优步司机什么“鬼”

一些优步用户下单约车，结果发现接单司机的相片扭曲，而且面容可怖，同时在车抵达之前，他们的行程突然开始并很快结束。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

creepy诡异的；令人毛骨悚然的['kriːpɪ]

spook惊吓；鬼怪般地出没[spuːk]

squelch消除；镇压；压碎[skweltʃ]

exploit开拓；剥削[ɪk'splɒɪt; ek-]

subsidy补贴；津贴['sʌbsɪdɪ]

fade-out渐隐；消失 ['feid'aut]

Mystery of China’s‘ghost’Uber drivers（545words）

By Sherry Fei Ju and Lucy Hornby in Beijin

It’s not quite Halloween,but an eruption of creepy faces on driver profiles at Uber in China has spooked potential passengers and raised suspicions of an organised attempt to scam the car-booking app.

Some Uber users have booked cars only to be assigned drivers with distorted photos and scary faces,while their trips suddenly begin and end before a car has arrived. In other cases,“ghost”cars appear in the app but never arrive,resulting in false charges.

The incidents come at a time of transition for Uber,which merged its China operations with rival Didi Chuxing in August. The similarity of the“ghost driver”incidents in a number of different Chinese cities over the past month imply an organised attempt to exploit staffing gaps during the handover,experts said.

Uber said the complaints reflected“individual drivers’scamming behaviour”,adding that it would“use technology to squelch such behaviour”and block the accounts involved.

Nathy Chen,an Uber customer,had an experience typical of many recent complaints. She booked an Uber car but the driver that accepted had a scary picture. Before she had left her building to meet the car,the driver had already initiated the trip and ended it 30 seconds later,leaving her with a small charge of Rmb9（$1.40).

Uber has been refunding the charges to customers who complain.

“It was at night and from the driver’s location I was expecting the driver to arrive very soon. The map showed the driver just passed me,but there was no car around,”said Veaer Wang from Shandong province,who realised the next day he had encountered a‘ghost driver’when he saw similar complaints online.“The road was very narrow and there’s no way a car could have passed me without me seeing it.”

It’s not the first time that Chinese scammers have developed sophisticated means to exploit the car-booking service. Scams were particularly common when both Uber and local rival Didi Chuxing were offering generous subsidies to both passengers and drivers in an effort to gain market share. That battle ended with the merger deal last month,in which each company took a 20 per cent share of the other and Didi acquired Uber’s China operations.

But the recent rash of“ghost drivers”are very different from traditional individual scammers,said one analyst with a leading data group.“They seem to be an organised group with the technical back-up for such incidents,and not without a purpose,”he said.“This is a time of transition for Uber after the merger with Didi. A lot of the team work handover has not been finalised yet,which gives scammers an opportunity t o exploit the system.”

Yin Zuoning,Uber’s chief anti-scamming officer,recently joined Yidao,another car-booking company,contributing to the staffing gaps during the transition.

Since the merger was announced,both companies have reduced the subsidies that in Uber’s case were costing $1bn a year. Uber’s popularity has already begun to fade,with its app on Apple’s Chinese App Store dropping from number one to number 80 among all iPhone apps and fifth place among travel apps.

A similar fade-out occurred after Kuaidi Dache,a top ranking car-booking company before it merged with Didi Dache in February 2015 to form Didi Chuxing.

1.What it the performance of China’s‘ghost’Uber drivers?

A. the trips suddenly begin and end before a car has arrived

B. distorted photos and scary faces

C. cars appear in the app but never arrive

D. all of them

答案(1)

2.When did‘ghost’Uber drivers appear for the first time in China?

A. February

B. May

C. August

D. September

答案(2)

3.How to“squelch such behavior”by Uber said?

A. increase subsidies

B. use technology

C. discharge of contract with Didi Chuxing

D. dismiss the drivers

答案(3)

4.Which one is not the difference between the incidents and other traditional individual scammers?

A. primary purpose for money

B. organized

C. with the technical back-up

D. with a purpose

答案(4)

(1) 答案：D.all of them

解释：接单司机的相片扭曲，而且面容可怖，同时在车抵达之前，他们的行程突然开始并很快结束。还有一些情况是，“幽灵”车出现在应用中，但从未在等车的乘客面前出现，导致虚假收费。

(2) 答案：C.August

解释：这些事件发生在优步中国今年8月与竞争对手滴滴出行(Didi Chuxing)合并之后的过渡期间。

(3) 答案：B.use technology

解释：优步表示，将“使用技术手段打击此类行为”，并封掉相关账户。

(4) 答案：A.primary purpose for money

解释：最近相继出现的“幽灵司机”与传统的个人刷单者非常不同：他们似乎是一个有组织的集团，拥有刷单技术支持，而且并非毫无目的。