People Keep Getting Into Random Cars Thinking They're Ubers

If it looks like an Uber, and drives like an Uber, is it an Uber? No, not always.

A good reminder, says Valleywag's Nitasha Tiku, who reported this morning that people keep getting into random vehicles assuming the cars are Ubers or Lyfts arriving to pick them up.

Tech investor Ashwin Deshmukh told Tiku he drives a 2009 SUV and has a GPS docked in the dashboard, so people often wrongly assume he's there to be a personal driver to whomever ordered a car to their location. He also said one time, the mistaken clients asked if they could just pretend he was an Uber and take them to their desired location.

And he's not alone. Tiku collected a bunch of tweets with people who claimed to have had the same problem.

Tonight marks the second time a random person has tried to get in my car because they thought I was an Uber driver. THE SECOND TIME.

- Jamie Coletta (@jamiecoletta) February 7, 2014

the uber effect: a random dude just tried to get in my car. #sfpriusproblems

- Elaine Filadelfo (@urchkin) June 10, 2014

Time to lock your doors, folks.

You can read Tiku's full account of the issue on Valleywag.