When Kassidy Meredith, 24, called for a Lyft on Jan. 25, she just wanted to get to work.
Instead, she told BuzzFeed News that her driver showed her porn without her consent — and now the driver knows where she lives and works.
“It was so uncomfortable and I just froze up,” Meredith said.
The driver was removed from Lyft on Thursday, after BuzzFeed News contacted the company about the incident.
Meredith works at an adult novelty store in Richmond, Virginia. She said her driver began showing her porn and speaking to her explicitly once he noticed the store was her destination.
“He [took] it upon himself to show me porn of a woman masturbating with a vibrator, and he was asking me if I knew what it was and can I get that for him,” she said.
The driver also kept “going on about how big his dick is, what kind of toys he wanted to use, [and] how I could help him,” she said.
“I don’t know what my reaction was supposed to be. I didn’t want to say anything to him,” Meredith said. “I responded with...just really short simple [sentences], trying to be a dick without anything worse happening.”
Meredith said she felt “absolutely” scared when the driver dropped her off and “told me that he’d be in later for me to help him.”
“This man knows where I live, he knows where I work now,” she said.
After the ride ended, Meredith reported the incident to Lyft, calling it an “intimidating, uncomfortable, and completely unethical” experience. She said she hoped he would be “removed as a Lyft driver so no one else has to deal with this.”
Lyft initially got back to Meredith with what she called a “scripted, generic response” in which they apologized for the incident and thanked her for her feedback, but did not offer her a refund or take any further action.
“Safety is paramount to everything we do here at Lyft, and we are constantly working to foster a safe, respectful, and conscientious community,” the response said. “Your feedback is one of the best tools we have to continue to improve the Lyft platform.”
Finding the response deeply unsatisfying, Meredith replied to ask “what exactly is being done?”
“I’ve heard of many horror stories of things like this happening to women with Lyft and it seems there is never serious resolvement,” she said.
Meredith called it “sickening to think that I just paid for a ride where I was harassed” and said she would stop using Lyft if they didn’t take further action.
A Lyft representative responded that they had “addressed the driver in a way [they] felt appropriate,” and that they “have two sides but no real proof,” so “it’s one person’s word against the other.”
The Lyft representative said she was “not condoning the behavior of the driver” and had told him it was “very inappropriate” — and appeared to confirm with the driver the incident had, in fact, happened.
“When speaking with the driver, he was adamant that you consented to this conversation and that you were engaged in the conversation,” the representative said.
That’s the email “that really pissed me off,” Meredith said.
“Because that sounds like he admitted what I said happened, but said I consented to it. And of course, why wouldn’t he say that?” she said.
At this point, Meredith responded that she would “never be using Lyft again” and asked to at least be refunded for the ride.
The Lyft representative further apologized, saying “as a woman” she is “truly empathetic to the situation.”
Meredith was refunded by Lyft at the end of the email interaction.
After BuzzFeed News reached out to Lyft about the incident, the driver had his account permanently deactivated, Kaelan Richards, senior manager of safety and policy communications for Lyft, said.
“The safety of the Lyft community is our top priority and we are deeply concerned to hear about this incident,” Richards said. “This kind of behavior is absolutely unacceptable, and our response to our passenger fell short. We have permanently deactivated the driver, and reached out to the passenger to offer our support.”