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DENVER — A Denver woman is horrified after learning she jumped into a car driven by a man posing as a Lyft ride-share driver.

Ashleigh O’Neal says she depends on ride share services to get to medical appointments.

“I’m on dialysis, so when I don’t feel well enough, I can take an Uber or Lyft,” she said.

O’Neal makes it clear that she’s never had a bad experience with a real Lyft or Uber driver, but when she needed to catch a ride from a Denver parking lot, she was targeted by an angry impostor who actually knew her name. After entering the 4-door silver Hyundai, O’Neal noticed that he had a taxi meter, but no Lyft sign.

“I  told him, ‘You’re not Lyft,’ and he turned off the meter and said, ‘I’ll take you wherever you want.’ and I said, ‘No, I’m not going anywhere with you,’”  O’Neal said.

She says she then opened the door and got out of the car. O’Neal said the man yelled at her, “to tell me to get the ‘F’ back in the car.”

Eventually, the man left just minutes before her real Lyft driver arrived.

“I was curled up in the back crying, I was so scared I was shaking,” O’Neal said.

Lyft issued a statement to the FOX31 Problem Solvers:

“Safety is fundamental to Lyft and we take these reports extremely seriously. We’re grateful that the passenger ended up riding with the correct driver. Since the beginning, we have worked hard to design policies and features that protect our community, including in-app photos of the driver and vehicle, and real-time ride tracking.”

Ride share companies tell the Problem Solvers it’s important to report any suspicious activity to their critical response line. O’Neal warns anyone using ride share services to always utilize the safety features of their apps, “read license plate numbers and be sure there’s signage before you make a mistake like I did.”