Exclusive: Everyone's forgotten something in a rideshare or know someone who has, whether it was a bag, wallet or phone.
It's a harmless mistake and one that should be easy to fix.
But in the era of mobile apps, two-factor authentication, and constantly surging rideshare demand, getting lost property back can be a nightmare.
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Uber and DiDi, Australia's most popular rideshare platforms, both encourage riders to report lost items in the mobile app first.
But you can't do that if your phone – the third most frequently forgotten item in Ubers last year – is in a car on the other side of town.
"The most effective way to retrieve a lost item is to contact the driver-partner through the app," an Uber spokesperson told 9news.com.au.
"If a phone has been left behind, riders can also log in to their account via a computer to submit a request."
Riders can also report lost items through a friend or relative's Uber app.
9news.com.au understands riders may be charged a $20 fee once an item is returned to compensate the driver.
DiDi also encourages riders to report missing items on the mobile app, or contact support via Facebook or Instagram if they can't access the app.
"When a rider reports an item lost, DiDi's team contacts the driver to see whether they can locate the item," Dan Jordan, head of external affairs at DiDi, told 9news.com.au.
"If located, DiDi facilitates contact so the rider and driver can arrange for the return of the item.
"If the item cannot be located, riders are encouraged to report the matter to police."
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Riders may also offer an optional one-off $20 reward to incentivise drivers to return lost items.
It all sounds simple enough, but in practice getting a lost item back can be a nightmare.
Jenna, who asked not to have her surname published, forgot her phone in an Uber last month.
"Without my phone, I couldn't get on the app," she told 9news.com.au.
"And when I tried to log in on my laptop at home, it sent an authentication code to my phone which was missing."
Have you got a story? Contact reporter Maddison Leach at [email protected]
Uber doesn't have a customer service number for riders in Australia.
Jenna had to wait for her partner to get home and use their phone to call her own, which the driver answered about three hours later.
By then they were on the other side of the city, so Jenna offered them cash to bring her phone back.
"They would have had to refuse rides so they could come all the way back to me to return it, so it felt right to offer [money]," she said.
Jenna wanted to compensate the driver for lost time and income.
But other passengers have told 9news.com.au that rideshare drivers demanded cash in exchange for returning forgotten items.
Taylor* left her work laptop in an Uber and was uncomfortable with the reporting process.
"It was easy to speak to the driver and for Uber to flag it, but I hate that I had to personally talk to the driver," she told 9news.com.au.
"I would have liked a rep to help me because I genuinely didn't know what to do."
Taylor claimed the driver asked for $200 cash – about half of her weekly rent – to return the laptop.
It was a breach of Uber's Community Guidelines, but Taylor didn't know that.
"He was an older man and I was a scared 23-year-old," she said, so she agreed to pay.
Wanting the situation to be over, she didn't report what happened to Uber or police once she got her laptop back.
Eve* did contact police when a DiDi driver allegedly asked her to pay $150 to return the bag she left in his car, or collect it from his Mt Druitt home late at night.
She said NSW Police urged her not to go to the man's home but "couldn't do much else".
"They said it would still be under DiDi's jurisdiction," she said.
"I gave the officer the driver's phone number [and] the officer said he would try to call the driver to encourage him to give the bag to a local police station."
Eve's unsure if police contacted the driver but he eventually agreed to leave her bag at a police station for her to collect.
When DiDi responded to her lost item report, it was to say the driver hadn't found it.
"I feel like they weren't really doing their due diligence, as it seemed obvious he would say there was nothing lost in the car so he's not caught out," Eve said.
She claimed the driver also deleted their in-app chat messages about the bag.
*Names changed for privacy.
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