Uber Driver Takes Customer's Suitcase, Returns It Days Later
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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - A short Uber ride turned into a long ordeal for a Dallas man after his suitcase disappeared for days. And while he battled with the company, he reached out to CBS11 to help get his back bag.
Now, Martine Hamblen and his suitcase are finally reunited.
"It feels really amazing," he says. "The big thing was my inhaler, because I have really bad asthma."
Seventy-two hours earlier, Hamblen ordered an Uber. The driver, Uber told him, was hearing-impaired.
"He helped me get my luggage into the trunk, and he dropped me off at where my location was, and when I got there, I exited the car. I was trying to reach for the trunk and then he just drove off," says Hamblen.
He tried texting him, but messaging capabilities end after the ride. Uber told him repeatedly to call the driver through their app, but the driver could only text.
"It was just hoops around hoops, and I'm trying to do work and everything, and I just want my bag," Hamblen says.
What was especially concerning was Uber's policy about lost items. Their website says, "Uber and drivers do not bear responsibility for items left in a vehicle after a trip ends."
"It makes me not want to take Uber again, because I'm trusting you guys to take me where I'm going, and I have my stuff with me, and if you're going to take off with it, I don't know," he says.
Uber eventually had an interpreter reach both parties. Hamblen was told the bag would be delivered yesterday.
"I waited three hours for my luggage and still nothing," he says.
Late Thursday, he learned that his suitcase was at the Uber Dallas office, and on Friday, he picked it up. But his frustration remains.
"It was just a simple Uber ride, and next time I kind of just want to take a taxi."
Uber calls this a very unusual situation and said in a statement, "We apologize to Martine for this inconvenience and delay on our end to help communicate between him and his driver. There seems to have been a miscommunication here and we could have done a better job to help resolve this issue."
They also refunded the nearly $13 trip.
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