CHARLOTTE, N.C. — EDITOR'S NOTE: WCNC Charlotte has removed the Lyft driver's name to protect her identity
A Lyft driver filed a police report after she says she was repeatedly harassed after asking one of her customers to put on a mask.
Now, Lyft tells us that passenger is banned from the rideshare service indefinitely.
For two months, the Lyft driver, which WCNC Charlotte is choosing not to name to protect her identity, has been turning on the pink Lyft light and picking up passengers.
"Lyft has been great, I hadn't encountered any issues," she said.
On Monday night, what was supposed to be a quick shift turned into a nightmare.
"I received the call to pick up a passenger from an Uptown strip club prior to this call, I had to turn down two customers from another bar because they didn't have their mask on," she said.
She told WCNC Charlotte she picked up a man and his girlfriend from the club; before that, she texted the customer, making sure he had a mask.
"First he told me we are going to put them on, but 'They don't work, it's so stupid,' and then I thought he was going to say that and get in the car because his hotel was four minutes around the corner, and I was like, you know he's not really going to keep going with this," she said.
According to her, he did keep going -- and when he realized she wasn't going to drop him off at the hotel, that's when it got worse.
"When I pulled back up to the front of Uptown Cabaret he said he noticed I wasn't taking him to his hotel, he got really angry. He said 'Oh, you're not taking me to my hotel,' he leaned up between the seats, got in my face maskless, and told me that he would hit me in my head, and he kicked my car," she said.
She called 911 while the Lyft customer kept calling her.
"At the end of the night, it was a total of 50 calls this guy has made," she said.
She told WCNC Charlotte the man left three derogatory messages on her phone.
"Thank God nothing physically happened to me, but mentally, I'm all tore up," she said.
She and Lyft were able to file police reports.
"Safety is fundamental to Lyft, and the behavior described is unacceptable," Lyft said in a statement to WCNC Charlotte. "There is no place for discrimination or harassment of any kind on the platform. We have permanently removed the rider from the Lyft community and have reached out to the driver to offer our support."
WCNC Charlotte tried calling the number on the call log, but because Lyft uses a ghost number for drivers and customers to contact each other when the app is open, we could not get hold of the man.
Lyft does require passengers to wear a mask during the ride as part of their community rules.
"I hope that people realize that it's not personal it has nothing to do with the beliefs, it's just following the rules," she said.
Contact Meghan Bragg at mbragg@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.