Dane Wilcox is the proprietor of FYM Hot Sauce. In December he took an Uber in Boston. When he got out of his car at the end of the trip the driver took off with most of his stuff in the car. Wilcox filed a police report and contacted Uber. “Everything I tried amounted to nothing,” he said, “and Uber kept responding with the same response, ‘We are not responsible for anything that happens in the car. Drivers are independent contractors and we can’t make them do anything if they say they hadn’t seen your bag.'”
After a lot of sleuthing on his part, Wilcox gathered a bunch of evidence and presented it to Uber.
The Uber rep told me that it was fishy that I happened to have such a preponderance of evidence, and accused me of setting the whole situation up to scam their company. I told him that it was lucky in some respects, like the security video, but I had no interest in doing all of this to scam them; it was a waste of my time and money as well as an insult to my integrity. I was then referred to the Terms and Conditions of the app which says that Uber is not responsible for what happens in the cars. I let them know I had done my research, and just because they make that statement doesn’t mean it is true. No matter how many times I proclaim that I am the King of England, at no point is it a true statement.
Wilcox ended up taking Uber to court, and after two hearings, he won. Uber was forced to send him a check for $4,000.
Wilcox’s account of the ordeal is long, but interesting.