An Uber Eats driver in Washington, D.C. had a workday from hell last month. The Hyundai she used for deliveries was stolen while she was at the Union Market food hall. The keys to her personal Lexus, as well as details of her home address, were inside the car. The woman told WRC-TV that it took at most 15 minutes for the thieves to get to her home and steal her other vehicle.
One of the woman’s vehicles was recovered nearly two weeks later in drastically different condition. The Lexus was found abandoned on a street and then towed to an impound lot in Prince George’s County, Maryland. However, the towing company wouldn’t tell her how badly damaged the car was unless she paid the storage fee. She told the television station:
“I asked them, was my truck even driveable? Was it worth me even coming to get it? ‘Cause you think when your car gets stolen, it’s crashed up, damaged, you can’t drive it. So, they were like, ‘Well, we’ll talk to you when you get here with the $463.”
The Lexus was peppered with bullet holes. The driver contacted D.C. Metropolitan Police, and a detective was sent to process the vehicle. Along with a whole bunch of trash, shell casings and drug paraphernalia were found in the interior. The police returned to collect the owner’s DNA to exclude her from three other carjackings across the nation’s capital that the Lexus was tied to.
The woman hasn’t driven the Lexus since, feeling uncomfortable getting behind the wheel of a rolling crime scene. This isn’t the first time that a D.C. food delivery driver has been a target for criminals, either. Another Uber Eats driver had everything stolen from her last week, except her phone – because it wasn’t an iPhone.