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Comment by invalidusernam3 | Hacker News Reader

I've had something similar happen to me. I caught an uber across town and 5 minutes after being dropped off I saw the trip hadn't ended (I was trying to order another Uber). I cancelled the trip so it ended, and contacted Uber support. They refused to refund me anything since the additional charge incurred while the driver was cruising around on my tab was "within the estimated trip cost"

So basically they said I would have been charged the same amount regardless since the cost displayed before taking a trip is an estimate, and it only increases if it goes above the estimate. This means they're over charging for long trips since you pay the estimated price even if the trip cost is lower than the estimate.

I'm not sure if Uber works the same everywhere, this was in South Africa.

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Surely they can see from the location data provided by yours and their phones, that you have diverged? The system should detect this automatically.

I thought the same, but people often order Ubers for each other, or share a ride where the payer party gets out first.

A more useful feature would be to make payments subject to a confirmation and don't allow the costumer to request a new ride until payment has been made (or disputed). You already have to leave review and (skip) tip after every ride anyway.

Just give the driver a low rating.. then they'll be off Uber in no time.

This seems like exactly the kind of behavior that's should trigger a 2-star review.

Two Stars: Driver tried to steal my money, but he seemed like a decent guy.

Why are you even giving them one star?

Because when the rated party also rates the rater, ratings are essentially useless. The question you ask yourself is: is this person so absolutely awful as a passenger/driver that I'm willing to risk being kicked off the platform to get them kicked off?

Why? In a situation where repeat encounters are rare, and each party cannot see the other party's rating until they've submitted theirs (or not at all), what's the risk of giving an accurately-bad rating? Also, how is rating 2 stars less likely to trigger retaliation than rating 1 star?

You can’t see how the other person rated you before you rate them in Uber. Also this would explain why you’d always rate high, not choose two stars over one which is still a bad rating.

Airbnb has this problem though. A loud apartment on the highway will have no mention of it being on the loud highway. Just ratings like “5 stars, great for early risers!”

Airbnb has no motive to fix it because their service looks great with rating inflation.

If there’s a problem with Uber’s rating system, it’s that it’s a five-star system.

I thought I was the perfect Uber passenger (always on time, sat quietly) until I saw my rating. It was 3.5/5. Too arbitrary to be actionable. Is it because I’m a gringo living in Mexico? Should I start small talk more often? Tip them in cash? Is it because I only use it to go to the airport which is a long and traffic-ridden drive which must not be fun for the driver? Or is 3.5 actually a good rating because it’s above 3.0, etc.

> Airbnb has no motive to fix it because their service looks great with rating inflation.

They have no motive to fix it if they have an incredibly short term view of things. It's fairly obvious that this damages the entire platform over time.

Framing a stupid decision as rational because it's rational if you squint enough doesn't ring true. It's rational to think ahead a bit and take into account secondary and tertiary effects.

It's just a number. Your life is worth more than that so just ignore it. See Black Mirror for how this social rating descends into madness.

That was the scariest episode so far in the series, especially in the beginning before it started to normalize...or descend into madness...YMMV

> If there’s a problem with Uber’s rating system, it’s that it’s a five-star system.

"Single axis" ratings systems are unintuitive, unreliable, prone to "gaming", and thus often self-defeating.

I think person-to-person services should have at least 2 rating axes:

• Was the service rendered [as advertised]? Yes / No

This would be for whether the driver dropped you off at the destination, or the seller delivered the advertised item, or the room and facilities matched the description.

A simple confirmation that the contract was completed; emotions should not enter into this rating.

• How do you feel? Disappointed / Neutral / Pleased

This must be presented in such a way that users DO NOT ASSUME that "Neutral" == "Bad." It should be OK to rate Neutral, because that's how we feel about most of the things in life.

I believe this was the original intent of the 5 star systems to begin with: 3 would be neutral/average/okay, 4 would be above average, and 5 would be exceptional/rare.

Or, since they are STARS, even 1 would be good.

But in practice, our collective psychology thinks anything <5 is bad.

Maybe introduce tomatoes or poo in addition to stars. Stars would be how good it was, and poo would be how many things annoyed you.

If they're stealing, yes.

Because they didn't run any red lights :)

ie. reserve one star for when it's really bad.

Just yesterday, an Uber driver half way through the route started taking me away from the destination. I protested and he said his GPS froze. I don't buy that because navigation was never a problem for any taxi/Uber driver in my city before, with or without GPS. I gave him one star and Uber returned the extra fees. I think the honest display of bad reviews is all that stands in the way of abuse and enables Uber's popularity to rise.

I thought Uber has diverged from per-minute per-mile billing and settled on a fixed quote based on optimal distance at the time of dispatch. The past few rides the amount I got quoted in the app was the exact amount they billed.

Is it different in various markets, perhaps?

I thought that was the whole idea behind Uber, no more taxi scams. Might as well just call a Yellow cab, if drivers are going to pull this kind of thing.

They charge the quoted fixed rate unless your ride diverges from the app's recommended path by more than a certain distance. I've annoyingly gotten hit by this a few times when my driver made a wrong turn.

You could also give him the benefit of the doubt. Most uber drivers I've met have been very polite, and very concerned about bad ratings.

I had a driver who got lost once, and he just stopped the trip and took me to my destination -- because he would rather go a few miles out of pocket than risk a bad rating.

Happened to me in Paris. Same reply from the Uber support, but I’m pretty sure I paid around 30€ more than needed. They kept refusing: I deleted my account.

Sounds like a victory for them. Isn't that the way Airbnb works too if the renters trash your apartment? Airbnb would offer you maybe $50 for $2000 worth of damages/clean up, and keep dicking you around (maybe change it to $100) until you give up and accept.

30bucks lifetime value for one user plus all their trusted friends is not a sustainable business.

Similar story while in Delhi, refused to issue refunds for obvious fraud. Closed account and opened chargeback for every journey, since they wouldn't even help me figure out which were legitimate. I see no reason to put up with "economies of scale"-quality support bullshit when it comes to personal transportation, they lost a customer.

Lifetime value in this case was sharply negative

I'm curious how those disputes ended up - did you end up getting any of them taken off?

The onus was on Uber to demonstrate they were legitimate, it is doubtful they even bothered responding to the chargeback. The bank refunded every transaction without question

I’m also curious— What evidence did you have to provide?

If I recall, just a copy of every e-mail from Uber, about 5 minutes cutpasting into an online form

It seems people here don't understand how credit cards work :) The main reason to prefer them is because the chargeback process is straightforward and heavily biased in favour of the customer.

But chargeback is not legally binding, is it? So you just put yourself in a situation where you received a service and didn't pay for it. I am pretty sure Uber could do something about it if they cared.

Legally they can take it up with the CC company, not you, and then if they win (they won’t) your CC will charge you.

They can suspend your account, take you to collections, and put a negative report on your credit score. At least in the US, other countries may be different.

They can always do whatever they want to your Uber account, because TOS’ are jokes. The rest they can only do to your CC company, they can’t ding your credit report or anything of the sort. I don’t know where you’re getting that idea.

For example: https://blog.credit.com/2015/06/think-you-won-your-credit-ca...

A quick google search reveals lots more, and none that I saw saying companies can’t come after you for a disputed charge. Most won’t, and most of those that do will only do it if they can clearly show they’re in the right, and you should be able to beat any collection attempt if they aren’t, but they can try.

That blog comes up 403.

Weird, works fine here. Google something like “credit card chargeback collections” for more like it.

A merchant is entirely within their right to send you to collections and pursue you personally. There is no legal language in any merchant or processor agreement that prohibits it.

Prime example: gym memberships

Gym memberships involve a contract and recurring payments, and the contract is usually not in your favor. A one time charge to an Uber driver is not similar.

You've agreed to a license agreement and terms of service when you use any app. You've read the agreement, right?

The lack of an agreement wouldn’t help you anyway. It would be theft of services, no different than taking a cab and running off after refusing to pay.

You will probably open yourself for persecution if you start requesting fraudulent chargebacks. But I imagine credit cards operators will make sure they don't have you as a client before anybody even thinks about calling the police.

Generally it’s easy to win small transaction disputes. It’s the larger ones where your credit card company starts to no longer care about you.

This is when you get your state's attorney general involved (and small claims court, depending on the situation).

This doesn't sound right. I've always paid exactly what the app told me the ride would be when I ordered. It looks like Uber covers the delta if the price goes above the quote when you order. https://www.uber.com/ride/how-uber-works/upfront-pricing/

The upfront pricing was a relatively recent development -- it's possible the other commenters were talking about a time before that, when there was some variation in what your trip might end up costing.

can't you sit in the car, and watch the driver end the trip before getting off?

In China, drivers are always clear to show you that they are marking the trip as complete, before you get out of the car.

I wondered why, but I guess it's to reassure riders that they're not cheating.

They do that in Brazil too. I always assumed it was to get rid of the trip soon, so they can take another one.

Well, YMMV... A long time ago I took a taxi in Beijing (this was way before Uber was even thought of though). When we stopped at my destination the driver quickly unplugged the meter and then asked me for twice what it said. I knew this because I was traveling on a shoestring and wanted to know how fast the meter went for future reference so I had been looking very carefully at it. Maybe I was just unlucky...

The particular scam you mention is impossible with an Uber-like platform, as payment is made via the app, and there's no way for the driver to massively increase the fare in the last moments of a ride.

"Well, YMMV"

No, your mileage cannot vary, because it's tracked in the app.

Isn't this a story about them doing just that, though?

Or is it not possible for you to say the trip is ended when you get off (and see if the driver disputes it)?

Or have a way for the rider to normally end the trip. I could imagine a scammy driver with a fake Uber UI with just the "end trip" button.

But the trip will presumably not end on your phone if they faked it.

One could wonder if that is systematic and intenional. Like Uber is over-charging the passenger, but within estimates, and, relative to that over charging under-paying the driver, and netting the difference themselves. Just a guess, not that I have any clue if thats even possible or actually the case. Can also be just drivers over charging customers, Taxis sometimes have a similar issue. Or I am just a sceptique person in general.

You pay a single price for your trip, you don't pay for the time and distance of the ride. When you agree to the trip, you see the price ahead of time and it's fixed. So what the support person is saying that since it didn't affect the price of your trip, you're not getting a refund.

Isn't what you see is an estimate? So the cost of the fare will be a bit different in the end?

Don't you get the cost as an upper and lower bound? Or is it one price upfront?

>They refused to refund me anything

1) contact your credit card company for a chargeback

2) immediately stop being a customer of a company that has conciously ripped you off

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