Uber has come under fire from a Pretoria resident who claims the e-hailing company failed to provide key information for a police investigation when his Uber driver allegedly robbed him.
Pretoria resident Francois van Wyk indicated in a recent post on Uber’s Facebook page that the experience had left him “disturbed and traumatised”.
The incident allegedly occurred during a 3km ride on Uber Black he ordered on 6 September 2025.
This is notable as Uber Black is the company’s premium service.
The driver arrived in a white BMW 3 Series, which he identified by the number plates, matching them with those shown by the app.
Van Wyk entered the vehicle, taking the front passenger seat, but failed to notice another person already seated in the back.
“That person then put his arm around my neck from behind. The Uber driver threatened me, instructing me to stop struggling or his accomplice would kill me,” Van Wyk said.
“I was forced to hand over my phone. The Uber driver ripped off my Garmin watch from my arm. The driver also demanded my wallet while being strangled by the accomplice from the back seat.”
After taking what they could from him, the driver and his accomplice left van Wyk stranded on the roadside.
Following the incident, van Wyk said he made several attempts to contact Uber through the Help tab on their website, where he requested urgent contact via his wife’s phone.
He received no answer from any of these requests and would later drive to Uber’s head office in Sandton.
At the head office, a security guard told him the staff were on lunch and that he should report the matter to a police station instead.
“I had hoped to obtain digital evidence from Uber to support the police investigation before filing a report,” he said.
“After reporting to the police and opening a case, I returned to Uber’s head office seeking assistance but was once again turned away by security.”
Van Wyk also noted that Uber charged him a R30 cancellation fee for the trip where he was robbed, which he suspects is because the driver cancelled the trip to eliminate evidence of the crime.
Warning to South Africans
Van Wyk has warned the public to be cautious when using e-hailing services and has called on Uber to improve its support system and driver vetting process.
This is not an isolated incident, either, as other Uber passengers have alleged to have suffered similar incidents with the platform’s drivers robbing or collaborating with criminals to steal passenger belongings.
The South African Police Service has revealed that in 2023, there were at least seven cases of robbery and assault opened against Uber drivers in a single month.
Uber denied that its drivers were responsible for these attacks and that the incidents were carried out by “third-party” individuals.
It also alleged that drivers had climbed into the wrong vehicles in some cases and, in others, were outright lying.
One such alleged case is with Kayleigh Marx, who previously reported that she and a few friends were pepper-sprayed and their iPhones stolen by an Uber driver.
Uber had said that the driver’s story matched the GPS points Uber noted in its investigation and that Marx had changed her drop-off location from Menlo Park to Arcadia during the trip.
“We can see the driver had a pickup, then we see him leaving and coming back,” Uber said at the time. “Then he went on working normally, doing trips and getting five-star reviews.”
Marx denied these claims, noting that the alleged locations of the drive did not match the context of the situation.
Namely, she and her friends had no reason to go to Arcadia, as the guesthouse they were staying at was in Menlo Park – the same area they were initially picked up in.
“I’ve never been to Arcadia in my entire life, why would I want to go from Menlo Park to there at the end of the night if our guesthouse was in Menlo Park?” she said.
While Uber does use GPS tracking on its drivers’ phones, it is hypothetically possible for a driver with underhanded intent to hand off their phone to an accomplice to falsify the recorded movements.
Uber also couldn’t provide dashcam footage, as such data is automatically deleted after 72 hours.
Marx noted that other users should take extra steps to stay safe, as checking a car’s number plate and driver’s PIN isn’t sufficient.
“Please check the boot, make sure the child lock is not on and make sure your Uber takes the correct route,” she said.
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