 "Mumbaikars top Uber's forgetful list, leave behind gold biscuits, hair wig")
Mumbai has dethroned Delhi to become India’s most forgetful city, according to Uber’s 9th annual Lost and Found Index released today. The quirky list ranks cities based on how frequently riders forget items in their Ubers — and 2024 saw everything from wedding sarees to gold biscuits left behind.
The index, based on rider reports, shows that Delhi dropped to second place, while Pune surged to third. Hyderabad stood out as the most careful metro, with the least number of forgotten-item reports.
“We’ve all been there—that facepalm moment when we realised we forgot a cherished belonging in a cab,” said Shiva Shailendran, director - Consumer and Growth at Uber India South Asia. “At Uber, we’ve made it easy to retrieve lost items with just a few steps in our app,” he said.
Phones, passports and the unexpected
While everyday items like phones, wallets, earphones, and sunglasses made up the bulk of lost belongings, several unique items stood out. These included:
- A wedding saree
- A gold biscuit
- 25kg of cow ghee
- A cooking stove,
- And even a Hawan Kund (sacred fire altar)
Such unusual losses could have been far more stressful had they occurred in regular street-hailed taxis, where tracking the vehicle isn’t possible.
Other unusual forgotten items included a bansuri (flute), a hair wig, a telescope, and an ultrasonic dog bark controller.
Which is the most forgetful day?
The report also highlighted key patterns in Indian forgetfulness:
- Saturdays were the peak day for forgetting things
- Evenings, especially around 7 pm, saw the most lost items
- Red items were the most commonly forgotten, followed by blue and yellow
- Samsung phone users reported the most losses among device owners
Top five most forgetful cities in 2024:
- Tap the Menu icon, then go to Your Trips
- Select the trip where you left the item
- Tap Report an issue, then I lost an item
- Choose Contact my driver, enter your number
- If your phone is lost, use a friend’s number
- You’ll be connected directly with your driver to coordinate a return
- If you’re unable to reach the driver, Uber’s support team will step in to help.