Munish Bansal was having lunch on Saturday afternoon when he got an email notification from Uber. He had been charged $200 for an Uber ride nearly 17,000 kilometers away in Montreal in Canada.
While Bansal had never ordered an Uber or even downloaded Uber app, he was certain someone had used his credit card details and his personal information to pay for his own Uber ride.
He quickly decided to investigate with his bank, and got his card blocked immediately.
The email notification Munish received. Source: Supplied
Within an hour, he also reported the matter to the police.
Interestingly, another ride was booked in Montreal using the same credit card details a short while later. Since then, he has also informed Uber that his credit card was being misused.
While Uber has agreed to reverse the "unauthorised charges", a communication from the company said the " sign in information seemed to have been compromised/phished from another website" which seemed to be a "highly sophisticated fraud".
The company has also assured that they are trying to ensure that this does not occur again to the same account. But, Munish continues to be confounded by how his credit card details got leaked.
“I have never ordered an Uber ride, or even downloaded the app on my phone. I don’t know how my details got leaked.”
Munish has never been to Montreal. But he visited Toronto last year in November where he had used his credit card for some purchases. He suspects, his card could have been skimmed then.
Munish will now have to reset all his direct debits with the new card. However, he is relieved that his promptness prevented any major monetary loss.
“We keep getting a lot of emails that we just ignore. But, I have realized that we must pay attention to emails, especially related to monetary transactions,” says Munish.
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