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Comment by baby | Hacker News Reader

Damn, one of my driver drove with my girlfriend's phone, we were waving to him but he didn't stop. We managed to call him via the app and he said he would send it back to us but never did. After that it was impossible to do anything/contact him via Uber :/

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This happened to me. The driver decided to drop me off in the bus lane (instead of the normal taxi/car lane) at an airport and encouraged me to get out quickly and drove off just as fast because we were in violation of airport policy. Very shortly after I noticed my phone was gone and was in his car.

I was able to contact him since I luckily had a tablet with data and I was using Project Fi but there was absolutely no good process to deal with this since it was impossible to get in touch with him.

Uber support was completely useless and in the end he returned it to one of their service centers. He never told me so and enough time had passed where Uber just recycles/destroys phones beyond a certain point.

I was absolutely livid about this. I only use Uber as a last resort now.

> I only use Uber as a last resort now.

I really don't get this. You are livid with the company and yet you will still continue to pay them. Why would they do anything different then? Why are there situations where you absolutely have to use Uber as a last resort? What did you do in those situations previously before Uber came about?

At the very least Lyft seems like an option

There are places where Uber is the only realistic choice apart from taxi companies who will try to scam you. Mexico City is an example.

It seems there's Cabify in Mexico City. I'm using them in Sao Paulo and their service is way better than Uber's.

There are places where Uber is the best choice. I can support a morally corrupt company (Uber) or I can risk my life every time I get inside an Eco Taxi (Green and white taxis in Mexico).

Both are criminal organizations. Your miles may vary.

Did you consider asking the police to file a criminal complaint against Uber for theft?

It appears that he forgot his phone in the car?

I wonder what recourse you have with a real taxi. I am sure the company contracting a taxi driver would consider firing a driver that steals your stuff. Especially after a few complaints. The main problem seems to be Uber's unresponsiveness to the whole issue. It would not be hard for them to set up some sort of system to prevent fraud and theft and to punish drivers accused of that sort of thing, and to kick them out of the system after a certain number of complaints.

It depends a lot on where you are, and whether you knew the identity of the car.

I once lost my phone in a private hire in the UK (these are essentially less tightly regulated taxis that cannot pick people up off the street, they must be pre-booked only, and are what Uber operates as), and having emailed the office kept getting told that he was going to hand it in to the police as lost property "tomorrow" for a number of days. In the end, I told them that unless he handed it in within a further three days I would go to the police and make a complaint of theft against the driver, with all the emails between me and their office as evidence that a) they knew who the driver was even though they wouldn't tell me, and that b) he had it. Surprisingly enough, it got handed in within a couple of hours after that.

I'm displaying my single use of Uber to date, but if the driver steals your phone, can you ever give him a one star review? I thought a couple of one stars and he never drives for Uber again. But if he inoculates himself from reviews, that is quite a hack of the system.

This is a tired argument. Yes, it's harder with a taxi. Less proof / information about exactly which taxi you were in.

But Uber doesn't get to simultaneously claim to be safer than taxis because of the data being tracked whilst also not using that data to help prevent and prosecute crimes.

It's much easier with a taxi. Taxi receipts helpfully include the taxi cab number, as required by law in most big cities. Taxi drivers usually have more downtime between rides, especially in hotel/airport queues, so they are more likely to discover left-behind items that would otherwise be found and taken by the next Uber/lyft passenger. And finally, taxi companies also have centralized locations for storing lost items.

Assuming you get a receipt, remember the car number, or otherwise can identify the driver.

I've taken many a taxi ride and can count on one hand the number of times I've gotten a receipt (which was only because it for expense reimbursement).

Having a digital record in a receipt emailed to you or live in the app is a entirely different league of convenience.

Assuming you get a receipt, which I have only ever gotten when I specifically requested one for expense purposes.

and even then, in many cities i get some hand scrawled thing with an amount written in.

I've recovered a lost phone by providing a taxi cab number to the dispatcher who sent the cab back out to my location. I was ready to compensate them for the extra trip, but they didn't accept payment. That's something that simply isn't possible with Uber or Lyft.

During the 1.5 year time I was a lyft and uber driver I returned no less than 5 cellphones to their owners. There's even a url in your reciept email that will place a phone call to the driver for this exact situation.

And you think a dishonest taxi cab driver is going to issue you with such a receipt?

Most people don't want them or throw them away, I'm sure they'd be happy to offer to trash it for you. :)

I left a DSLR in a taxi in Ballarat.

I live in New Zealand.

They couriered to me for free.

(I sent the driver a box of wine to say thanks).

Yeah but that's Australia... ;)

I've had all kinds of positive similar experiences with people all over the world. Most people aren't out to rob you.

There was no stealing involved, but I had a somewhat relevant experience a few months back. My grandmother was visiting me (in New York City) and accidentally left her pocketbook in a taxi that we took. After a long time of googling to try to figure out how to contact the cab company, I found out from a concierge at her hotel that there was a specific number you could dial to reach some sort of help line for the city (I think it was "311", but I'm not positive). I called the number and after listening to a recording for several minutes, I reached a point where I could speak a term and have it give me info on it. After saying "New York City cab company" or something like that, it gave me the option to give them a tax number so and they'd give me the number of the company. Luckily, I had paid for the cab with my credit card, and my bank app had the cab number in the transaction, so I was able to get the number for the company. After calling them, I got the number of the garage, who then gave me the cell number of the driver. I called him, and it turned out that he had heard us try to call the phone earlier (but couldn't get to the phone in time and couldn't unlock the phone to find the number to call us back at), so he went back to the spot where he had dropped us off to try and find us. He came back to meet us at the hotel, and we got the pocketbook back (and gave him a nice tip for his trouble).

From what I understand, cab companies acknowledge liability for their drivers, so they'd be much more inclined to take action against unscrupulous drivers. It seems plausible that people who want to use the pretense of driving others around to steal things from their passengers would be much less likely to want to driver for such a company, so I wouldn't be surprised if my experience with a driver willing to go out of their way to return items is much more common with taxis than Uber.

This isn't relevant. You might as well say it would be really difficult with a donkey ride, as they have no registration numbers

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