A female Gurgaon resident recounted a chilling encounter with an Uber driver that left her terrified and prompted a hasty retreat back home in the early hours of the morning. The incident was shared on Reddit by user kushpyro1, who posted a screenshot of the unsettling conversation with the driver.
In her post on the r/gurgaon subreddit, the user described their anxiety as they prepared to catch a train. “I am shivering while I am actually writing this right now. I have a train in 1 hour, and God knows if I will reach there on time,” they wrote, explaining that they had booked a Priority Sedan cab to the station.
As the driver was approaching, the user decided to check the OTP and opened the Uber chat, where they found a bizarre message from the driver. The screenshot revealed a brief exchange: the rider texted, “I am here. Anand Vihar Terminal drop. Please come,” to which the driver ominously replied, “Go to Anand Vihar. I want to go to kidnap you happily.”
The user expressed their panic, stating, “I don’t know what impulse kicked into me (4 am, barely any sleep and panic after reading text from a guy who is literally a few seconds in front of me), but I thought to cancel the cab.” As they began to cancel the ride, the driver did the same, prompting the user to flee back inside with their luggage. They managed to capture a screenshot just before the cancellation.
While many Reddit users were alarmed by the message, some suggested it might have been a case of autocorrect gone awry. One user commented, “It looks like auto-correct gone wrong. But good thing you took another cab. This was freaky,” while another speculated that it could be a translation mishap, noting that the phrase did not make much sense.
Uber’s response
In a follow-up post, the user noted that they had tried multiple translations to clarify the driver’s message but found that “kidnap” was the only accurate translation for the word “apaharan.”
The user reported the incident to Uber’s Response Team, who assured them that the driver would be indefinitely banned from accepting or seeing their ride requests. “We will contact the driver to understand the issue from their perspective. Disciplinary actions may include sensitising the driver about the impact of their actions/words or termination of their Uber account,” they added.