings as a “one-time gesture of goodwill”.

A statement issued through a New Zealand PR firm said Uber was sorry to hear of Javkar’s experience, and it took reports of account compromise and impersonation scams seriously.

“We have investigated this incident and have since been in direct contact with Mr Javkar to help secure his account and support him with his loss of earnings.”

Uber encouraged drivers to “stay vigilant and watch out for … phishing scams and impersonation attempts.

“Uber will never call, text or email to ask for passwords, one-time verification codes, or financial information, and anyone who suspects their account has been compromised should report it through the Uber Help Centre.”

The statement said Uber’s review of the incident was consistent with a “bad actor” gaining unauthorized access to a driver’s account and making changes to account settings, including banking details.

It said the company had strict security protocols for such situations, and worked with drivers to re-secure access and ensure stolen earrings were issued back, and future payouts directed correctly.

Uber had a dedicated Incident Response Team (IRT) to handle reports of accounts being compromised, available all hours to respond to any incidents.

Did we solve it?

Javkar got his money back, but he remains concerned that drivers will continue to be scammed unless Uber improves its online security and police act quickly to “nab” the offenders.

He is frustrated that police have yet to link him with an investigator, despite, he claims, repeated requests.

Inspector Dean Silvester, Wellington area police commander, said in a statement police had received Javkar’s report and were making inquiries.

“We are also engaging with [Uber] to determine if other instances of this alleged scam have been observed,” he said.

“Police are also working with the company to better understand what actions they may be taking to keep their drivers safe.”