At 2:30 in the morning, with the app showing her Uber still three minutes away, coworkers came to tell @mackenzieeeep that her ride was outside. A man in a black Toyota had pulled up at her workplace, she says, and was asking for her by name.

“I’m here to pick up Mackenzie,” is how she repeats his words in a TikTok filmed outdoors in the dark, with “VERIFY YOUR UBERS BEFORE ENTERING BECAUSE WHAAAAT” written across the screen. Kenz, as her profile calls her, had just finished a shift. The car she had ordered was a silver Ford.

“You Have a Black Toyota”

According to her video, the man told the people she works with, “I’m her Uber,” and asked where she was. They came to get her: “Hey, your Uber’s here.” Her answer to them was immediate. “It’s not my Uber. Still three minutes away.”

She walked out anyway and saw the car. “My car is not a black Toyota. It’s a silver Ford,” she says. She told the man he was not her ride. He answered, in her telling, “Yeah, yeah, this is it. This is it.” She did not budge. “No, you have a black Toyota. No, I’m not getting in your car.”

That is when, she says, he got out of the Toyota and came over, repeating, “I’m your Uber. I’m your Uber.” She describes it as “trying to get me in the car.” She kept saying no until the silver Ford pulled up, and she got into that one. The man, she says, was still standing outside his car as she did.

Two things about it bother her on camera. One is the persistence: a driver told he has the wrong passenger, she reasons, would move on and look for more fares. The other is the caption she addressed to the company: “@Uber how did he know my name!!” The video has no answer to that.

In the Ford she told her driver what had happened. “Dude, this is so weird,” she recalls saying. “That guy knew my name.” She says the driver’s reaction was “Wait, what?” followed by “Good thing you didn’t get in their car.” Her last words in the clip are an instruction to other women to check the license plate.

He Had Her Name. She Had the Minutes, the Make and the Color

Read the app before you reach the curb. Kenz walked outside already knowing three facts: her car was three minutes out, it was silver, and it was a Ford. That is why the exchange was short. Before you step out, look at the minutes remaining, the make, the color and the plate.

Do not let your name settle it. In her account the man had her first name, and it was the only detail he had right. A driver saying your name is not the check. The check is the plate on the car against the plate on your screen, then the make and color.

If the app says three minutes, the car at the curb is not yours. She said so before she had even seen the Toyota. A ride that turns up while the app still shows it on the way is a reason to stay where you are and look at the screen again.

Name the mismatch and refuse. She said exactly what was wrong (“you have a black Toyota”) and did not get in. She was still at her own workplace, with coworkers on site. If a driver keeps insisting, go back inside and wait there until the app shows your car has arrived.

If you are the coworker, do not make the introduction. Her colleagues took the man at his word and went to fetch her. When a driver asks for someone by name, tell that person a car is asking for them and let them check their own app before anyone points them toward it.

Tell your real driver, then tell the company. She did the first once she was in the car and tagged Uber in her caption. While it is fresh, write down the time, the pickup spot and the make and color of the car that was not yours, and send that to the ride company.