Uber is charging passengers a $10 cancellation fee even when the driver cancels | Hacker News Reader

Uber is charging passengers a $10 cancellation fee even when the driver cancels

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I've been in standoffs with Uber/Lyft drivers where the driver calls or texts me saying they don't want to pick me up for whatever reason and demand that I cancel the hail. Drivers don't want to be the ones who cancel because canceling reduces their rating. I don't want to cancel because I both don't want the hit to my rating and I don't want to have to follow up with Uber/Lyft to request a cancellation fee refund.

Last year, I filed a complaint with the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission against both Lyft and an individual driver after the driver refused to pick me up in the middle of Manhattan but refused to actually cancel the ride. I eventually gave in and canceled the request. Lyft refused to refund the cancellation fee. I ended up getting a chargeback from my credit card company.

I submitted the driver's text messages to the T&LC as evidence and eventually got a phone hearing -- Lyft and the driver were required to appear in person. Lyft failed to appear and got a $1,000 fine. The driver showed up but was found not responsible for lack of evidence. It was a complete waste of time.

We'll be stuck with this until regulators realize that there's a pattern of abuse and start cracking down.

This is what happens when things are unregulated. But oh, regulation causes high fees/cost, and so it's ok to ignore! Until of course, when it isn't.

Isn't the point of elahd's story that Uber/Lyft drivers are already regulated (particularly) extensively in NYC, but that the regulations (at least in that instance) are ineffective?

Yeah, exactly. Parent comment is just someone who wants to believe that regulation is inherently good and productive.

I do, up to a point.

My experience with "sharing economy" taxi companies is that they really, truly, do not care about their drivers or their customers. It's a free for all where customers and drivers are basically left to sort things out themselves. IMO, this is where regulation comes in. In a city like New York, taxis are a part of our public infrastructure -- like buses, subways, etc. There should be baseline service guarantees set by transit regulators and adequate funding set aside for enforcement.

Day after day the people at these companies are working tirelessly to produce a system with as close to zero defects as possible. That's the only solution that cares about both riders and drivers in a two-sided market. Every conflict between those two sides can really only have solutions where one side wins and the other side loses.

Compare the number of defects per 100,000 rides in their solution to the one they replaced, and you'll quickly see that they care very much about both riders and drivers, because there isn't any revenue without both sides of the market.

Furthermore, we're all on a hedonic treadmill here. The better these services get, the more intolerable we find the most minor of inconveniences. In the long run, everyone is winning in the free market: riders drivers and TNSs, even as our perception changes to notice new details that can be better.

> The better these services get

The trend seems to go the other way.

Years back small perks such as free bottled water and plugged-in cables to charge your phone while you ride were not that uncommon with drivers striving to get to the 5-star ratings.

Today getting a car that doesn't smell too much and has enough trunk space to transport two luggage bags (not a completely unreasonable expectation in case of an airport pick-up) is close to a miracle.

My pet theory is that early successful drivers quit after running their numbers (that included costs on maintenance, wear and tear, extra tires, insurance that suddenly tripled when the car went way above the typical 12,500 annual miles), the current drivers looking to milk the system for as much as possible before the music stops.

You're pretty naive to think that the regulators or taxi companies care about you or the drivers anymore than Uber does.

> It's a free for all where customers and drivers are basically left to sort things out themselves.

And yet it works _better_ than when things are regulated, and people seem to prefer it.

It sounds like the regulations could be enforced better, but it does not sound _that_ ineffective. Lyft was fined $1000.

No it's not. He stated that he went to the regulator and complained and they dismissed it.

He actually received remedy from his credit card, which is not a regulatory requirement but rather the free market at work.

To be fair the T&LC, the investigators assigned to my case were very easy to work with and eager to help. Ultimately, the decision was up to a T&LC judge.

The process was pretty opaque. From what I gathered, every complainant is assigned an internal investigator/advocate. If the department determines that the complaint has merit, the complaint goes before a regulatory judge who has limited authority to issue fines, revoke licenses, etc.

The system almost worked.

Is there really an effective market in credit cards' willingness to refund? Aren't credit cards preferred mostly because regulation require them to refund the user in a lot of cases?

(Also, what's with that weird US regulation about a purchase having to be "within my home state or within 100 miles of my home" to be eligible for some credit card protections?)

The credit card market is a huge money maker and incredibly competitive. Have you seen the bonuses that US banks offer?

Yes, but I don't think they're competing on refund policy. It sure isn't what's in large print in the ads, and besides, the policy is mostly dictated to them by the credit card network (which isn't so competitive, it's largely a Visa/MC duopoly) and by legislation (which isn't at all competitive).

AmeRican Express certainly is.

What? Of course they are. If I felt like my credit card didn't have my back on the chargeback policy, then I'd be far more likely to go to a competitor. It may not be what's on the ads, but you do realize customer retention is a huge part of competition, not just customer acquisition.

Regulating behavior is completely different from regulating entry on market.

Besides, I fail to see how the GP wasn't victim of fraud. He may have better luck if he went to the police instead of a commercial regulator.

Not really. Let's say Taxi authority requires $20,000 bond from every driver to cover potential fines. Now you have drivers who can't afford to post the bond, you've reduced supply and increased prices.

Most any regulation is going to have some effect on supply, it's why they should always pass a cost/benefit analysis before implementation.

I meant directly regulating the supply. Some regulations are good, others are clearly bad. And telling "therefore shall only exist 2k taxis on this city" is clearly on the bad category.

BALONEY. You'd have insurance companies putting up the bonds for the drivers in exchange for a very reasonable and minor fee. I had to put up a several thousand dollar bond when I became a notary public many years ago in another state (I'm no longer one) and it cost under $50 to have a bond posted by some insurance company.

You were the one who brought up bonds though. No need for that, you can enforce regulations just fine without them. Your TLC driver's license can function as a bond -- if you don't comply with rules, suspend it.

I'd be shocked if you went to NYPD with this and they _didn't_ respond by just redirecting you to the T&LC.

Regulation causes high costs when it artificially constrains a market to a small number of cronies. That's the problem with regulation.

Regulation is great when it's unbiased and not just a way to enrich cronies, and does what it's designed to do. It just seems that it's extremely rare to see such effective regulation in the US. In European countries, it seems to be far more common.

> I submitted the driver's text messages to the T&LC as evidence and eventually got a phone hearing -- Lyft and the driver were required to appear in person. Lyft failed to appear and got a $1,000 fine. The driver showed up but was found not responsible for lack of evidence. It was a complete waste of time.

Any explanation for the "lack of evidence" piece? Seems like the record of text messages would cover that.

Or is this a dispute as to who exactly is responsible, i.e. the driver or Lyft?

> Any explanation for the "lack of evidence" piece?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pasguqsrziz4uul/TLC%20Decision.pdf...

The hearing officer seemed totally unfamiliar with the mechanics of both of ride sharing and texting. He fundamentally misunderstood the nature of my complaint and the origin/context of the text message.

Sounds like an incompetent regulator is what we should be complaining about and I'd put having an incompetent regulator at being strictly worse than no regulator because our taxes are wasted paying for that regulator. Our time is wasted dealing with it. And we deprive the free market of coming up with a solution.

Fascinating. I just read your PDF in full. My impression/suspicion is that the decision author DOES fundamentally understand texting, ride sharing, and your complaint, but carefully feigned the right misunderstandings (eg insisting that since the driver's text was proxied through Lyft, it had to be assumed that that was "Lyft talking" even though that makes little sense) was able to swing the outcome in a way to protect the driver and put all the blame on Lyft.

It's just intuition so maybe I'm wrong, but it's interesting if true, if the T&LC has a bias towards protecting drivers. I can imagine many ways that might have come about

I wouldn't say the $1000 dollar fine was a waste of time. It seems like a good result (not for you in particular, but for taxi users in general).

Yes, but... they were fined for failure to appear, not for any wrongdoing, so no precedent is set (if that's even a concept in T&LC court).

That's interesting. They must, overall, not be getting many complaints then? Or is $1,000 less than what any lawyer to represent them would've cost them?

This is happening nite and more and in fact happened to me last night at SFO, except instead of the driver just telling me to cancel, he made up a story about being in an accident. So I took a taxi, waited him out and he finally cancelled.

These services are turning into gypsy cab, where the full time people are as bad as the worst scammy taxi guys, new people don't know what they are doing and every once in a while you have someone who knows their area and isn't trying to scam but they seem to be doing it just for fun.

I'm back in regular taxis more often than not anymore

This is so irritating and happens to me often, I just don't have the time to follow up with it like the parent did. This coupled with the workplace politics and mistreatment of women as well as the lack of select or black car service at my client site has led me to just rent a car from Hertz for the week. It's been enjoyable to be honest, the only thing is I can't work while I'm in the car, which isn't really an issue for small trips. It's also a little harder to make calls, but I'll live with it. Maybe I'll give lyft ago but it seems like the same issues are there too.

It's pervasive. I can go on about fraud and sketchy drivers with all of the ride sharing services.

My fiance requested a Gett ride to JFK from midtown Manhattan for the two of us. The driver checked us into the cab while he was still en route to pick us up -- a very circuitous route -- accumulating ~$20 in travel fees. He kept calling to make excuses about why he was delayed. When the driver finally picked us up, he assured us that he'd reach out to Gett to have the additional charges removed.

Two weeks later, no update. We reported the issue to Gett. They not only refused to issue a refund, but they banned my fiance from the service!

She ended up requesting a chargeback for the full fare -- not just the additional charges -- which Visa granted. We don't want to bother with the T&LC again -- neither of us have the time.

That's just ridiculous I won't even bother with that app. Client service should be #1 always.

> I've been in standoffs with Uber/Lyft drivers where the driver calls or texts me saying they don't want to pick me up for whatever reason and demand that I cancel the hail.

I've had them try this, whenever they do, I tell them they can either come or cancel but if they don't choose, I have a competing app on my phone and I'll just call another ride.

Wow that's egregious. One thing I'm curious about -- what leverage does the driver have when trying to strongarm you into cancelling? Why do you end up giving in?

> I eventually gave in and canceled the request.

Presumably the inability to request again until they are dropped off or the request cancelled?

Their leverage is that you can't request another ride until either the rider or driver cancels the current request.

I was late to work and wanted to request another Lyft driver -- Uber was surging. After I canceled the hail, Lyft starting surging, as well. I ended up taking the subway to work.

The comments point out a perfectly reasonable explanation for why this charge might exist:

One reason that drivers can specify for a cancellation is that the rider wasn't at the pickup location. Even though it's the driver cancelling in this case, it's reasonable for Uber to charge the rider in my opinion. If this is the case, the poster is still being improperly charged the fee, but it's more about the driver lying about a cancellation reason than some plot on Uber's part.

Yeah, it sounds like Uber is basically favoring the driver by default in cancellation. Which is ironic when you consider that we are usually hearing stories about Uber screwing their drivers.

I'm curious how often in these cases was it actually user error [standing in the wrong spot] vs system error [GPS reporting a wrong location] vs driver error [driver navigated to wrong location, assumed user had walked away] vs driver malice [intentionally cancelling with no intent of pickup]. Most of the users getting canceled on assume the last, but I'd hope that either this sort of driver malice is rare or Uber has some sort of "driver fraud detection" algorithm.

How is this ironic? It's totally possible to repress and hurt drivers while still giving them the option of cancelling.

I know you're not saying this, but it doesn't make sense to cite this as evidence that "Uber really is treating their drivers well! Look look, they get to push a button that cancels the trip! Wouldn't that make you feel empowered if you were a driver??"

>One reason that drivers can specify for a cancellation is that the rider wasn't at the pickup location

I mean it's not that hard to check the location of rider when driver cancels the trip. If he isn't at the specified pick-up location, charge the rider or else charge the driver.

You have a really high belief in the ability of GPS to get things right. And probably of humans to work together when things aren't.

If you ask to be picked up at MacArthur BART station in Oakland and you're not careful, your driver will get routed to pick you up in the middle of the freeway that happens to run overhead. Some locations are also GPS distorting due to tall buildings and you'll literally show up 1-2 blocks away from your location (long blocks in SF's case). GPS is great, but it's not perfect.

But doesn't uber want to track you more to make sure you are picked on the correct and dropped on the correct side of road.

Look i'm not saying GPS is perfect, but having these checks might help prevent 10% of fraudulent cancellations.

Ride cancellation messages can easily have location attached and Uber can check if the cancellation location more or less matches requested arrival location. If they do not even send location - it's negligence. If they do send the location, but do not check it and still charge rider - it's malice. They have the tools.

Conspiracy theory: maybe showing that they actually have the tools could be unfavourable to them when/if the regulations are placed?

Uber's GPS and navigation data is such trash that this is halfway believable excuse. As a destination, Uber thinks I live halfway down the block on another street. It's not a convenience thing either. It's down a hill. It's flat out wrong. Lyft doesn't have this problem.

I have a friend who works at Uber on Second, and he says the same things happens to Uber at their own office. It sends the drivers to the wrong alley.

Conclusion? Bad data and drivers who don't know where they are actually going equals a bad experience.

Makes sense, these apps are insanely bad at setting the pickup spot where you actually are. Free $10 for them, so why fix it. Whee.

> "Whats more is that they don't refund the money they took unlawfully - instead they credit it to your Uber account."

I think that's the part that seems the most messed up. However, I will say that in the USA (Chicago) I've had this happen before (it's only a $5 charge, not $10) and when I disputed it, I got a credit back to my credit card and not an Uber credit like they mentioned. I wonder if it's different in Australia (assuming this is where it happened because r/australia)?

EDIT: As others have mentioned both here and on reddit, I am chalking this up to the drivers trying to scam riders, and not Uber directly doing it out of malice. I've had the same issue before when a driver tries to call me and tell me to cancel the ride for X reason that is their fault, that way they don't get the fee/penalty, but I'm not stupid. I know what they are trying to do. ha As someone else here said, this just bad design that is a lose-lose for either side, driver or rider, depending how it's done. All in all, I think Uber will always make this right if you just dispute it, and contact their support. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've canceled rides in several cities around the north east US, usually because the driver is taking too long/lost. Every time, Uber's policy was to charge me $5 if I cancelled 2 min after requesting. When I did dispute the charge, the process was the same as OP on reddit (including an account credit over a refund.) I wonder why there's a difference in how the money is reimbursed.

> the driver is taking too long/lost

> Uber's policy was to charge me $5 if I cancelled 2 min after requesting

To be clear, you waited less than 2 min for a driver before cancelling? Or the charge only applies after 2 min?

Ah, you're right I wasn't clear (it was early.) What I meant was, it's Uber's policy to charge a fee if a ride is canceled some amount of time after the driver accepts you as their fare. I think the grace period before the fee is about 2 min though I may be wrong. This my experience in New York and Boston.

I've never canceled a ride before waiting 5+ minutes and two of the three times I am referring to the driver drove past me twice.

I've finally deleted Uber and it's primarily because of the tipping issue. I've had almost universal good service around the world with Uber drivers, but the tipping thing is getting aggressive, and subtle hints are rapidly become overt demands. Uber was great when it started but government corruption and meddling, combined with Uber's greed, and the corrupt taxi industry fighting it, is killing the service. Small improvements could go a long way:

Add tipping in the app; ban cash tips. Require drivers to rate passengers BEFORE they get those tips.

No cancellation fee for anyone if cancelled within 10 minutes. After ten minutes whomever cancels, pays, period. Uber knows when it's inconvenient for someone to pick someone up due to traffic. The data is there.

Require background checks on all drivers. Why is this even an issue? Uber should pay for it.

Increase the amount drivers get. Seriously it's ridiculous how little drivers make.

Why should you tip anyone? You are buying a service for an agreed price, why should the price go up when you get to the point where you pay?

Uber's complete refusal to integrate tipping into the app led to various perverse incentives, mainly drivers blackmailing riders for a tip or else their rating will suffer https://hbr.org/2016/05/ubers-new-tipping-policy-is-a-mistak...

Wow! Time to give Lyft a try. Thanks!

Oh I agree, I loath tipping, but drivers want it so I see tipping in app post-ride as a middle ground.

Once I asked for a Uber driver on my corporate account during a business trip and the driver cancelled on me. I asked for the cancellation fee back and got $5 on my account.

Wait, what? Weren't my business supposed to get the $5 fee back? I am just an employee there and even if I was the point of contact or the owner, it's not how things should work.

I just earned $5 (that was probably charged) for being cancelled on and I most likely used it on a private trip later on.

I bet the contracts they have for corporate accounts make it clear (or else companies would be mad at them already) so it's not my problem, but it's weird nonetheless.

> I bet the contracts they have for corporate accounts make it clear (or else companies would be mad at them already) so it's not my problem, but it's weird nonetheless.

I wouldn't be so sure. They may just not have noticed / not care that much.

If it had happened to me, at my current employer, I would definitely have at least reported it to my finance dept. (This is somewhat employer specific though -- my employer has a convenient system already in place for what happens if you accidentally charge a personal purchase to a corporate card, and has a noticeable general culture of being careful and scrupulous and "doing the right thing"; at an employer lacking that, I'd probably just ignore it as you did, figuring I'd be more of a bother by even bringing it up)

There's a lot of reasons to hate Uber these days but I'm not sure this is one of them. The problem with cancellations is real, I have to cancel rides constantly because I live and work in Brooklyn Heights/ DUMBO and the app just can't seem to get the hang of the river, the bridges, and the expressway that runs through our neighborhood.

It's pretty much routine to get assigned a car and then watch as it speeds over your head rapidly towards Manhattan, or get assigned a car already on Wall Street, which is about 1000 yards away on the map on the other side of the East River.

It's super annoying, but if you get hit with the cancellation fee you can just go into the app and do it and it's always simple and instantaneous. Calling it a scam seems a little extreme.

I'm in a similar situation -- I live close enough to Staten Island that I get assigned drivers from there, but the actual route for the driver to get to me would be much, much longer than one already across the Kill.

WOW, are you serious? After all these huge amounts of venture capital, Uber still uses bird's distance rather than (easily obtainable) estimated travel time in all areas?

What a joke.

I mean I'll give them some credit that their algorithms are at least trying to be aware of the route rather than as-the-crow-flies distance of course, but they seem to have trouble handling New York's bridges and tunnels.

It's not a scam. Iirc when the driver cancels they have the option of not charging the customer, or charging the customer. It was the driver who decided to charge the customer. But when the driver cancels the ride it affects their metrics so they can't do it all the time. I imagine if they keep charging customers they will get kicked off the platform.

That's true; But Uber certainly should send the customer a mail to inform him he was charged by the driver $10 for not taking the ride, I think?

It's just driver being an ass or an idiot. Pretty sure the driver has an option to cancel without charging you and the one that does. I had experienced both. The first driver said his GPS isn't working and told me to cancel, which I refused because then I would be charged (also happened to me before). He cancelled, and I was still charged. I got a refund later (via customer service). The second time the driver was 10 minutes away and he called me and suggested me to cancel and get another ride. I refused because I assumed the app chose the closest driver to me. After a while he cancelled and I wasn't charged.

It's been awhile since I've used either Lyft or Uber since I moved downtown and can walk everywhere but I distinctly remember an incident when I requested a Lyft and it said it was 10minutes out. 15 minutes later it was still 10 minutes out and the driver called and said they were on their way (I assume they were just sitting in their house in "Driving" mode and took that long to get moving) but it was going to take them almost 20 minutes to get to me and if that was unacceptable I should cancel. I canceled the ride and got a different driver. Lyft charged me $5 for the cancel but I was able to dispute the charge successfully. Overall it was a huge PITA and I felt/feel like Lyft should do more to prevent people from taking so long after accepting a rider to actually get moving.

Happens ALL THE TIME in Hong Kong. The worst case so far, I've had a driver call me as soon as I submitted the pick up request, hung up the phone immediately as I mentioned where I was going, then stayed without moving for the next 90 minutes, without cancelling (I took a cab long before that). Similar, though less intense experience happened to me on about 20% of the rides, every time I have to go through the claim process to (automatically) get my money back.

Infuriating, I really wish there was viable alternative to Uber in HK, but taxi drivers are a lot worse (disgusting, rude, very frequently refuse a hire...).

What's wrong with taxis? I've taken plenty of cabs, but never an Uber or Lyft. In a city you can easily flag them down, or find a number and phone for one. Many cab companies have had phone apps for years, too. If you prefer Uber, can you explain why? Because there are tons of complaints here about the company.

Speaking for London, the only taxis that you can hail are "black cabs" which are very heavily regulated (and generally high quality), but 2-3x the price of an uberX. You can book a taxi from a local taxi company, but that's typically over the phone, and ideally needs to be done in advance, they are often ~1.5x the price of an uberX.

  (and generally high quality)

To be licensed, cabbies must master a comprehensive London geography/traffic test, the knowledge required to pass it is literally known as "The Knowledge"[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom...

Uber is sometimes cheaper and Uber drivers have an incentive to provide a better service because if they don't their rating goes down. Taxi drivers don't care because they don't have a rating and will be rude, overcharge or take longer routes than needed to make you pay more.

That totally depends on location. In my city, price of Uber and taxi is pretty much equal or some taxi operators are even cheaper. Furthermore, there's a centralized taxi app that connects most of operators and you can also rate driver after your journey is completed.

Yes, the fundamental truth is that taxi service varies wildly depending on location, due to many factors including differing regulation and geography. You just can't compare taxis in Manhattan NYC with taxis in Houston TX.

I used to live in northern NJ, within commutable distance of Manhattan. Manhattan cabs, for me as a white person, were pretty easy: just stand on the corner and hail one. There wasn't any point in using Uber/Lyft because it would have taken more time to get out my phone and mess with the app! However, back at home in NJ the taxis were ridiculously bad: I had to call ahead and hope they would show up within an hour. Then they'd drive me in some weird long route to get a higher fare. Uber/Lyft were so much easier (aside from being cheaper).

To be perfectly honest, cab service in some smaller places is horrendous. For example, do you meed to get to work by 9:00am tomorrow morning? You gotta call about 6:30-7:am. It might take them 15 minutes to pick you up or two hours and you cannot order in advance. There are no places to flag them down, so you always have to order one. Oddly enough, I've found these poor cabs mostly in places with no other public transportation. This sort of things plays games with a lifestyle. A trip to the GP can easily go from an hour-long short visit to taking up most of one's workday. In these places, I'd have welcomed the choice, even though I find it more risky than a cab.

That said, in places with good taxi service (where I*m at, for instance), there isn't a reason to switch.

Thanks, that explains quite a bit. I assume that what's unsaid is that in these smaller places Uber is available and fills the niche left unfilled by public transport and taxis. This I did not know.

Depends on the location. NYC taxis are generally pretty good. In DC? No. Especially if you're handicapped, a person of color, or in an area they don't like. Blind wit a service animal? You are SOL. Taxi's will flat out ignore you. They will drive painfully slow and drive in circles to run up the fare. Back when DC required cabs to take credit cards, the taxis would fight and say the machine is broken, or just not follow the law. These are the issues that pushed me away from taxis. I'd much rather deal with corporate Uber than government Taxi Commission.

DC cabs used to run on a zone system, rather than meters. Trips within the central zones were incredibly cheap, and there was no incentive to drive slowly or take a circuitous route, because there was no meter to run up. Meters are probably better for the drivers, though. Thanks for explaining.

>What's wrong with taxis?

Price.

Car services have existed forever. The point of Uber is making it affordable for everyone.

In addition to the drawbacks everybody else has mentioned, with taxis I often got a driver with no familiarity with the city, no GPS, and a very rudimentary command of English. So the ride consisted of me using my phone to figure out a route and using hand signals for "turn here." (Pre-smartphone, it was even worse.) And this was in NYC where taxis are actually good.* None of this nonsense happens with Uber or Lyft.

*Not as good as London taxis of course, but no place has taxis as good as London.

When I was young and still lived in my home town of NYC I got into a cab to go to Grand Central. The driver spoke no English and had no idea where that was. I used gestures to get us there. So I know. Can one expect Uber to be better?

That's egregious. How long ago was that? Was it a legitimate cab?

Until very recently, NYC's TLC required drivers to pass tests to prove geographical knowledge and basic English.

It was in the 1970s. I know others with similar stories. Yup, a legitimate yellow cab. There may have been a legal testing requirement, but I assume you know how that goes in the big city.

Yeah, wasn't shocked, just curious. I do think it's gotten better since then.

Yes, Uber is much better. The drivers all have smartphones with GPS and they know where you're going before you get in the car. So even if their English is limited, it's much less of an issue.

In Boston I've had cabbies at South Station try to get me to agree to pay 25 dollars for a ride that is 11 dollars on the meter. I don't really have a problem paying a bit more for taxis over Uber because as far as I know the cabs aren't using VC money to artificially lower their price, but I do have a problem when the cabbies try to blatantly fleece me in violation of their regulations

In my city Taxi's are horrible; I remember I was heading back from a party and I spent 4 hours waiting (calling back every 15-20 minutes to see where it was) before finally deciding to leave and spend the 2 hours to walk. Another time I had to go pick something up from a friends house that was 7 kilometers away, there and back cost me $56 somehow (I believe he may have started the clock before he arrived but I didn't confirm)

Two kinds of cities -- cities that already had good cab service before ridesharing took off (like yours, and mine) and cities that didn't (and ruralish areas, which, at least in the US, essentially had no taxi service at all).

That's why people are so polarized on whether Uber and company are the messiah or the devil. It just tells you which of the two kinds of cities/areas they lived in.

I think it is one of those cases where this applies: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

I think it may be a loophole or bad system design rather than a willful scam by uber to make some extra money.

That may have been the case 4 years ago, but Uber is a fairly seasoned company with many iterations of their app. I don't think it's safe to jump to "uber is scamming us" but this is definitely something that was done on purpose.

Look, I have no skin in the game but Uber doesn't charge for cancelled rides if the driver honestly cancels it. It looks like the driver in OP's link marked the passenger as 'not arrived when at pickup,' which defaulted to the app charging the OP.

I had someone cancel on me this morning. It shows up as cancelled and as a $0.00 ride on my ride history.

I think that decision to withhold the destination of the ride from drivers was a very bad idea they should repeal.

They wanted to be sure that drivers don't choose convenient riders and leave less convenient ones unserved, but a) it didn't work, only introduced this "you cancel, no, you" game after destination becomes apparent, and b) opportunistic drivers can no longer give a ride to people who go in the same direction, because they can't tell; limiting driver base to semi-professionals who have nothing else to do.

In order to do that, they'd have to increase the price for rides to less attractive (to drivers) destinations. A trip that ends somewhere unlikely to have another customer available (like an outlying residential area in the evening) is way less attractive than an identical time/distance trip to somewhere with lots of likely fares (a central business district, for example)

So, if drivers can see the destinations, they will simply avoid ever picking up jobs for "bad" destinations, unless properly incentivized.

Customers going to "unpopular" destinations are essentially being subsidized at the expense of drivers and customers going to "popular" destinations. If you remove the destination blinding AND don't bother to increase the price for "unpopular" destinations, people trying to go to "unpopular" destinations will find they can never get a car, even worse than now

Anyway, I agree they shouldn't be distorting the price market like that, it just creates frustrations for both sides

This assumes that rides outnumber drivers so that drivers can be picky. In practice tho, it should be the other way around: drivers should be choosing between a paid ride to "bad" destination, and no ride for some time while they're waiting. You can trivially teach the algorith to give better rides to less choosy drivers first.

Second, if you still have amateur drivers on your platform who do ad-hoc carpooling, chances that they're looking for an one-way drive to the same "bad" destination because they have further non-cab business there. You can teach the algorithm to offer a selection of rides to such drivers for their first ride in a few hours. Or even let them to specify where they want to go. Maybe it's already implemented by someone?

And yes - Uber price is always unpredictable for a rider, so why not just factor in destination desirability into it?

> Or even let them to specify where they want to go. Maybe it's already implemented by someone?

Yes this is already implemented by Uber [1]. I have used it several times on my commute home.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2015/11/16/uber-drivers-can-now-pick-...

This also means that if your destination is in a bad neighborhood, you are likely to go ignored (unless there is serious surge pricing in effect).

This is the "loss leader" of the industry: long trips from city center to an area which is a) considered "dangerous", and/or b) unlikely to have a fare for the return trip. This is where licensing makes a difference: in New York, for example, a cab that picks you up at the airport was required to take you anywhere in the five boroughs you wanted to go as a condition of the medallion.

They can surely price in the quasi-surge for such destinations. You'll have to pay an extra $5 but get there fast. Will never even know it, as prices appear to be fairly random anyway.

Currently, you're going to be pushed to cancel the ride.

a lot of corporate accounts would simply get milked by this dodgy functionality

Seems like they're trying everything they can..

I've had this happen a number of times but I always go in and report a issue with the ride and click my driver canceled and they credit my account with $5 right away. They don't even look into it they give it to me right away. It's not ideal but I think its their way of dealing with this easily.

Why does the driver accept the fare in the first place?

cancel cancellation fees. problem solved.

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