Wrong-way ride-hail called by cops a ‘misunderstanding’

No charges are being filed in the case of an Allston woman who got into the wrong Lyft, then claimed she was taken for a ride and held against her will after she ordered a ride-hailing car near Faneuil Hall, Boston Police said.

“It was basically a misunderstanding,” BPD spokesman Sgt. Detective John Boyle said Monday.

The woman, who was identified only as being in her early 20s, told officers she had been out with friends at a bar on Union Street and attempted to order a Lyft home between 12:40 a.m. and 1 a.m., police said.

The woman’s phone died while she was waiting for the ride, but a group of men who also had hailed a ride pointed her toward a silver or tan sedan, she told police.

The driver of the sedan drove with the woman in the backseat for about 30 minutes before stopping at a gas station for snacks, the woman told officers. Another man allegedly approached the vehicle and began reaching into it when the woman kicked the door open, fled on foot and began flagging down cars, she told police.

The woman stopped a passerby who transported her back to Allston. She later declined medical treatment, telling police she had not been assaulted. Police said the woman remembers a driver saying she was close to the New Hampshire border.

“We did a though investigation, with interviews with people and videos,” Boyle said. “She got into the wrong ride share.”

A spokeswoman for Lyft said on Sunday that the company had been in touch with the rider and had “deactivated the driver” during an investigation, although it was unclear if the woman had been picked up by a Lyft car.

The company did not immediately comment on whether the driver it had deactivated would be reinstated.

City officials in December unveiled a 31-page set of guidelines for bars and nightclubs regarding safety in the wake of several highprofile abductions last year. In one case, a 23-year-old mother, Jassy Correia, disappeared last February after a night out celebrating her birthday in downtown Boston and was found dead in a Rhode Island man’s trunk four days later.

DENVER POST FILE LYFT TURN: A Lyft sign is seen in a ride-hailing driver’s vehicle. Police now say a reported abduction from the Faneuil Hall area over the weekend was the result of an Allston woman getting into the wrong vehicle, which took her north instead of home.