Kyle did a great job yesterday highlighting one of the many things that drove me away from using Uber or Lyft…the old “driver doesn’t move” scam. Ridesharing has become so toxic in the USA…
Uber Drivers Scam Clients By Not Moving After Confirming Ride
The scam goes like this. You order a ride and the driver confirms. But the driver doesn’t move. You have a pick-up time of, say, six minutes, but six minutes go by and the driver still has not moved an inch. They don’t respond to messages or calls either.
At this point, it is too late to cancel the ride. If you do cancel the ride at this point, you’re hit with a $5.00 cancellation fee (that goes, at least in part, to the driver).
And that is the point. With this scam, you can make money without ever moving. No gas. No wear and tear on the car. No having to drive even.
To be fair, when this sort of thing happens it is possible to request a refund through Uber support. But that is tedious and it should not be this way.
Ridesharing Has Lost Its Mojo
Ridesharing has become so toxic in the USA that I do not use Uber or Lyft for personal transport or food delivery. I get it, though. Uber or Lyft take a huge cut, leaving drivers with a cost/benefit analysis that has to be factored in for every ride. Making a living driving for Uber or Lyft is very difficult.
But the system is broken when drivers are incentivized to scam riders by tricks like this or all switching off at once to surge fares.
In an ideal world, drivers would be penalized and have to pay riders for canceling or not moving…but that is not the world we live in. Instead, it seems that Uber and Lyft are afraid to tick off their drivers becuase so many are realizing that it is not worthwhile to even drive in the first place.
CONCLUSION
Uber has successfully managed to dodge a lot of regulation (outside California at least), but if drivers are simply going to scam their customers regularly, the broken system may require more oversight…
It is time for Uber and Lyft to step in and remove drivers from the platform who engage in this fraud. It will lead to fewer drivers, but perhaps the ones who are left can make more money the honest way…
This is a HUGE problem and I can’t believe Uber can’t do more about it – it should be easy to detect this behavior. In some places your chance of having this happen seems to be as high as 50% (i.e., Brazil).
@Mak … not a huge problem for me … when I need to go to hospital in LA , they call a taxi for me ; and I depart whilst seeing the uber customers clustered around the curb looking at their mobile phones .
is there some actual point you want to make to add to this discourse, other than to let us know you go to a hospital and said hospital calls taxis for you?!?
To make it clear, government pays for these taxi rides called Access!
All this talk of AI and they can’t solve a simple problem of figuring out what drivers are persistently running this scam?
Problem is these large corporations give as much a sh!t about the customer as they do about their ’employees,’ aka the drivers. They will just invest the bare minimum in any of this to ensure max profits. If scams are being run within the system, that’s just part of the hustle.
Unfettered capitalism will bring us to the brink of extinction. This is not an example of said spiral towards extinction but the total sum of the system is most definitely spiraling us closer to extinction…
Yellow Cab fell because of these issues. The service was great but now it’s hit and miss. Some drivers make want to delete Uber/Lyft account. Waited 15 minutes for a taxi which was 2 minutes away. The driver kept going further away. Canceled and got another driver who passed my location, I called him and while crossing the street towards the car he drove off. Another drive came, I was going to work. A 2 minutes drive to the job, because of a foot injury. Date 8th February 2024, 5;37 am. Staten Island. Some drivers really play games.
I’m sorry that happened to you. Uber drivers get paid less than $3 for short rides in most markets.
It’s just not worth their time to take that ride.
Taxis drivers earn more for those short rides.
I don’t know what Uber charges the consumer for those short rides but from my last driver he told me he was getting $2.53 while I was paying $12 to Uber.
As an Uber and Lyft driver, if I accept a ride and am stuck in heavy traffic at the time (not moving), and the customer cancels the trip, I do not receive a cancellation fee.
I only receive a cancellation fee if I’m in route and have made significant progress towards the pick up.
And as much as the customer service sucks for the passengers, it’s non existent for the drivers..
I agree 100% what kind of scam Pays you $3? Its super ridiculous. This article is fake news or it doesn’t apply to the US.
Agreed . The driver is taking 15 minutes of his/ her time for a $3.00 scam. When you put it like that it’s sounds like some elitist folks want to be treated like kings from the poor servants.
Uber is doing something about it!
Revenue to driver is drastically down over the last 3 years. Drivers cannot make money like they use to before Uber got greedy on the percentages they are taking, leaving little for drivers. These days Iber pays a driver $3.95 for a ride that picks up 4 miles (7 mins) away, and take the rider 6miles (12 mins).. even if you can get a ride instantly after dropping a rider off, you can only get 3 of those an hour. $11.85 / hour before you deduct expenses.
They were not this greedy years ago.
Uber and Lyft are companies that have ZERO customer service…this is the AI wave of the future everyone has been dreaming of… not working so well.
@SMR … +1 .
I’ve had this happen multiple times. Maybe 10% of rides. It’s a downside but nothing that would stop me using Uber. It’s just too easy knowing your destination is keyed in. No directing from the back. No broken meters etc.
Yeah at the airport the taxi line is often easier no doubt but usually at the expense of a far worse car.
Incidentally I once refused to cancel on a guy for 90 mins (he was supposedly 2 mins away). I just caught the train home from work and let it sit (I wasn’t going to my home address).
That means he can’t get any new rides and makes $0 during that time, right?
Yeah kind of childish but I was frustrated.
Noting he just sat still and responded to none of my texts or phone calls.
Yeah, but drivers can cancel too. This one sounds like driver may have inadvertantly accepted a ride and phone sound was off.
Such a prince. I guess that driver left his app on and went home. Or perhaps he was driving both platforms and didn’t give a shit what you were doing.
He was supposedly two minutes away from a train station. Is there heavy traffic around that train station that would delay him more than 2 minutes?
You treated him like dirt Don’t you feel good You got him didn’t you….. You must be a MAGA.
This has happened to me multiple times. I have been able to get that cancellation fee back every time. Another one is when the driver seems to get tantalizingly close only to go off in a different direction. You can get your money back, but if you’re in a hurry or are waiting in the cold it can be extremely annoying.
This happens if you make a wrong turn as a driver, or the directions that Uber gave you are wrong, or if there is some obstruction/traffic and the driver has to find another way to pick you up. Not a crisis, usually adds a couple of minutes if there are traffic lights. Occasionally Uber’s crappy GPS (Google’s IOS app doesn’t have this problem) will send you miles away from the passenger you are supposed to pick up or not tell you which exit lane to take until it is too late and thus you are going to have to go several miles to get back to where the passenger is. This happened to me once out in the middle of nowhere, figured out I was going the wrong way headed back and it gave me another bad exit and I realized I was getting even further from the passenger, too far away to be practical, I called her and suggested she cancel request another ride. Feel bad for a rider waiting in the cold dark and the app keeps misdirecting drivers.
100% agree with you Matt!
I saw this happening when I was using them about 4 or 5 years ago. One reason I stopped using them. Probably has just gotten worse. Drivers should be penalized financially when they do this, not rewarded.
Have you talked to a driver about how much they earn? penalized?
From what they tell me their pay is poop.
A few have told me pay was much better a couple years ago.
They got to keep 80 percent of what we pay. Now they keep 30 percent and Uber pockets the rest.
So happy to spend most of my US time in a city with halfway decent public transport including to the airport. Reap what you sow.
Hyperloop is what you get with poverty of thought. A poor uneducated man’s subway.
Enjoy suckers!
I only use transit options when I have to visit a large city and dont want to rent a car.
Otherwise I prefer to drive so I can avoid being around angry addicts. Also, driving is tons of fun.
Renting a Car is also full of scams, especially with HERTZ where they accuse you of STEALING their car.
How many of these is just the driver using the bathroom and not an intentional scam?
A driver who knows he needs to go on break shouldn’t be accepting rides.
Right because you always know you need the bathroom exactly before you hit accept. Truth is this is something it took time to get good at organizing as a driver, and if I can’t schedule it before a ride I will let the rider know I need to stop for a minute and then get right back on the way to pick them up.
When you’re on a ride as a driver, they’ll add another ride automatically. You never know when it’s going to happen. You have to go into the app (while driving) and tell it to not take any additional rides, or I believe there is a “15 minute break” or similar.
About zero.
They actively accepted the ride – it was not “assigned” to them. Uber drivers have more latitude to stop working for a potty break than I have.
Uber pops up an Accept button on the screen as you are just about to drop off your current rider. If you don’t accept them it counts against you negatively as a driver. So it becomes a habit to automatically hit that accept button. Sometimes after you hit Accept you realize you need to take a leak, and badly. At that point you need to tell the rider that you are going to take a very short bathroom break (assuming you can find a place to do it!) or if you think it won’t take very long, just run into the nearest fast food joint, take care of biz and then run back to your car without talking to the rider. I’ve had riders cancel on me for that, which is fine, and others understand what it is to be human. Another strategy is to alway stop accepting new rides as soon as you pick one up until you have dropped off the current ride. New strategy I’m about to try – I think the Accept button is dangerous as it distracts the driver from the road, and temporarily hides the current map directions, making it hard to figure out where to drop off current rider.
This happened to me in New Orleans. I thought it was odd. This explains it.
I’m an Uber driver and I wonder why the passenger doesn’t simply call the driver to find out if there’s a problem. In my experience (9 years as a driver), if the driver hasn’t moved, there’s a problem. Perhaps the GPS system is slow due to an internet outage or maybe there’s a lag between the driver’s and passenger’s app. I know there are dishonest people, but I would wager that most Uber driver’s are not in that category.
Oh, that’s a great point that I meant to add. You text and call and you get no answer.
Here in Austin, for folks that aren’t bilingual, there’s probably going to be a language barrier. I’m sure that’s the case elsewhere… could be a reason for not answering or responding.
Hi Matt, I’m a Uber driver. If a driver accepts the ride but doesn’t move, the app can detect that. It actually uses the accelerometer in your phone to detect movement. If the driver doesn’t move or make significant progress to your pickup location and you cancel, the driver doesn’t get paid anything. What is likely happening is several things. (1). Uber has decreased driver pay significantly. (2). They stopped giving drivers percentage based pay and went to an upfront offer to do the ride. However, the driver literally has seconds to accept the ride (3). Because of the way it works, & not having the time to calculate the miles v.s. time v.s pay, drivers are likely accepting the ride and then calculating the pay only to find out that it isn’t worth it. Uber changed the pay structure and most passengers are unaware of that. They think the drivers are getting the majority of what the passenger paid. In reality Uber will charge the passenger $50 for a ride and pay the driver $11. There’s so much I could tell you but it’s too much to type here.
Most drivers that encounter problems are cancelling. A handful of these have let me know in person after they arrive what the issue was, and you see these stop somewhere along the way. There is a variant of this where they kite miles away to get to you – in any case, I let them screw themselves over, book a lyft instead, and report once they’ve realized they’re not going to steal from me.
The problem isn’t solved by you running apologetics for shady mfers, you’re hurt by this too. It is usually very obvious it’s what they’re doing because they’re parked when they accept and never budge in your direction.
Exactly, when it comes to who is scamming who, it’s the passengers more often than the drivers.
Now, if there is a place where Uber has been working flawlessly for me is Paris. I only use Uber Berline (equivalent to Uber Black) and it works all the time. Nice cars, great drivers. No complaints.
Hmmm, has Uber changed their rules on cancellation. I believe if the driver is 5 or more minutes later than the ETA provided at time of booking, you could cancel with no cancellation fee. Has that changed?
The way to win in this scenario is to not cancel the trip, ever. Of course this only works if you’re with someone else who can hail an alternate on their phone.
I got hit with this scam while waiting for a ride to the SNA airport. Luckily I had time to spare and refused to cancel. The driver loitered at a 7-Eleven for a while, waiting for me to cancel. Then he got tantalizingly close to my pickup point but never actually arrived, and I still didn’t cancel. Meanwhile, I was merrily on my way to the airport after having my travel companion get us a ride with his phone…and still I didn’t cancel, so the driver couldn’t pick up another fare. Meanwhile I was taking timestamped screen shots of his location. It wasn’t until I landed several hours later that I saw my trip had concluded, and I’d been charged for it. I sent Lyft the screenshots and got a full refund, and I like to think that the driver not only got dinged for it, but that I annoyed the crap out of him for refusing to cancel, LOL.
This happened to me!
Supposedly ‘7 minutes away’ for 45 minutes. Multiple texts were read but not answered. Phone calls were never answered.
Lyft didn’t charge me after I raised hell.
GOOD TO KNOW. Will take a TAXI next time.
I’ve rarely had that here in NYC. Perhaps that is due to most drivers here being full time instead of just doing it a couple of hours here and there.
This happened to us coming back to Seattle from Bali at the airport. We waited 45 minutes even though the app said he was 5 mins away. He never moved snd didn’t respond to our many texts and calls. We ended up using lyft instead and they showed up immediately. We did complain to uber and got a refund. This driver should loose his driver’s status. There are too many drivers that actually want to make a living honestly. Uber can see that this driver didn’t move or respond. I would think they would deactivate drivers that do this…
I never give in, I just go and order a Lyft instead, leaving the driver hanging until they have to cancel.
Ridesharing has become toxic? It’s always been toxic. I knew it was a scam from day one. The initial fares were in no way sustainable. But they hooked a generation on Uber who are ignorant to take the train or bus or even know how to hail a taxi. And I’m not making this up. At work I’ve showed them how to do it. I live in Chicago and many never used them until I showed them how.
Personally I think it depends on the city you live in. I uber in las vegas and do well for myself. But traffic is so bad here that people have to wait a long time. Uber drivers will drop off in las vegas but most of us won’t pick up on the strip and most of uber drivers take off for the weekend to live their live or work another job. So ultimately leaving people stranded on the strip and at the mercy of taxi driver who try to run up fares. I have 4.98 rating and love this job I do agree drivers who scam people over and over should be removed. But I don’t think that will happen because it’s already hard to find good drivers like me.
I use Uber/Lyft almost daily. Primarily in Austin, Miami, and Madrid. I’ve seen the “driver doesn’t move” thing happen, but not often. I experience that problem more in Latin America than in the US or Europe. I’m surprised to hear of the apparent ubiquitousness of it. I would say Lyft is especially dependable with my Lyft Pink membership through Chase. They often show up at my house within 2 minutes.
Why do you take an Uber or Lyft almost daily? Do you not own a car and just use this service as a replacement? Where do you take it?
In a typical week, I’d say 2-3 airport trips. 2-3 short trips around town to dinner/bars/etc. maybe 1-2 work related rides that fall outside of what I said above. I do own a car, but I live downtown and driving isn’t practical unless I’m going to the burbs, which I rarely do. In fact, I haven’t driven my car since December.
I far prefer not having to worry about parking, or that whole pesky drinking and driving thing. I would imagine I’m a pretty typical Uber user in a downtown portion of an American city without properly funded public transportation.
I am an Uber/Lyft driver in Kansas City and I am not one to accept a ride and then not drive to the location. It seems to be a nice little scam, but how long until the algorithm notices that all your riders are cancelling on you. Hopefully these lazy bastards get kicked off the platform and good drivers like myself are more in demand and the companies can actually PAY ME what my vehicle, service and time are worth.
All I can say is the writer of this article is a fool. An Uber driver if/when they get a cancelation fee is is $3.75 in most markets. There is no Uber driver that is sitting around for 15 minutes waiting for you to cancel for 3 bucks. Drivers earn due to surge and bonuses which are ride count based. They are trying aiming for quantity for bonuses and quality for surges. Also, if a driver takes to long to get to their designation a passenger can cancel and not have a cancellation fee (even if the warning comes up).
Paul, I’m not disagreeing with you regarding the economics of the cancellation fee… Can you tell us what is happening when the driver accepts a ride and isn’t moving? I commented that it doesn’t happen to me often, but it does happen, and generally traffic is not to blame. What exactly is to blame? We don’t understand it.
@jerry i used to use third pary apps or even was using google maps instead of the maps that the apps use, when we do that the gps location isn’t sent to the customer making it look like we aren’t moving. At least that’s what was happening in my case, could be lots of different reasons however so if it was happening to me i’d try to have some patience as I can’t imagine this happening multiple times in a row
This pure unadulterated BS buddy.
Before you’re enabled to pickup a ride, the app will ask for location (obv). Once you’ve picked up said ride, the location is being transmitted to the cloud and to the patron. By switching to Google maps (while Uber is still running) you do not cut off that location tracking. It’s a background service. You would have to intentionally disable this background service to prevent location tracking in Uber. Now tell me, why would an Uber driver do that after picking up a ride?
Actually, I think most IOS users disable background location tracking when they first set up any app. You would have to be cognizant of the need for background tracking as an Uber driver while using Google maps. I gurantee you almost all non-technology geeks are going to turn off background tracking because they worry about privacy and watch too much sensationalist TV.
Yet another example amidst thousands more that government oversight is needed to keep in check corporate America. For all those that scream Government hands off….you are also the ones screaming that Uber, Boeing, Meta, Philips, any large Bank etc are all scammers and murderers.
It’s much ado about nothing!! I’ve been driving for 8 years. So you make $3 for nothing. At least 15 minutes or so would go by b4 you cancelled and another ride would show up for the driver to take in the same area if not longer. So maybe you make $10/hour. You have to pay employment taxes on the revenue lowering your profit margin. If the driver took the ride they would average $25 to $30 per hour. Plus half the riders tip, so the driver would make that as well. This is a non starter. You can also get your money back.
… but drivers are asked to wait 8 minutes each ride during prime earnings time and are the bad guy when we don’t wait with door open, on one knee, with red carpet rolled out xD
The contempt the writer of this hit piece seems to have for drivers is kind of breathtaking. I guess at the very least we don’t have to guess where he’s coming from. As a current and long-time part-time driver for both Uber and Lyft:
– Uber cancellation fee: $5.00 paid by rider. Driver gets $3.15-$4.00 IF they have made progress towards the rider AND the rider cancels more than 2 minutes after the request comes in.
– Lyft cancellation fee: $5.00 paid by rider. Driver gets $2.00 IF their ETA is not delayed more than 5 minutes after the ride is requested.
– Driver-initiated cancellations before reaching the pickup point on both Uber and Lyft incur no fee to the rider but does increase the driver’s cancellation rate. If that reaches 10%, they run the (very likely) risk of deactivation. Driver gets $0.00.
– Driver-initiated cancellations after reaching the pickup point on Uber are charged to the rider AFTER the driver has waited over 7 minutes. Also $3.15-$4.00 to the driver. On Lyft, wait is 5 minutes AND driver must have made contact attempt with rider. Driver gets $2.00.
Take a look at those numbers. In what world is a driver running a “scam” for $2-4? What driver is going to sit there wasting time risking deactivation for a couple of dollars?
It’s ridiculous when you actually look at the facts of what’s happening and perhaps if the author had reached out and got a driver’s perspective on the issue he would provide a better service to those reading this. Facts are facts, and there are very few in this rant piece above.
I hear what you are saying @AO, but you cannot discount the hundreds if not more complaints (including my own) of waiting and waiting and waiting and trying to contact the driver over and over. What other explanation is there? Is it not possible some drivers do this? I know YOU don’t do it, and plenty of drivers don’t either bc I use Uber when I travel all the time, but you cannot discount so many stories as being complete bunk.
I think it’s a bunch of type A’s who don’t want to wait until the driver is 5 minutes behind their ETA (and they can cancel for free). These type A’s are impatient by nature and simply can’t tolerate that. Matthew unlike Kyle doesn’t in this piece acknowledge that drivers are independent contractors. So here’s the thing, yes drivers can not accept the payment offered which is true. BUT, Uber has all kinds of incentives they offer to prevent that. For example, drives will be offered an incentives for giving XX rides during YY time period. BUT to earn it you have to accept all rides, if you decline it resets the counter. So what the driver wants you to do is cancel, because that doesn’t set the ride counter AND they don’t have to take the low price offered which relies on you as the rider providing a tip for it to be profitable. Oh, and as Gary from View from the Wing has pointed out only 28 percent of riders are not cheap skates and do tip. So please, let’s acknowledge this is a problem TNC companies created and they alone can solve by offering higher payouts to drivers.
I’ve been an Uber and Lyft driver for 7 years and about 12,000 rides. There is no way the driver gets paid for accepting a ride and not showing up. The timer for cancellation does not start until the driver arrives at the navigating point of the pickup spot. And even if the driver has to relocate (like go around the corner and drive back because of traffic} the wait timer pauses until we get back to the scheduled pickup spot. And then, and only then, do we geta “no show fee” after 5 to 7 minutes. And, Lyft mandates we call the person at least 1 time before we can cancel. If there is communication between the rider and myself, I pickup 100% of my passengers.
Interesting insight. Also, how much would the driver make on this “scam”? $1 or $2… See how many times this needs to be repeated, without being flagged by Lyft or Uber, to even make the amount interesting
Uber drivers don’t get paid a cancelation fee unless they drive to the pickup point and wait 7 minutes. If they accept a ride and don’t move, they get nothing. The app starts the timer when the GPS detects you’ve arrived at the pick-up point and often, if you are only 20 or 30 feet away from that pin on the map, the timer won’t even kick in. I think the most logical explanation (and this has happened to me before) is that automatic acceptance of rides is turned on in the driver’s app and the driver forgot to go offline. I’ve pulled my phone out of my pocket after taking a break and had a notification “Oops. Looks like you accidentally accepted a ride.” Also, in iOS, if drivers are using Waze or another third-party app to navigate to the rider and the Uber app is running in the background, the driver’s location won’t update in Uber. I don’t know if this is a feature or a bug but sometimes I forget to bring the Uber app up until I reach a pickup location and when I switch back over I see the Uber app move from the location I was when I accepted the ride to my current location. It is also a huge headache if you’re picking up at a gated community and you can’t reach the rider via text or phone for a gate code. Because you can’t get the pickup location behind the gate you just have to cancel and move on and you don’t get paid anything, not even for driving to the gate and attempting the pickup.
Just wondering – are you supposed to tip on cancellation fees in such circumstances?
This has happened to me many times — one time I was in San Diego, trying to go to my hotel, and the Uber literally drove past me. Did not answer my texts or calls, and luckily there was a taxi stand nearby. It was only a $12 rid, so I decided not to cancel and see what would happen (the driver was moving, but driving in a loop, about 2-3 miles away from my pickup). It took almost 3 hours for the driver to finally cancel the ride!
I don’t think the scam is that the drivers collect a cancellation fee, perhaps it is that they accept the ride without knowing where it is going and would rather wait for a more lucrative ride. This happens to us fairly frequently at the Las Vegas airport. We are just going home, a short ride and locals so perhaps the driver thinks we won’t tip well. A ride to the strip is potentially worth more, plus easier to get another ride right away from the strip than from a neighborhood.
this article brough to you by the Taxi Unions
As a Lyft driver with over 20,000 rides I can say this. When you are not going anywhere but around the corner and the ride comes up on my app as a $5 ride, it is not feasibly possible to come and get you. Lyft takes so much of a percentage of the ride that it makes your ride insignificant and not worth doing. Lyft also penalized is for refusing your miniscule ride so travel further or get an upgrade of the ride and stop being cheap. Or you can walk, you can always use that option.
The fact of the matter is, it’s not actually drivers doing this in the vast majority of cases. There is a massive network of buying and selling “verified” and “aged” (hacked mostly) Uber accounts. Scammers buy these accounts for cheap, run them up using these kind of scams until theyre banned, and move on to the next account they’ve purchased. Don’t blame the drivers for what is mostly being done by scammers on Telegram.
That may be the case, but I have experienced this often…and it is not a good look for Uber/Lyft.
This article reeks of so much entitlement and ignorance. I can already tell the writer is one of those douchebag passengers with a very low rating.
First of all, let’s get this out of the way. Drivers are NOT obligated to pick you up at any point in time.
Second, drivers do not get any cancellation fee for sitting still. They only get a CUT of the cancellation fee after making significant progress towards the pickup point. If Uber is charging you, then they are scamming you. That’s between you and them.
Finally, the writer touches upon the fact that Uber and Lyft are very greedy. They take very high cuts out of EVERY fare. They take at least 50% to 75% of every fare. Drivers are left with peanuts.
Instead of proposing a sensible solution like, oh I don’t know, giving drivers the majority of the fare. What does he propose? Drivers should be charged for not picking up passengers. Lol. What an idiot.
If fares were fair, drivers would be rushing to pick up every passenger. Uber and Lyft have created a hostile toxic environment that pits drivers and passengers against each other while they sit back and roll in the dough.
As it is, drivers have to be very selective and this is a symptom of that.
So you admit that drivers do EXACTLY what I lament, but call me an ignorant DB and blame Uber/Lyft.
What a tool you are.
Hilarious.
Not an issue at all in America. We drive our own cars here.
Not after drinking 6 Bud Lights, we don’t!
If Uber or Lyft wanted to correct the situation, they could.
They control some of the most sophisticated algorithms.
However, it will take a social media out cry or damaging exposé on national news to resolve the issue.
Till then, those in the C-Suite will laugh all the way to the bank.
The only innocent party here is the customer
Uber/Lyft should be able to automatically waive cancellation fees if no motion detected for X minutes from location at time of the ride acceptance. That wouldn’t be perfect but eliminate a lot of the game of chicken and let people move on more quickly.
I live in Los Angeles and my main business, which accounts for most of my income, has been slow. Because of this I had to use the 2020 Honda Civic I had just purchased as second car for my main business to complete UBER rides to make up for the shortfall. I have been doing this since January 2021.
First of all; the only people who use their car to UBER drive are people who are probably quite desperate for ready cash, as I was, otherwise you would not do it; but once you cash-out you realize it costs five bucks to make ten or thereabouts, and the drivers are just being exploited for their desperation really and UBER should be shut down and people need to go back to paying higher fares for taxis.
I purchased that car in March 2021 with 12,000 miles, it now has 110,000 miles in January 2024. It averages about 32 to the gallon, being a manual, and is relatively inexpensive to service, compared to my Porsche, for example. I want to point out that we are paid a flat fee for the ride, which we can see on the app before we accept the ride. There is no bonus for sitting in your car longer or taking your time or making the ride take longer than necessary, as the incentive is to get the ride done and do another and I can tell you the UBER app will often underestimate the time Pthe rid will take, and as a driver you only have a few seconds to see the ride and accept. I would try to make a hundred a day to supplement my income, I chose the mornings and preferred long drives, as it seems insulting to let someone in your car for 3 bucks, The fee paid to the driver is not fair when considering effort and input is far greater than the reward, but the fee paid is there upfront. I can only say from a personal standpoint that If I see a ride for twenty bucks and drive to the destination and it’s cancelled after I’ve waited for 5 minutes and driven for 10 minutes then I’ve lost time and money and it’s totally miserable, so cancellations and cancellation fees are no incentive to me.
I have a high rating with UBER with of 4.96, I keep my car really clean, I try really hard to give a professional and smooth ride, but as a person who use to jump in the back of an UBER, and who has had to be on the other end, I realize what a scam it is and how hard working people are being crushed, even by other working people wanting a cheap ride and expecting privilege.
As far as tips; with a high rating you can’t really fairly say I don’t deserve a tip; I ask the passenger if the temperature is ok, windows are up, AC is on, quiet and peaceful environment, I play very quiet classical music, and give a safe ride. I don’t talk to riders unless they talk to me, often they fall asleep and thank me when I wake them at the destination. But I have found that about 5 in 100 will tip. Why? I have surmised that the rider already feels the ride is expensive and doesnt’ want to tip, but there is also the very real concept that American society deem Uber drivers as trash and scum, and because they can walk away, they treat them in a way that they themselves would not want to be treated.
Either way; your article is indicative of the worst of UBER riders, a self absorbed and horribly entitled person who is focused on their own comfort and privilege and self-rightousness; just based on the concept that you think any UBER driver can scam you I want you to know that we cannot scam anyone, not even for a penny!!
I won’t have to rely on UBER forever and can’t wait to get out; and it’s not the only humbling experience I’ve been through in my life, but from my standpoint any rider who thinks UBER drivers are scamming them, especially in Los Anbgeles, are completely wrong. We don’t have the capacity to scam anyone. Once the ride is accepted we have to get moving. To me the incentive is to speed on the freeway, because you just want to get rid of that smelly, fat lazy, dribbling horrible human out of your car as quickly as possible, which many UBER riders are, so see it from our perspective.
I would love to see UBER/LYFT and ridesharing go out of businesss and I would like to see people pay twice as much for a cab. I would survive, but when I get back to being the UBER rider instead of the UBER driver I will remember to tip well, and I will remember what it was like.
I have only taken Uber once and that was to the airport. Uber was slightly more than the cab at the time I went. I was going to take a cab but couldn’t get one so early. One thing I noticed is that there is no settling of the bill like in a cab where they ask what tip you want to give. I think people are more likely to give tips in that situation rather than getting a text later like Uber does. Didn’t Uber not have tips when it first started? I didn’t give a tip. It was odd. The guy just jumps out of the car at the airport and gets my bags and then I get a text about a tip. I will give one next time if the price isn’t a lot more than the cab.
I was horrified to read the LA driver’s comment that only 5 in a hundred riders leave a tip. I was going to comment earlier that using ratings is an easy way to pick a good driver and I assume for drivers to accept riders.
I only use Uber when I visit LA but I’ve never experienced what was described. I’ve had drivers be a little late because of traffic but I could see they were on the Interstate or Highway and that was why. Even then they called me to let me know they were on their way just running behind. I always choose highly rated drivers, leave a big tip and follow the rules. Be where you say you’ll be, when you say you’ll be there to be picked up. Be polite. Treat the driver’s car respectfully.
I have a 5 star rating as a rider which I hope influences better drivers to pick me up even on short trips, knowing they will get a tip.
I live in the sticks of north jersey. Uber drivers would call me from an unknown number, ask where I was going, then said if I cancel the ride and u pay me (ridiculous amount of cash) I’ll take you. It’s not worth my time
The “unknown number” is coming through Uber’s switchboard. We never have your number and the only way to call you is through the app. And all of those calls are recorded. If they catch a driver doing this, they are permanently deactivated from the platform and they are very clear about this. No exceptions. If.a rider reports this, they can review the call and take action. We have a huge problem with drivers doing this at our airport here in Atlanta. They’ll drive to the pickup location after accepting a ride then tell the rider to Apple Pay, Cash App or Venmo and cancel the ride in the app. I’ve picked up a few riders at the airport who have told me these stories and I told them to immediately contact the Uber Safety Team. This is a bigger and more dangerous scam in my opinion. There are no safety guardrails in place if you agree to do this. I even had one rider tell me that a driver picked them up and halfway through the ride, the driver canceled the ride and tried to blackmail them into paying them outside of the app.
UBER is terrible! Forget UBER eats, they have charged me and fought tooth and nail to collect from me for meals that were never delivered. I will use a taxi when available, UBER is a last resort now, the low class drivers wrecked it.
The real issue is that Uber needs to layoff some of its 30k+ corporate employees, drop tipping, and pay drivers $1.00 per mile and $0.15 per minute. There should also be a policy in place that Uber receives no more than 40% of the fare. This will increase driver and passenger satisfaction, reduce scams from both drivers and passengers, and address the greed situation from Uber/Investors, and address their overhead issue
It’s better than the scam rate on regular taxis. I would say 90% of the regular taxis I take in any city try to scam me in some way. Uber scam percentage is much lower.
Now that Matthew is personally being inconvenienced it’s time to do something, and he would prefer the thing that’s done is punish drivers. No outcry from Matthew as rideshare near-monopolies systematically abuse and enslave their workers over the past many years. I don’t think I sympathize with him.
Good grief people, can you not spot a phony article when you read one? I have worked Uber and Lyft for 6 years, have thousands of rides, and have always made great money. Do you people actually think that I am going to accept a pick up, just sit there and not respond to the customer, all of this for $3 when I will probably make a minimum of 10 to 15 if I pick up the customer? You are delusional.
Well glad you’re one of the good ones. Many of your colleagues are not. Why would I possibly make this up?
I’ve had decent CS experience with Uber for rides, but awful for Eats
I’ve been driving for Uber for almost 4 years in metro Atlanta. If you accept a ride and don’t move, it is impossible for a driver to collect any cancelation fee. When a ride is accepted, you must drive to the pickup location and wait 7 minutes before canceling to receive a fee. We don’t even control the timer. It kicks in automatically when the GPS detects that you’ve arrived at the pickup location. Furthermore, if you accept a ride and don’t move, eventually the app times out and assigns it to another driver. I don’t how long it takes to time out, but I don’t think it is over 5 minutes, because a couple of times I’ve had the app set to automatically accept rides and forgot to go offline when stopping to take a break. I’ve pulled my phone out to see a pop-up telling me “Ooops. It looks like you accidentally accepted a ride” because I didn’t move. I guess there could occasionally be a glitch in the app, but I’ve never had a glitch that accidentally gave me a cancelation fee and I’ve completed over 5,000 rides.
There’s also the “2 minute rule.” If you accept a ride and you haven’t driven at least 2 minutes toward the pickup, and the rider cancels, drivers don’t get a cancelation fee and the rider isn’t charged. But the point is, you have to show some progress toward the pickup. You can’t just sit still and get a cancelation fee. Atlanta is going through some major growing pains right now and sometimes in rush hour traffic 2 miles can take up to 20 minutes and sometimes the app grossly underestimates how much time it’ll take us to get to the rider. I’ve had riders cancel within 2 minutes when I’m trying to get to them in gridlocked traffic and we don’t get paid a dime in that scenario. And if the rider canceled because it is taking me too much time to get them, it re-assigns the ride to the next closest rider, and that driver may be farther away from the rider than I am.
I totally agree with you. You have to be at the location for the clock to start and get the cancelation option. What ever some drivers are doing dishonestly to get fees is a .mystery. I have my speculation of why customer’s are saying these things, but that is another subject.
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I’ve been driving for Uber a long time, 7 years part-time. Too bad there’re dishonest drivers. Not everyone does that. It makes good drivers look bad.
Also, it goes both ways,I notice when I’m in rural areas, I get a lot of cancelations and be steady driving to the customer. Get a couple of minutes away and the customer canceled. I have to call Uber to ask for my cancelation fee, Sometimes the customer lies about the driver when they simply change their mind about needing the ride to not get the cancelation fee or just simply waiting for a certain type of driver to come pick them up. I’m glad they cancel as long as I get paid for my time being waisted and they could be a potential nut ball.
This is being done by groups using proxies and fake ID’s. Quit blaming Uber and the real drivers. Just shows how small minded you are!
These groups have 20 – 30 accounts going at once and cycle through id’s on this platform.
Once they’re burned for Uber they do it with Lyft, then another, then another.
If you track them to their “location” you’re likely going to end up at some random persons house who’s wifi got hacked during a porn session.
Now it’s a proxy server.
Uber bans them… they keep rolling through accounts. A small group can make a pretty nice living in a lot of countries with that $2.50 a pop scam.
QUIT BLAMING THE REAL PEOPLE!
It works both ways. Passengers are scamming drivers and neither Uber nor Lyft do anything about it. The most common is to make fictitious complaints about hot button issues, in hopes that the app will discount the ride. Meanwhile, your driver gets a message saying the made horrible comments, with a warning. I’ve followed up on these reports and been told “they’ve done that 5 times already.” Obviously they are too scared of losing passengers to take action. As far as I know, in 10 years, only one passenger has been kicked off the app after one of my complaints, and that was for assault.