Vomit fraud is a type of

fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...

in which a driver of a vehicle for hire falsely claims that an "incident requiring cleanup" occurred while a passenger was riding in the driver's vehicle. The company then charges the passenger a "cleanup fee" to reimburse the driver for having to clean the vehicle.

History

The ''

Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a List of communities in Miami-Dade County, Florida, city in western Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County and the M ...

'' first reported on the issue in July 2018. Passengers may face a fee of up to for causing incidents requiring significant cleanups of drivers' vehicles. By filing false reports of these incidents, drivers will receive the cleanup fees from the customers even though no incident occurred.

Criminality

Due to company-friendly terms of service typically agreed to by passengers, police departments have been reluctant to press criminal charges against individuals who engage in the fraud, instead treating these cases as civil matters. However, in late October 2018, a

Harwood, North Dakota Harwood is a city in Cass County, North Dakota, United States. The population was 794 at the 2020 census. It has become a bedroom community of the nearby Fargo-Moorhead area. Harwood was founded in 1881. History Harwood was platted in 1881 whe ...

, man who had driven for both

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), package ...

and Lyft was charged with two counts of attempted

theft of property Theft is the act of taking another person's property or Service (economics), services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal sho ...

for two separate instances of false cleanup claims. In one instance, the man was caught on

surveillance video Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly t ...

purchasing food, throwing it on the inside and outside of his vehicle, taking photos of the alleged damage, then running the vehicle through a car wash, all after he had already dropped his passenger off at his destination.

References

Fraud Deception Carsharing {{crime-stub