Olivia Sylvia goes by @Silver.Witch on TikTok. She recently shared the story of a “horrifying” Uber ride with a speeding driver. But as shocking as the actual event was, Uber’s response may have been worse: a $7 credit for her $68, 45-minute nightmare.

She says she arrived at the airport and booked a 45-minute Uber home. At $68, that’s no small fee. She got in the car, and then the driver took off like a bullet out of a gun.

An Uber ride that was ‘reckless endangerment’

Olivia could only describe the ride as “reckless endangerment.” She added that the driver was “going well 20 over, probably more than that on the highway.” Twenty mph over on a surface street is very fast. More than that on the highway could also be terrifying.

She decided not to keep quiet—she still had the app open. “I alerted their emergency services halfway through.” Emergency services asked, “Do you want to switch rides?” But Olivia was scared of antagonizing the driver, who gave her “horrible vibes.” She imagined, “He’d be like, you know, ‘Why are you switching rides?’ Like I just got the vibe that that would make things worse.”

The Uber safety operator texted Olivia the entire way home. “I’m tracking you. I see where you are. I can call the police. Like whatever. Awesome. Cool. Get home safe.”

After the extended ordeal, Olivia finally got home. “After we parked, he was basically like, ‘Get out.’ I was like, ‘All right, bye.’ Like, see you later. Locked my doors, had a breakdown.”

Later, Olivia contacted Uber, hoping for a refund. “I told Uber about it and I called their support and then they were like, ‘Yeah, you know, we reviewed this and we’re going to go ahead and give you like a $7 credit for your future Uber drive.’” When she asked for a refund, she was told, “This is the best we can do.”

Olivia almost took the credit, but then she thought twice. She realized, “That is all that I am worth to them.”

Should Uber refund Olivia’s ride?

I once worked as a rideshare driver (for Lyft, not Uber). I imagine Uber’s customer service gets many refund requests daily. Many of these are probably scams. So it should take stories such as Olivia’s with a grain of salt. That said, she called the emergency line. The operator said, “I’m tracking you.” So this isn’t a he said/she said issue. If the driver wasn’t actually going “20 over,” Uber should just release that data.

I’ll also say, I’m confused why the driver would speed. When I was a driver, I got paid by the mile, and by the minute. Hurrying would only reduce my fare. If Uber no longer pays drivers by the minute, then it should dock their fare for speeding. Otherwise, it is incentivizing these “horrifying” experiences. You can see Olivia’s original TikTok video embedded below: