WINNERS
CARstume Contest
Champion of Champions
Shawn F. Houston, TX takes the crown in both interior & exterior categories with a frightfully flawless double win!
Dead Ringer CostuME Contest
DEAD Ringer Royalty!
Congrats to Omar B., Kaile C., and Frank H.—our 2025 DEAD Ringer champions who brought Alex PlayOcto to (after)life!
ENDED 10/31/25
Attention, boils and ghouls! OCToWEEN 2025 returns for another eerie-sistible week of BOOnus cash and points to claim while you creep through the latest haunted happenings. Some of your favorite contests have clawed their way back from the crypt, so enter your CARstume, channel your inner Alex, and share a terrifying tale from the backseat with us all week long!
The annual CARstume Contest rises again! Trick out your rideshare vehicle with eerie elegance or monstrous creativity for a chance to be voted “Most Spirited” and win a $500 cash Grand Prize! Select a category below for full entry details.
DEAD Ringer: Alex PlayOcto costume contest
Rideshare Nightmare
Every driver has a tale that haunts them still. Gather ‘round our virtual campfire and share your most blood-curdling story from the road in the Rideshare Nightmare scary story contest. Was it a ghostly passenger? A vanishing fare? A night that made your skin crawl? Spin your spookiest story of 2025 below in the comments section and earn +50 points for sending shivers down our spines.
DEADline: 10/30 @ 11:59pm ET
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A Massive Congratulations to Shawn Frederick!
Shawn absolutely DOMINATED this year’s CARstume Contest, taking home the crown in BOTH categories! It’s been a long time since we’ve seen such a comprehensive, across-the-board win. Truly one for the OCToWEEN record books.
That said, this wasn’t an easy victory. The votes were neck-and-neck all week, and several of you kept the competition thrilling right up until the end. Because of that, I’ll be awarding runner-up prizes to a few standout contenders who were right there the whole time.
Amazing work all around. You turned this contest into a true showcase of creativity and community spirit. Huge props to everyone who participated and made this year’s CARstume Contest one to remember!
Payments for submissions will be awarded next week (by 11/7). Our finance team is running with a skeleton crew this holiday season. Thanks for your patience and for keeping the spooky spirit alive!
Thank you Alex!! It was def a competition.
Thank You to All Our DEAD Ringer Participants! You all absolutely crushed it this year. The Alex PlayOcto costumes were beyond anything I expected. Creative, hilarious, and seriously flattering. I wanted to pick everyone as a winner, but the budget goblins said otherwise!
Still, I’m thrilled to announce our three official DEAD Ringer champions: Omar B., Kaile C., and Frank H. (Frank, that Macho Man comparison had me howling!).
And because the effort this year was off the charts, everyone who submitted a *valid costume is getting bumped from +100 points to a full $25 bonus! I’m so grateful for the time, imagination, and energy you all put in. You’ve proven once again that this community doesn’t just show up, it shows out. Everyone’s a winner in my book.
Payments for submissions will be awarded next week (by 11/7). Our finance team is running with a skeleton crew this holiday season. Thanks for your patience and for keeping the spooky spirit alive!
Yayyyyy!!!! Thank you :)))))
Huge thanks to everyone who dared to share their True Tales of Rideshare Nightmares this OCToWEEN. From ghostly passengers to real-life frights, your stories gave us chills, laughs, and a whole new respect for the rideshare night shift.
Points for submissions will be awarded next week (by 11/7). Our finance team is running with a skeleton crew this holiday season. Thanks for your patience and for keeping the spooky spirit alive!
Have you picked a winner yet?
Hola! Y. Usando nos agarran los animalitos en la oscuridad, eso es típico de Florida y sus paisajes, más de un susto me he llevado con un mapache o un venado atravesando el camino en la noche y en la oscuridad
Rideshare Nightmare:
One night a passenger with his child “accidentally” released crickets and other critters in my car. They were on their way from the pet store to feed their reptile at home. That was scary fun.
Sounds like you hosted the first ever mobile pet store. Talk about an unBEElievable fare!
The most scariest thing that has ever happened to me was this guy asked if he can sit in front and I said sure no problem I didn’t realize how drunk he was and when I was driving, he started dancing. He started dancing and Twerking in my face, and then he fell on my head while I was driving And I was elbow him to get off of me. I pulled over and I told him he better stop. He grabbed my dash cam and started licking it. I was so scared. I hurried up, dropped him off, and then I went home for the rest of the night.
That is absolutely terrifying and bizarre. A real horror show on wheels. Sounds like your passenger turned into the ultimate dash cam creepshow. Glad you escaped before the sequel.
Ayeeee yall this was sooo much fun I love everyone that tried to look like Alex and their cars so cute
Hey is anyone else having trouble with the Halloween contest? I think something is wrong with the Car costume contest I submitted an entry that said I was in, I got to share my link there are only three contestants with one leading by 43 points while everyone else has under 10 but the big problem is for me is that mines won’t show up with the others and I tried to re enter but it didn’t work contacted support but probably won’t here back. I wasted all morning planning and decorating my ride.
I picked up a woman who was smoking a cigarette, she put it out and got in the car. As we are driving down the highway she screamed that her pocket was on fire! She don’t put her cigarette out all the way. She also had perfume, hand sanitizer, and two lighter in her pocket. We are lucky we didn’t blow up! I ask her repeatedly if she was okay and didn’t even worry about my car because I was worried about her! I drop her off at her destination safe but two minutes late. She rated me with one star and said I was not polite! Say what?!?! I never made a rude comment to her and only cared for her safety!
Now that is one fiery fare. You handled it like a true hero in the heat of the moment. Some passengers just can’t recognize a class act when they’re literally smoking proof of it.
On a typical Saturday night I picked up 2 young ladies around college age from the bar. Everything was fine until we were about halfway there. One of them requested I stopped because she wasn’t feeling so well. I happily did so because having dealt with similar scenarios before I rather she throw up on the streets than in my car. It turns out she just needed some fresh air. After she felt better I put the windows down for her and drove them home while monitoring her in the rearview mirror. We finally arrive, great! Crisis averted! Not! I check the back seats to make sure everything was fine and to my ghastly surprise there was urine in my back seat!😨 In the end she did not leave any treats that night only tricks, the kind of tricks that come with the smell of ammonia😡
That one really piddled on a perfectly good night. You dodged the vomit but still got haunted by the ghost of bad decisions. Some passengers really know how to leave their mark… and their scent.
Omg tbh at is so rude!!!! That actually happened to my friend too! He dropped off these 2 college girls and they didn’t tell him and when he went to get gas there was puke everywhere!!
So normally I would never shake anyone’s hand if I didn’t know them, it’s weird. I was having a great day though, and the guy seemed nice enough, right? Well when I went to shake his hand he open mouth kissed the top of it and then licked it! I audibly gasped and said “YOU LICKED IT!!”. I was horrified to say the least. (I laugh about it now but in the moment super icky!) He even went as far as finding me on all social medias afterwards.
That is nightmare fuel of the highest order. Sounds like you picked up a real horror flick villain in the making. Good on you for keeping your cool, some scares just stick with you longer than they should.
Exactly!! Yeah i learned my lesson, no more handshakes with strangers ! lol
OMGG!!! Whoaaaa that’s crazy I would’ve been like excuse meeeeeeeeee
Yeah, I audibly gasped, I’ve never left a drop off faster 😅
So one time I got a long to a house that was deep into the woods. This woman kept calling my complaining that people would arrive and just cancel on her and please don’t cancel. So I said I got you. I’m on my way. So as I’m driving down this long dark road I come up to this house that looks like it’s been in a fire and there’s no one here. So I start to kinda be a little skeptical. After about 2 min this woman messages me it’s behind the house. I’m like nah I’m good. And then she starts walking from behind it and says she’s staying in a camper behind the house because her house caught fire. I’m like ma’am. You could have said this. No wonder people are canceling smh.
That one sounds straight out of a horror movie. You were one flickering flashlight away from a full-blown thriller. Good instincts, never follow the “it’s behind the burned house” text.
I work nights and sir
Times these customers don’t let us know what’s going on and I have to cancel I can’t risk my life too whoaaaaa
Lol right. I told her like you have to let us know what’s going on communicate. So many times this has happened where it’s harmless but from our perspective we’re like nahhhh cancel.
” It’s nice to meet you,” I said as he placed his backpack on my backseat. ” You too,ma’am ” is how he replied. I’m thinking ” he’s quite polite and much better than the attitude the last passenger had.” I asked about his day and he told me how he was glad to ” be out” and go on with his life. I’m thinking ” must have been a tough day at the office. ” I must admit that I was quite wrong. He was on his way to school and looking forward to meeting his goals. Things have been a bit delayed since he spent time in jail…for ATTEMPTED MURDER! Should I hit that ” safety ” button now or be open minded and listen to his story? I listened and although I don’t condone murder, I wasn’t there and I can’t judge him based on his self defense story. Halloween is a spooky time but driving with a murderer is a bit scarier. I’ve fought with people over many things but this ride was different. He was a polite young man who was trying to better himself and who am I to judge and crush his dreams?
That ride really redefined “killer story.” You kept your composure like a pro while starring in your own true-crime episode. Sometimes the scariest passengers turn out to be the most human after all.
Kudos to you for not judging!! I’ve learned some of my sketchiest looking and acting riders have been quite the opposite. Never judge a book by its cover.
Me too!!! I have to look at the person and make sure they don’t have a backpack or anything else they will scare me!!!
The tale I’m about to tell is the scariest kind of scenario any rideshare driver can experience. On a night not to long ago a passenger and his friend requested a ride from a party they were leaving. Me who had just got a brand new car decided to make some extra income had received there request. Everything was going well until the passengers senses had been overloaded. The smell and comfort of my brand new car might have been too overpowering for him. As i was switching lanes i hear from the backseat “why am i seeing double” and then a loud evacuating water splash sounds and the smell to follow it. The passenger had 🤮 all of the pizza they just had eaten at a party all over my back seat of my brand new car.
This is a Rideshare drivers worse nightmare and cleaning up the mess was horrifying 🤢
That’s the kind of horror story no amount of air freshener can fix. Nothing like a pizza exorcism to christen a new car. You truly lived the nightmare every driver dreads.
I could not imagine!!! I’ve done 20k rides and not 1 throw inside I got lucky. I work nights too but I only do clubs and bars on Friday and Saturday nights so I risk that happening!! But whoaaa
One night around 10 p.m., I got an unusual Uber request to a small regional airport that normally closes by 6. The rider’s name seemed foreign, and I felt uneasy, so I stayed on the phone with my son while heading there. When I arrived, the airport was dark and deserted. Then, the rider messaged saying they were still in the air and about to land. Moments later, a small Cessna touched down. The pilots came out to tell me the passenger was deboarding, but suddenly came running back, carrying him and shouting for help—he had walked into the still-spinning propeller, splitting his face in half. I called 911, refusing to transport him due to his severe injuries. Sadly, he didn’t survive. The horrific image of that night remains burned in my memory.
A true real-life horror story. No ghost or ghoul could ever top the terror of witnessing something that raw and tragic. You handled an unthinkable moment with courage and presence when most would freeze.
I still don’t know how I got through that night … Think I was just trying to keep it together for the other people there but I’m telling you I lost it when I got home. And it’s still haunts me years later
Omg!!!!!!! Are you okay girl that’s very tamarizing to go thru!!!!
Girl it was rough, still traumatizes me years later.
In the rain-lashed streets at midnight, the driver clutched the steering wheel. The Uber app’s glow casting eerie blue shadows across his dashboard. His final fare, a gaunt woman in a tattered black coat, had slipped into the back seat without a word, her eyes like polished obsidian reflecting nothing but the void.
“Just drive,” she’d whispered, her voice a rasp that clawed at the edges of his sanity, and as they merged onto the interstate, the radio hissed to static, then fell silent. No signal, no escape.
In the rearview mirror, her silhouette began to elongate, fingers like spider legs tapping the window in rhythmic insistence, murmuring directions to a crumbling warehouse on the city’s forsaken edge where the air thickened with the metallic tang of old blood. When he finally slammed on the brakes at the rusted gates, she leaned forward, breath cold against his ear: “You’ve brought me home—now stay for dinner.”
You might have just invented the “fare-tale” genre. That is bone-chilling storytelling. You just turned a rideshare route into a full cinematic nightmare. That closing line could haunt headlights for years.
I’m not sure if everyone would think this is spooky but for me it was a nightmare….. I picked up a passenger nice guy with MS, had to help him get in the car and put his equipment in the care for mobility… well we are having a nice convo and it turns weird, he starts talking about masturbating and how his doctor told him he should do it whenever he feels like it. I change subjected multiple times….. then I hear it…. And I’m thinking there’s no way he is doing that….. so I lower the music…. And sure enough he was… in my back seat, in the middle of no where and it was late at night…. It was the most weird, scary thing to me…. Till this day that haunts me.
That is beyond unsettling. You endured what no driver ever signs up for—a true tale of terror on the open road. Some rides test nerves more than traffic ever could. You handled that nightmare with remarkable composure.
I picked up this gentleman late one night. He gets in and I do my usual greetings. He never replied which was fine because some riders don’t like conversation. Seemed like a normal ride. No stops between pick up and drop off. I tried talking during the trip but he wasn’t having it. I get to the destination and tell the passenger to have a good night. Only problem was there was no one in the car. I have no rational explanation for it. I guess even in the afterlife, people still need rides.
You might have just given “ghost ride” a whole new meaning. Proof that even spirits appreciate good service.
I can’t help but laugh that was funny. Nobody was even in the car lolll
One night around the typical witching hour two men got into my car. Not a sound came from the backseat. I’d glance in my mirror to see a hand from the guy on the right reach out towards my hair. But when I turn around, their hands are in their lap. Finally, as I look up in the mirror, I asked him. Why are you trying to touch my hair in a very whispy voice he says. I just wanted to see how it feels. It looks soooo soft. I’m thinking to myself nope not today Satan. You won’t get a piece of my hair to steal my soul. I turned towards the guy and tell him absolutely not the only one that has the ability to touch my hair is my wife. It’d be a cold day in hell before I would let you ever touch my hair. One’s hair is one’s essence. I’m gonna suggest your hands stay on your side of the car if they even remotely get near my side of the car bye bye! No creepy creepy going on in my car! The guy just let out a creepy giggle. I was so glad that I was only a minute or two from his destination!
Sounds like you narrowly escaped becoming part of a real hair-raising legend. You handled that supernatural salon situation like a pro. No ghostly grooming allowed.
I picked up this guy one time and he was facing the wall and when he got into the car, I asked how his night was and he said it was very bad. I asked him why and he said I’m going to kick your butt and he slapped my shoulder. I was so scared for my life I started going 15 over the speed limit so I could get pulled over so they could help me. It was the most scariest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.
La lluvia caía como agujas sobre el parabrisas. Marcos llevaba tres horas conduciendo por la autopista vacía, convencido de que el GPS estaba fallando.
No había luces. No había gasolineras. Solo el sonido monótono del limpiaparabrisas y la voz metálica del navegador repitiendo:
“Siga derecho. Falta un kilómetro para su destino.”
Había escuchado eso desde hacía más de media hora.
El marcador del auto oscilaba entre los 43 y 44 kilómetros. Cada vez que el odómetro marcaba 43, la radio se encendía sola, con un susurro bajo, como si alguien respirara cerca del micrófono.
Marcos apagaba el estéreo… pero el sonido seguía.
Intentó llamar por teléfono. Sin señal.
El mapa del GPS se borró. Solo una línea gris, infinita.
Entonces la luz de un faro apareció en el retrovisor.
Un auto detrás de él. Por fin, alguien más.
Pero el alivio se desvaneció pronto: el vehículo no lo adelantaba, no se alejaba, solo lo seguía a una distancia exacta, imitando cada movimiento del volante.
Cuando Marcos
😳😳😳
This Ride happened right after the COVID Lockdown and wearing a mask was recommended by the CDC. I pick up a passenger who wasn’t wearing a mask, when I asked her if she wouldn’t mind putting one on she replied “Oh you want me to wear a mask? Well there goes your tip.” I said that’s fine ma’am as long as we take the recommended steps to protect each other. As we head on our way she keeps asking questions like “Why do I have to wear a mask?” And “Why are you an uber driver if you’re afraid of getting COVID?” Again and again till I pull over and say if wearing a mask is too much we can end the ride no harm no foul and go our separate ways. She says “No we don’t have to cancel the ride, JUST DON’T TALK TO ME ANYMORE.” I was only responding to not be rude. As we continue along Highway to Hell by AC/DC starts playing to underline the whole situation. The part of this story you can’t make up is that her name was actually Karen!
Wow, I am so sorry that you had to go through that during Covid. I did Uber eats and DoorDash because I experienced something similar to that. They did not want to wear a mask or when I took my mask down so I could breathe. I got yelled at like so then I started to do Uber eats and DoorDash. I did not want to deal with people at that time. It is crazy how people talk to us in our own cars.
So I arrived at the local pub for a pickup one evening when I noticed a group of people approaching my van wearing scream masks. I instinctively locked my doors only to be pleasantly surprised moments later when I realized they were my passengers approaching the van for a ride home after their Halloween party ended😱
That’s a classic jump-scare setup with a happy ending. From slasher flick to safe ride in seconds. You lived through the rare horror story that turns into a comedy before the credits roll.
I work nights and I refuse to pick up anyone that has a face mask on or anything covering their faced that is too scary for me to risk my life so I agree with you 1000%
I arrived to my pickup outside a local tavern when a group of people in scream masks started approaching my car. Instinctively I locked my doors only to realize moments later it was my passengers approaching for a ride home, they were done with their Halloween party lol
I would say Halloween has to be the scariest night to work because of people wearing masks. I just don’t trust anybody lol or the time changes instead of 2 AM. It goes back to 1 AM so they are drinking more which means that they will throw up in our car so you gotta be careful with that too. 😱
Let me tell you the story of the vomit that almost was…
One cold, dark and foggy 3am morning, I picked up a passenger who clearly reeked of BOO-ze! The ride was short but nerve-wracking. They slurred, they swayed, they gagged… sounds that still haunt me in my dreams. But just as quickly as he had been picked up, he was dropped off and he vanished into the darkness… of his front yard. Where he then, and only then, gave up the ghost… and vomited all over his shoes. I had been scared but was now relieved as I sped away and never looked back. Hahaha!
You truly stared terror in the face and outdrove it. That was a close call with the spirit of spew. A narrow escape worthy of every driver’s Hall of Fame for heroic hurl avoidance.
Girl, you got so lucky that he did not throw up in the car and only on his shoes. I had this guy throw up outside my window and all over my car. It was pretty disgusting and I had to take off work for like an hour to find a car wash the self car wash so I could do it myself at 2 AM so I missed all the money for bar closed ughh 🥺🥺🥺
Hajajaja lo más miedoso es cada vez que está oscuro el camino y veo algún animalito atravesarse por la oscuridad y llego a saltar y tocar el freno a fondo para no pasar por arriba de ellos y me deja un dolor de vientre increíble … jejeje eso sí da susto
I went picked up these two men’s wearing all black. They told me to take them to the bank then realize to park in the front they come running out. Tell me to takeoff takeoff so I drove like a bat out of hell and wondering why these guys were telling me to takeoff they act like they robbed the bank, but they didn’t. It was a prank Had me on my edge I was about to jump out and run. And leave the car running by yourself.
Next time someone says “take off,” maybe ask for a deposit first.
Oh my goodness I don’t know what I would have done in that situation. I know I would have freaked out and did the same thing you did lol