In addition to the good points by the sibling comments, one more I'll add: I frequently take trips in parts of Chicago that I know extremely well, and thus can

In addition to the good points by the sibling comments, one more I'll add: I frequently take trips in parts of Chicago that I know extremely well, and thus can vet the sanity of the routes posted, as well as sanity-check the route while en route: if something looks fishy to me on the map, I will most likely have noticed it at the time. While this doesn't cover all rides I may take, repeated experiences with it performing correctly does build my faith that the system is working correctly and is free of guile. Plus, all this convo overlooks that this would be an incredibly stupid place to try to systematically bilk customers: it would be very easy to spot and plausible deniability would be difficult to establish and believe, especially since it has worked for years with more or less no problems. And it has a very high virality potential when everyone would want to be checking their own trip records to see if they were scammed too.