NOTE: Two of the photos included with this story appear to include vomit, which some people may wish to avoid. 
 
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 DELRAY BEACH, Fla. -- A Delray Beach man sounded off on social media after his one mile Uber ride home turned into a $165 cleaning fee. He claims his Uber driver ripped him off, submitting fake photos of vomit in his car after the ride. 
 
 There wasn't anything extraordinary about David Shoultz' Uber ride home in Delray Beach Monday night. 
 
 "We got to my house, got out, I tapped him [Uber driver] on the shoulder, 'thanks for the ride, have a goodnight," said Shoultz. 
 
 But the next day, Shoultz had a surprising charge. 
 
 "I see a $165 cleaning fee," he said. 
 
 Shoultz was confused about the fee. 
 
 "I was like, 'did I have dirty shoes or something?' " added Shoutlz. 
 
 He reached out to Uber support and what they emailed him made him sick. 
 
 "They forward me these two photos that don't look anything like car I rode in, but there was vomit everywhere," said Shoultz. 
 
 Uber drivers have to submit a picture anytime a passenger leaves a mess in the car so that they can be compensated for it. Then the rider is charged a cleaning fee. The problem is Shoultz said this wasn't his mess. 
 
 "This is not a mess, this is fraud," he said. "How do they know that photo is not just off Google somewhere?" 
 
 Shoultz said he tried to tell his side of the story. 
 
 "I think you're missing the point, like he, this is fraudulent. What he's doing is stealing from me and you're siding with him because he has a random photo," added Shoultz. 
 
 Uber wasn't issuing a refund so Shoultz took his frustrations to social media. A few hours later he got a response from Uber. 
 
 "Someone called be from Uber saying we saw your post, we're looking into this, we're going to investigate the driver," he said. 
 
 The company says it refunded Shoultz the cleaning fee and trip cost and apologized for any inconvenience. Uber is investigating the matter. 
 
 Moving forward Shoultz said he's documenting all of his rides. 
 
 "I'm going to take photos or a quick little video with the driver, 'thank you for the ride, have a goodnight," said Shoultz. 

 It's not that he seeks out drunk passengers, insists Uber driver Will Preston. Curtis Preston 
 
 Uber driver Will Preston learned his lesson about inebriated passengers the hard way. The first time someone got sick in his car he wasn't prepared, and the mess took him off the road and cost him $140 to get his car cleaned. Uber reimbursed him $150, but he lost a night of work. 
 
 After that first experience, he armored his car against anything a passenger who's had one too many drinks could throw at it. 
 
 And he had an important realization: The compensation fee Uber gives drivers whose vehicles get sullied by the boozy or the bilious is designed to cover the cost of getting the car cleaned professionally; if he just did the work himself, he'd be able to keep those cleaning fees and make a little extra money. 
 
 Preston now patrols the streets of San Diego in his gray Toyota Prius equipped with medical gloves, cleaning solution, a portable wet vacuum cleaner, and, most important, Febreze. Rather than steering clear of the inebriated, he cheerfully welcomes them aboard with the zeal of a Ferris-wheel operator. 
 
 It's not that he seeks out drunk passengers, he insists. Rather, it's the surge pricing typically in effect when the bars close that brings him out at that time. But he acknowledges that the customers at that hour tend to be the ones with weak stomachs. 
 
 "If you're drunk enough to need a barf bag, you're too drunk to use it," he tells Business Insider, recounting one recent horror story involving a woozy passenger and an ill-fated Taco Bell meal. 
 
 Pit stops and photographs 
 
 Uber used to charge passengers a flat $250 vomit fee, but it recently modified its service-charge process. Now, the penalties for purging range from $25 to $150. If a passenger makes a noticeable mess, the driver must take multiple photos and email them to Uber, where the company's experts carefully evaluate the damage. Uber then compensates the driver for whatever it estimates a professional cleanup would cost. 
 
 Curtis Preston 
 
 Uber, however, doesn't take into account the time that drivers have to spend off the road dealing with the mess — a costly pit stop during peak surge-pricing hours. Preston estimates that getting taken off the road for even a half hour during surge hours can easily cost him $50 in lost fares. 
 
 With his new self-cleaning system, and the proficiency he's developed, Preston says, his downtime is minimal. If someone does let his or her stomach loose in his car today, he still has to take time off the road, but if he can quickly find a gas station to park at, he can be back driving within 10 minutes. 
 
 He sends in pictures of any mess that requires him to take his supplies out of the trunk. In a blog post, he details the fees he's been given in return: $50 for melted chocolate on his seats, $80 for spilled dip, and $30 for the girl who ate two Taco Bell meals in under 2 miles. 
 
 His $40 investment in cleaning supplies was well worth it. Preston says he made $1,500 in cleaning fees last year by cleaning up himself instead of paying for a professional service. 
 
 "Whether you're going for the fees or not, it's not a way to make extra money," he cautions any drivers interested in catering to a similar demographic. But for drivers who aren't afraid to roll up their sleeves, it's an ideal system. 

 With shady tactics employed on both sides, which service do Aussies prefer: Uber or taxis? 
 
 Uber vs Taxis: which is better? 1:22 
 
 A MELBOURNE woman has vowed to “never use Uber again” after she was slugged with a $150 fine for a mess she insists she did not make. 
 
 Michelle, who asked for her surname to be withheld, used the ride-sharing app last night at around 11pm after having a quiet dinner with a friend. 
 
 She was initially charged $12 for the nine-minute journey, and remembers having a “pleasant” chat with her driver. 
 
 But when she woke up this morning, she had an email waiting for her from Uber. 
 
 The email explained she had been charged a whopping $150 “cleaning fee” on top of her fare for a mess she “categorically” denies making. 
 
 The cash had already been automatically deducted from her PayPal account in the early hours of the morning. 
 
 When Michelle contacted Uber to dispute the fee and to demand answers, she was sent photos of the alleged mess and was told it was vomit. 
 
 According to Uber’s website, a $150 cleaning fee is charged for a “Level 4 major bodily fluid mess that requires cleaning between the windows, doors or air vents”. 
 
 But Michelle maintained she did not vomit or spill anything in the car. 
 
 She told news.com.au she recalled the trip perfectly and that she had a good rating on the app, having never encountered any trouble with drivers in the past, and that she didn’t notice any mess in the car at the time. 
 
 Michelle said the way the company had initially handled the situation had been “unethical”. 
 
 “I think it is poor practice. Uber is relying on images from drivers and we don’t know when they were taken,” she said. 
 
 “I think it’s fraudulent — it’s their word against yours. It is ridiculous. 
 
 “Are we turning into a world where we need to take photos of everything just to cover our own backs? 
 
 “I’m livid. I’m never using Uber again. I just want an apology and my money back.” 
 
 News.com.au contacted Uber, and after several hours the $150 fee was refunded. 
 
 An Uber spokesman said the company always tried to balance the rights of customers and drivers. 
 
 “When messes and spilt drinks happen, we believe driver-partners should be compensated for the cost of cleaning their car,” the spokesman said. 
 
 “However, fraudulent cleaning fee reports are unacceptable and we have a specific review process to proactively investigate individuals who try to take advantage of the system. 
 
 “After reviewing this incident, we have refunded this rider’s cleaning fee.” 
 
 Michelle welcomed the refund, but urged Uber customers to take a photograph of the inside of the car before leaving to make sure they weren’t charged unfairly. 
 
 She said she had spoken out about the incident to help others. 
 
 “I’m a very principled person and I’m certainly not shy about speaking up,” she said. 
 
 “If no one complains, nothing changes and by speaking up, I’m making people aware that this could potentially happen to them. 
 
 “You’ve got to speak your truth and follow through with things.” 
 
 Michelle is just the latest Uber customer to accuse the company of a $150 cleaning fee ‘scam’ in recent weeks. 
 
 Earlier this month, a Sydney couple were also charged the fee after travelling from the CBD to the North Shore. 
 
 After complaining about the charge, they were sent a photo of a white liquid with mysterious lumps spread on what looked like the floor of a vehicle — a mess they also claimed they didn’t make. 
 
 And it seems the problem is a global one, with a slew of similar cases reported in the media in the US. 
 
 alexis.carey@news.com.au
– If you lose your lunch in an Uber, it's only fair that you pay for the cleanup. But many users of the rideshare service say they were charged steep cleaning fees (ostensibly so drivers can have their cars professionally cleaned) even though they didn't make a mess. So-called "vomit fraud" can increase the cost of a ride by $80 to more than $150, according to the Miami Herald. Uber's default position is to side with its drivers, who supply photos of vehicle interiors spattered with vomit and other messes as evidence. Riders, meanwhile, report having a difficult time getting Uber to investigate complaints and issue refunds. Uber tells the Herald's Spanish-language sister paper, el Nuevo Herald, that fraud does occur, but adds that more often than not, cleaning fees are "legitimately the result of someone making a mess in the car." Last summer, Uber hit Florida resident David Shoultz with a $165 cleaning fee. He tells WPYV that Uber responded to his allegations of fraud by forwarding "two photos that don't look anything like the car I rode in, but there was vomit everywhere." Uber ultimately refunded the cleaning fee, but only after Shoultz broadcast his frustrations on social media. It's not just a US problem: An Australian woman, who said she had a similar experience earlier this year, suggests that riders take photos of the car's interior so they can prove it was clean when they left, news.com.au reports. In a 2017 report, Business Insider profiled a San Diego Uber driver who is making a little extra cash from cleaning fees in a different way. Will Preston does the cleanup himself and pockets the fee. (This might help detect drunk riders in advance.)