Why Rideshare Drivers Are Suing Their Car Rental Company Over Hidden Fees

A proposed class action lawsuit filed in New York federal court accuses vehicle rental company Drive Sally of luring rideshare drivers in with a promise of one flat, all-inclusive weekly rate, then hitting them with a stream of undisclosed charges and, in at least one case, remotely shutting off a car while its driver was still behind the wheel with a passenger inside.

The 70-page complaint, Thomas v. Drive Sally LLC, was filed June 26 in the U.S. District Court and brings claims under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, the Illinois Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and New York General Business Law. It seeks to represent every person in the United States who has signed a rental agreement with Drive Sally.

What the Lawsuit Alleges

Drive Sally markets its cars specifically to rideshare drivers as “Uber-ready” vehicles, telling customers that a single weekly payment covers the rental itself, liability insurance, and routine maintenance, with no hidden fees. The lawsuit alleges that promise does not hold up once a driver has committed to the deal. According to the complaint, Drive Sally withholds the full terms and pricing of its rental agreements until a driver has already paid a deposit, scheduled a pickup appointment, and is, in the lawsuit’s words, “practically and financially” locked in.

The suit describes the company’s tactics as targeting a specifically vulnerable group. Rideshare drivers depend on continuous access to a vehicle for their primary income, which the complaint argues gives Drive Sally the upper hand to push through additional charges a driver has little practical ability to refuse. Walking away from the rental means losing the ability to work.

Once a driver has signed, the complaint alleges, Drive Sally adds weekly charges beyond the advertised rate for things like maintenance, liability insurance, property damage coverage, and other ancillary fees that are either never disclosed upfront or are applied in ways the contract does not clearly permit. Drivers quoted in the filing also describe being charged for early termination, tolls, traffic tickets, late payments, and a “vehicle reactivation” fee, none of which appeared in Drive Sally’s advertised pricing.

The plaintiff in the case, identified in the complaint as a woman who rented a 2023 Kia Forte from Drive Sally, says she agreed to a $389-per-week rate that was supposed to include maintenance and insurance. One month in, the suit says, Drive Sally raised her rate and began sending what the complaint calls “incessant” text messages pressuring her to sign a new contract at a higher price. Her weekly cost eventually climbed to $434, an increase of roughly 12 percent over the original advertised rate.

A Remote Kill Switch, Mid-Drive

The most serious allegation in the complaint involves an incident in which Drive Sally is accused of remotely deactivating the plaintiff’s rental car while she was actively driving with a passenger in the vehicle, citing non-payment as the reason. The lawsuit says that after she resolved the payment issue, Drive Sally terminated her rental agreement outright the very next day, without explanation, in what the complaint characterizes as a violation of the company’s own contract terms. She was then charged an additional $400 early termination fee and never received a refund of her initial deposit, according to the filing.

The lawsuit also raises concerns about the condition of the vehicles themselves. Drive Sally markets its fleet as carefully maintained, yet the complaint says drivers have reported cars with faulty transmissions and persistent unexplained odors, raising questions about whether vehicles pulled directly into rideshare service actually meet the basic safety and reliability standard drivers were promised, on top of the pricing dispute.

A Pattern Across the Rental Industry

Drive Sally is not the first vehicle rental company to face this kind of complaint, and the lawsuit lands amid a broader wave of litigation over hidden and undisclosed fees in the car rental sector generally. Avis and Budget were separately sued by the nonprofit Travelers United over what the group calls “drip pricing,” the practice of advertising a low headline rate while adding mandatory charges once a customer is already committed to the transaction. Payless Car Rental, also an Avis Budget Group brand, agreed to a $19 million settlement over claims it improperly charged customers for optional products even when those customers had explicitly declined them, with payments to affected renters beginning in May 2026.

What sets the rideshare-specific rental market apart, consumer advocates say, is the control the arrangement gives the rental company. A typical vacation renter can simply walk away from a bad deal and book with a competitor. A rideshare driver whose income depends on having a car available today has a much narrower window to shop around or dispute a charge before missing a shift’s worth of fares. Rental programs aimed at this market, including options run directly by Uber and Lyft themselves, typically start in the range of $250 a week before taxes, insurance add-ons and other fees push the real cost meaningfully higher, according to driver advocacy sites that track these programs.

Regulators Are Already Watching Vehicle Leases

New York City, where Drive Sally’s lawsuit was filed, already has some of the strictest rules in the country governing how for-hire vehicle leases can be structured, a fact that makes the allegations in this case notable beyond a single company. The city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission bars lessors from charging drivers for anything beyond a defined list, including TLC fees, required insurance, credit card processing charges, and costs tied to adding drivers to a shared lease, and those charges cannot exceed narrow limits set by the commission. The TLC has also cracked down separately on “lockouts,” a tactic some high-volume for-hire platforms used to block drivers from logging in as a way around minimum pay rules, and the agency has additional rulemaking planned for the back half of this fiscal year specifically targeting high-volume for-hire vehicle services.

Drive Sally is a private rental company rather than a TLC-regulated lessor of medallions, which is part of why the plaintiff’s attorneys are relying on state consumer fraud statutes rather than TLC rules to make their case. But the contrast is instructive: the same city that has moved aggressively to cap what a taxi medallion lease can charge a driver has, according to this lawsuit, allowed a separate category of vehicle rental company aimed at the identical customer base, rideshare drivers who need a car to earn a living, to operate with far less oversight over what fees can be added after a driver signs.

What Rideshare Drivers Can Do

Drivers currently renting from Drive Sally, or considering it, should request a complete, itemized breakdown of every fee in writing before signing anything or paying a deposit, rather than relying on marketing language describing a rate as “all-inclusive.” Any rental agreement for rideshare work should specify, in the contract itself, exactly what maintenance and insurance coverage includes, and under what specific conditions the company can raise the weekly rate, terminate the agreement, or remotely disable the vehicle.

Drivers who believe they have been charged undisclosed fees, hit with a rate increase not permitted under their original contract, or had a vehicle remotely deactivated without proper cause can file a complaint with their state attorney general’s consumer protection division, and could also have a basis to join the existing lawsuit or pursue an individual claim. Generally, joining a proposed class action does not require a driver to do anything before the case reaches a settlement or certification stage, though drivers who believe they have suffered a financial loss should document every charge, text message, and contract version they received. That kind of record is exactly what plaintiffs’ attorneys rely on to build these cases.

The lawsuit is still in its early stages, and Drive Sally has not yet filed a public response to the allegations. For the rideshare drivers the complaint describes, the underlying grievance is a familiar one in the gig economy: a company that promises a simple, predictable cost of doing business, then finds ways to make that cost anything but predictable once a driver has too much on the line to walk away.

Sources:

• Drive Sally Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Over Allegedly Deceptive Business Practices, Hidden Fees
• $19M Payless Car Rental Settlement Ends Class Action Lawsuit Over Allegedly Unlawful Fees, Add-Ons
• 10 Best Rideshare & Gig Car Rentals in 2026