'I almost got kidnapped in South Korea': Woman recounts nerve-wracking Uber ride, but was it just miscommunication?

It was past 3am and Mavis had booked a taxi through Uber to get back to her accommodation from the club.

What was supposed to be a short 15-minute ride took over an hour and made the Singaporean think she was getting kidnapped.

TikTok user Mavissyn shared about her nerve-wracking journey in a video uploaded Friday (June 30): "After I got in[to the taxi], he asked me something in Korean, probably where I was going. He said something-something guest house, and I said, 'Yeah, correct'."

They got on their way, but Mavis claimed that the driver cancelled the Uber trip after they passed the first traffic light.

As she would be paying in cash, Mavis thought little of it, believing the man may be trying to pocket the full fare and avoid paying the ride-hailing app a commission.

Despite the seemingly reasonable explanation, Mavis still opened Naver Map to watch where he was driving, but said she saw he was going straight instead of taking a right turn.

"I was like, 'Okay, I don't doubt him, because he's the local here and probably knows a shorter way to this [guest house]'," she justified. 

When the map rerouted, it shows another right turn but the taxi driver kept going straight. At this point, Mavis felt "freaking scared" as there were no further traffic lights and it appeared that they had gone onto a highway.

She continued: "I was looking at the app, and from 9km [my destination] became 15km, I was getting further and further away from my destination."

As the journey continued, Mavis recalled that she searched for the number of the police hotline in South Korea. She was contemplating asking the driver where he was going, but didn't want to "disturb him" as he was driving and she couldn't speak Korean to communicate with him anyway.

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She was even wondering if she had put in the wrong address to her guest house, as she had to use Korean characters to input her destination on Uber.

But what Mavis thought was a kidnapping could have been a simple miscommunication instead.

When they finally stopped at a traffic light, Mavis showed him her map and asked if they were going to the guest house, but discovered that the driver thought she was a different passenger altogether.

"I was staying at Canvas Guest House, but you know where he was bringing me to? He brought me to a campus," Mavis added.

According to her, the taxi driver told her that he had another ride booked through Kakao, presumably the Kakao T transportation app, to a college campus. He had apparently thought Mavis was his Kakao passenger, thus cancelling the Uber ride.

Though Mavis safely got to her destination in the end, the ride cost her 30,000 won (S$30) instead of the estimated eight to nine thousand won.

[embed]https://www.tiktok.com/@mavissyn/video/7250471942669602049[/embed]

Netizens were unconvinced by Mavis' story in the comments.

"Err, that's a miscomm[unication] sis, not kidnap," one comment read.

Another read: "This wouldn't have happened if you would just open your mouth and ask."

Mavis elaborated in the comments: "Before y’all start commenting more, there were a lot of instances he was damn sus[picious], which was why I even had such thoughts (of kidnap), but I only had  three minutes to talk [in the video]."

She added that she had more of a story to tell about what happened in the time between the taxi driver finding out they were headed to the wrong location and him sending her back.

AsiaOne has contacted Mavis for more information.

In a follow-up video, Mavis shared some of the red flags she got from the taxi driver.

"I've [encountered] drivers who intentionally want to increase the cab fare by driving a longer distance, so I thought he was doing that at first," she said.

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She claimed that she didn't confront the man about it as she felt that the most important thing was reaching her destination.

"And when I got in, he asked me if [the destination] was the something-something guest house. I didn't even hear the words 'canvas' or 'campus'," she elaborated. "And why did I say he was sus[picious]? Because it just feels like the canvas/campus thing was an excuse."

She also had suspicions about whether they were going to a school, as she claimed the driver's map was showing their destination was 1.1km away but they were in an industrial area with no campus in sight.

"Plus when he was explaining to me and thought that I was the Kakao person, he showed me his app," Mavis said.

The app, she claimed, did not have any ongoing rides.

"I may not understand Korean, but I can look at the interface, you know?" Mavis added.

"It was clearly a homepage with nothing [on it]."

[embed]https://www.tiktok.com/@mavissyn/video/7250692382138666241[/embed]

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drimac@asiaone.com

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