‘I felt unsafe’: Teen girl’s horror ordeal after creepy Uber driver locked her in car
A teenage girl has spoken of her horror, claiming an Uber driver locked her in his car and demanded payment, details revealed in a Fair Work Commission ruling.
Allegedly, while the 18-year-old was being taken home in the early morning hours of January 3, the driver canceled the trip and locked the doors of his car until he transferred money to him.
The alleged horror ordeal involved former Uber driver Abdullah Ahmed Mohammed, whose account was disabled following multiple accusations that the man demanded he cancel his trip and transfer money to him.
Details of the allegations were published in the Fair Work Commission decision; The 18-year-old told Uber he left his phone in the front seat to charge during the ride and realized Mr Mohammed had canceled the ride before reaching his home.
According to allegations in the documents, the girl told Uber: “We’re standing in front of my house and I took my phone back like I had it back two minutes ago, three minutes ago.
“As I was walking out he said, ‘Oh, can you pay me?’ he said. And I said, ‘What do you mean, can I pay you?’ I said.
“And he said: ‘The Uber ride was canceled so I need to be paid via bank transfer.’ And I don’t know if he locked the back door or unlocked the doors, but you know the clicks that all locks make… as soon as I reached for the door handle, it closed.”
The driver sent her “$55 or $65” of the $80 he said he owed via wire transfer and got the driver’s phone number, documents said.
“He said, ‘I’ll text you in the morning to pay me the remaining $25.’ And I said, yeah, no problem. OK, like I want to get out of the car.”
“Hi you said you would send me 25 in the morning,” he wrote in a message to FWC.
He blocked his number, and later the same day, Uber temporarily restricted his access to the app.
Mr Mohammed denied the allegation and said it was ‘false’.
The FWC ruling found two mobile bank payments were made to A Mohammed and the 18-year-old was shown a text message saying “25am”. Mr Mohammed said the mobile phone number belonged to him.
The ruling stated that this was the second time Mr Mohammed had been accused of inappropriate behaviour; The first was in July 2025, when another passenger complained that he tried to persuade the passenger to “cancel Uber and pay him more money than I was charged on the app.”
The complaint also stated that “When I told him I would continue the practice, he became visibly angry and began to argue a bit. As a result, he gave me a low star rating, which tarnished my excellent record.”
Mr Mohammed said all the complaints were “false” and accused both passengers of being “drunk” on each occasion, “not wearing a seatbelt” and “behaving inappropriately throughout the journey”.
After two complaints, Uber announced that it would close his account.
Unsatisfied with the closure of his account, Mr Mohammed lodged a Fair Work complaint, claiming that the reports against him were inaccurate and that these reports had been unfairly removed from the app.
He stated that his Uber needed to be reinstated for revenue purposes and requested that the company compensate him for the deactivation of his account.
The Fair Work Commission found that Mr Mohammed’s opt-out was consistent with the Digital Work Platform Opt-Out Act in that he had a right of reply and the process was fair.
