The punishment imposed by the digital platform, for example, the ride-hailing platform, on service providers provokes their customer-oriented unethical behaviors (i.e., behaviors of service providers that damage the rights and interests of customers and violate social morality when offering services). However, understanding concerning the mechanism of how the punishment affects the unethical behavior of providers in the platform economy is still lacking. The platform and its service provider mainly establish an employment relationship based on economic exchange. Therefore, based on the perspective of employment relationship with exchange attributes, this paper discusses how and when perceived harshness of the punishment event of service providers affects their implementation of customer-oriented unethical behaviors. First, this paper develops a measurement scale of customer-oriented unethical behaviors of service providers following the scale development procedure and takes online ride-hailing platforms and drivers as the research object. Further, based on the perspective of employment relationship with exchange attributes, this paper examines the relationship between perceived harshness of the punishment event of service providers and their customer-oriented unethical behavior; negative emotion is a mediator, and perceived constructiveness and perceived self-control of the punishment events are moderators. Due to the clear difference in unethical behavior between ride-hailing drivers in digital platforms and traditional workers in the workplace, this paper develops the scales for customer-oriented unethical behaviors of ride-hailing drivers. Following the standard scale development procedure, this paper first collects specific manifestations of customer-oriented unethical behaviors of ride-hailing drivers through in-depth interviews and secondary information on the website. Then, this paper analyzes the data basing on grounded theory, which leads to the generation of the initial measurement items. Next, this paper conducts a series of surveys to assess the validity and reliability of the scales. Consequently, this paper develops customer-oriented unethical behavior scales of ride-hailing drivers, including three dimensions of service undermining, service violation, and negative service attitude. Furthermore, this paper evaluates the theoretical model and hypotheses proposed. Based on the questionnaire data of 233 valid samples, the results show the following: First, perceived harshness of the punishment event of service providers is negatively related to their customer-oriented unethical behavior. Second, negative emotion plays mediating effects on the relationship between perceived harshness and customer-oriented unethical behavior of service providers. Third, perceived constructiveness of service providers moderates the effects of their perceived harshness on negative emotions and on customer-oriented unethical behavior; it also moderates the indirect effect of perceived harshness on customer-oriented unethical behavior through negative emotions. Finally, perceived self-control of service providers fails to play a moderating role between perceived harshness, negative emotions, and customer-oriented unethical behavior. This paper has several theoretical contributions. First, this paper is based on the perspective of employment relationship with exchange attributes to enrich the research on the relationship between perceived harshness and customer-oriented unethical behavior. This paper states that in platform organizations, the employment relationship between platforms and service providers is based on economic exchange. Second, based on the perspective of employment relationship with exchange attributes, this paper deeply analyzes the mechanism of perceived harshness of punishment justice in platform organizations on unethical behavior. This paper extends the research on the antecedents (i.e., perceived characteristics of the punishment event) affecting customer-oriented unethical behavior. Moreover, this paper promotes the understanding of the mechanism of the relationship between organizational injustice and customer-oriented unethical behavior. Finally, this paper explores the conceptual dimensions and measurement model of customer-oriented unethical behaviors of service providers and uncovers the formation mechanism of these unethical behaviors in the context of platform economy.