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Comment by harmmonica | Hacker News Reader

As a Waymo-booster on HN for a while now, here's my latest anecdote. I tried to figure out how to take Waymo to LAX even though it's not actually in their territory yet just because I value the experience so much. I was borderline going to take it within walking distance (about half a mile), but got lazy at the last minute. I took Lyft instead, and, as if the universe cursed my laziness, I booked a "comfort" car for $3 more than the base level Lyft. At first I was going to get a Tesla Model Y to take me, but that cancelled. Instead, what must have been a first generation Honda Pilot picked me up, suspension creaking and muffler that had seen better days. Did Lyft recognize what they sent instead of the "comfort" they promised and therefore charge me $3 less? Of course not. When I tried to contact customer service I ran into what I'm sure plenty of HN people have, which is a dead end where you report the issue and they (programmatically?) adjudicate the complaint on the spot. Their determination? I wasn't entitled to a $3 refund. Ironic that the rideshare app with human drivers doesn't allow me to contact their customer service whereas Waymo has no problem with it (yeah, yeah, I get it, "we'll see once they reach a huge scale." But today the experience is so much better than Uber or Lyft that while it lasts I will bask in its driverless glory).

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I've had a couple bad experiences with Lyft recently, including one time the driver must have clicked that they picked me up while a block away, because I could see the lyft driving to the destination without me. I tried to get a refund since I was obviously waiting my start location the whole time, but the system claimed the drive went from start to finish (even though I wasn't in the car), so no refund.

Same thing happened to me, and the support system automatically decided nothing was wrong whatsoever despite my phone certainly sending a very different location from the driver. And the madness was I couldn't even book another ride as I was technically in one.

So I ended up getting it resolved via the security panic button which did put me through to a real person who was empathetic to the issue.

Is this some sort of a scam? The driver cannot even mark the ride as completed without being in the area right? So they have to drive it anyway. I can’t imagine they would be on the platform for long if this happened on a regular basis. I would say it’s probably an accident but how could this behavior be accidental? Someone might accidentally say that they picked you up, but they couldn’t accidentally then drive an empty car to the destination.

Maybe they picked up the wrong person and neither of them realized?

Entirely possible, people do get into wrong rideshare vehicles. Especially late night after people have been drinking. A decent driver will confirm the name when you’re in a place with a lot of pickups happening but if the language barrier is strong that might not happen.

Has anybody tried "driving" for one of these companies using GPS spoofing? You could fake the location of your phone. I suppose it'd only work a few times before the number of reports gets you banned, but I wonder whether on a laragr enough (and automated) scale it would be profitable for scammers

I had to go in person to verify my documents to drive for Uber

I had a driver commit GPS spoofing on me: I was standing outside and there were no car to be seen anywhere even though the app showed the driver was there and had been "driving" to it

I tried to report a security incident to Uber, but not sure what happened. It would likely be easier to complain today, as now all taxis (which Uber technically is in Norway) need to be part of a Taxi dispatch central

Given that they track you every inch of your route, it'd be a pain in the butt to attempt to fake it.

I've gotten a refund on food before because my driver picked up my food and then went spend a half hour in a gas station before returning to their route even though my home was 2 minutes away.

>Given that they track you every inch of your route, it'd be a pain in the butt to attempt to fake it.

Pain for a single app developer when no such app exists, but a spoofing app will dutifully draw anyone any number and length of travel.

My experience in DC is GPS can be spotty due to the buildings and the app glitches when it says you are in one spot but you are not there.

Also DC has rules for certain streets on what side of road you are allowed to be picked up on.

> ended up getting it resolved via the security panic button which did put me through to a real person who was empathetic to the issue

For both Uber and Lyft this is what I do. Which is wild since the only other company I auto-escalate-to-cancellation with is Comcast.

Waymo isn’t winning because it’s automated. It’s winning because the major players left the premium segment of the market for grabs.

Comcast gives you the illusion of being able to talk to a human being if you are persistent enough.

What ends up happening is at some point they send you a link to talk to their support bot and tell you they are hanging up on you.

Threatening cancelation is the only way. The only reason they will not care is because of their captive markets. This is what you get with no competition.

Can it be both? Maybe semantics, but a lot of folks are taking Waymo because there's no human driver. Now "no human driver" may now be considered "premium," but saying that automation is not a significant factor doesn't quite ring true. As a single point of reference, the automation is a big part of what makes it attractive to me as a rider, both because there's no human driver (not super critical to my experience, but I prefer being in the car solo) and, more importantly, because of the driving behavior; it just feels like a better driver than most drivers on the road and that's due to the automation.

I waited 40 minutes for a Lyft at an airport because the driver made up a story about an accident and traffic, in the airport. No one else seemed to be affected by this traffic- so eventually I tried booking an Uber. It arrived 3 minutes later.

20 minutes after that the Lyft driver keeps texting me “where are you?!”. Their turn to wait!

Saw later they just started the ride without me and drove to my hotel.

Lyft said “this trip was completed, no refund”. Welp, app deleted.

I've had several cases of drivers just not picking me up. Reading their time to move anywhere at all, driving away and keep getting further and further away, it driving towards me only to turn some other direction. I always just cancel on them and have never had to pay a cancellation fee. I think once or twice they "picked me up" a block away. I'm pretty sure I was able to cancel or end the ride on that too, definitely was never charged though I don't recall if I had to use the support. But I never let it actually complete the trip when I wasn't riding. But I was always very miffed when anything like that happened as I did not appreciate them wasting my time.

On Uber I paid for priority pickup and watched as a driver drove within two blocks of my home and then sat in a neighborhood for 10 minutes. I finally message "Everything OK?" and get no reply but they finish their journey to my place.

The car reeked of weed.

That's must be annoying to say the least. In India drivers require an OTP to start a ride.

The OTP is the same for a user across rides, so I have mine memorised which is nifty. No fiddling with the phone during boarding.

On security: exploiting this would require the driver to stay in my vicinity the next time I book a ride, and also get the ride assigned to them. In a high population density area, it's rare - I've never had the same driver twice.

An OTP that's reused?

I mean it _technically_ isn't an OTP, but you know what I mean - just a code only the user knows that they need to share with the rider.

The threat model is sufficiently low to justify the much better UX of not having to look the code up everytime.

The acronym you are looking for is "PIN", a Personal Identification Number.

It solves the problem for 99.99% of the time. Drivers are not going to memorize your OTP; and it is unlikely that an OTP list will be leaked/used anytime soon.

Maybe, but there's OT in OTP. So if it's not changing then it's not OTP, just P.

It changes every time. You can also just have it at night, which I have. Prevents drunk wrong riders.

For that driver, it's effectively an OTP although probably not very pseudorandom.

An MTP

Omni-time password

Uber in India gives me a different OTP for each ride. A different ride-hailing app I use occasionally uses a PIN tied to a user.

OTPs are a simple solution to fraudulent rides that it's surprising it's not implemented universally, given all the complaints in this thread.

Charge back with your credit card if Lyft isn't willing to help you. Keep businesses in check.

In my experience, you should prepare for retaliation when you do a charge back.

Whether one cares depends very strongly on what "retaliation" means. If they ban your account, not a big deal - you were getting bad service and didn't want to do business with them anyway. If they send an armed hit squad to kill you, that would be worth being concerned about though.

I "purchased" a digital game once on the PlayStation Store. It wasn't clear from the description that it was completely useless without an active subscription to PSN, so I tried to return it. They said no way, sales are final and you've already launched the game. I did a chargeback, and they basically locked down my account until I filed a support ticket and had to lie, saying someone else made a purchase on my account.

If they don't want you as a customer, it's not wise to fight them on that.

If you really want to delete the app, a chargeback is the surest way to permanently remove yourself from the platform.

The business was in the wrong, so unless they rectify and refund my money I wouldn't use their platform again anyway.

Uber lets you enable a PIN for each ride. The driver can't say they picked you up until they punch in the random 4 digit PIN the app gave you for the ride.

This is good, but why can't these firms determine when your phone and the drivers phone are far apart?

Too many people order Ubers for other people so it won’t work.

It's not unusual to call a taxi for another person. Or to make a multi-stop journey where some people get out before others. You can even send a parcel across town in a taxi.

Checking phone proximity might be helpful in some cases, but it's not a silver bullet.

GPS does not work everywhere, and not every device support BLE beacons.

I never give location permissions to any app if I can avoid it (indeed I don't even have the spyware app if I can avoid it; e.g. I use the web to order an Uber)

I don’t know why they don’t require it. Every Uber in Porto Rico uses the PIN but I’ve only had one in the mainland USA ask for it.

You need to enable it on your account.

Exactly - I believe it should be required for safety, limits shenanigans, etc. Apparently, it is required in Puerto Rico, but I don't know if drivers have to enable it themselves or if the app knows where the driver is operating. Are you saying the rider can also turn it on all the time? If so, that's good - I've only ever it seen driver's request it (all in PR, and one in mainland US, everywhere else, no PIN).

Right, YOU need to enable it. I assumed it was always up to the rider, since they're the beneficiary of it.

I’ve heard the story from the other side as well: App reports ride is arriving, people get in, they go the wrong way and see their original ride stating that you are not there and leave again.

So it may not be intentional. Just coincidence and poor verification.

Companies that cheap out by not performing the basic obligations of business end up paying more for small claims court - provided their ripped-off customers actually take them to small claims court. Did you?

> Their determination? I wasn't entitled to a $3 refund.

Frustratingly, Lyft’s position on this is that if you don’t like the car that arrives you should reject it when it arrives, otherwise you’re not entitled to a (even partial) refund, even when they know on their end that the car they sent doesn’t match what you paid extra for.

This seems... interesting, legally speaking. I imagine the idea is that you're implicitly accepting alterations to the previous contract by opting to take the car? Would that argument hold water, legally?

I ran into a similar arbitration with a condo I rented for a long weekend. There was a significant issue and they weren't able to provide another place. We stayed there and had contractors in and out for the next couple of days. They refused to refund me, so I tried through my credit card to get a refund and they said "well you should have just left, then we would refund you. But since you stayed, the contract is fulfilled."

Credit card disputes don't always match up with the law, so I wouldn't put too much weight on this from a legal standpoint, but good anecdote nonetheless.

Especially since you may have no time to wait for another car. There’s an element of “duress” here

Yes, when you’re tired after a flight with heavy bags, you’re very much being forced to compromise. Any consumer could easily argue why they didn’t have a choice and had to go with what was available.

If you’re just off a flight, you could just use a normal yellow cab.

You could but there are multiple reasons why Uber dethroned taxis and probably the most important ones are that you get a route to your destination and a fixed price to get there.

My first trip to Paris many years ago, I felt that I was getting the "scenic tour" to my hotel from the airport but I wasn't sure where I was and certainly didn't know the best way between the two. There were other variations in other cities.

For a while, I lived near an airport and taxi drivers would be angry because they'd waited a long time to do a short ride and now would have to go back to the end of the line.

The parent post made the contention there are no other options.

And according to other comments here, the "fixed price" isn't actually true - it appears some ride-share apps will add fees at the conclusion of the ride.

It’s plain bait and switch.

You paid a premium for promised X, specifically. Y showed up. This is the equivalent of buying a first class ticket, and getting put in economy.

Someone should class action this bs.

If I've learned anything from watching startups on HN, the US is a lawless wasteland where as long as you've got a couple of billion in VC funding you can do anything. I eagerly await the first murder-for-hire startup.

“By visiting our affiliate’s website (adorable-puppy-photos.com), Mr. Doe agreed to our terms of service which specify we may terminate his bodily functions at any time.”

I mean, isn't Disney arguing that court should drop a case about someone dying at a Disneyland resort because their partner agreed to Disney+ terms and conditions?

Uber has done that to me. You pick a class but what you get seems unrelated.

I need more space for luggage and such and ... some "mid-sized" SUV picks me up that has about as much space a regular sedan anyway ... often the same type of vehicle that picked me up the previous day as a regular vehicle.

I believe they bin vehicles by available seating and not by things like luggage.

+1 So you may get say a 7 seater where the seats are folded in the trunk, so you can carry 7 people XOR 5 people + light suitcases

There is no option to say “send me a mini van”

Agreed. I want van.

There is a newer option that is closer to that - "Uber XXL." (https://www.uber.com/newsroom/airport-travel/)

...XOR?

So it can carry the 2 extra people, it can carry some luggage, it can't carry both, and it can't carry neither?

^ Pedant detected

I suppose, but I only responded because they went out of their way to say xor, and put it in all caps too.

XOR in common programmer speech is ambiguously used to mean XOR or NAND, so I think their use of XOR was casually correct, while not technically correct.

While NAND is technically correct, it's just not commonly used as a grammatical conjunction.

It is?

I thought it was just used for, like, a couple jokes that you get from “intro to digital logic” class. The joke is funnier if it is correct, I think.

This may be among common programmers who don't deal with any bit twiddling or low-level stuff, but having worked on embedded and also on network stack stuff, it is certainly not the case there. Using the wrong term there will at best confuse your colleagues, at worst result in a logic error in the code, and a potentially nasty one at that depending on how common the low-low case is.

Book a maxi-cab or a dedicated airport transfer service.

I paid extra and scheduled an Uber with a child seat. After waiting 30 minutes, when the car showed up, there was no car seat so the driver canceled right away and drove off. Lesson learned.

It's also impossible to book an Uber with 2 child seats so, i guess i'm effed then.

search "mifold grab and go booster" on amazon

Uber operates in 71 countries. That booster seat is available in 1 country. So it solves 1.4% of the problem.

Also that's a booster seat, not a child care seat, so can't be used if your kids are under 4.

Assuming 71 countries of equal Uber using population.

And assuming that even if you want it you'd be too lazy to cross ship.

That does not look like a legal child seat

I'm pretty sure by now the various "classes" of service offered by Lyft and Uber are instead just ways for the customer to donate money to Lyft and Uber. There's no difference in what kind of yahoo shows up in what kind of beater.

I pretty much just use it to book black cars these days - at least in my local city where those require licensed livery drivers. Good experience there for the most part. Most of the time I’m using Uber it’s either a business expense to the airport or I’m booking for a large party anyways.

That and I guess UberXL - otherwise it’s pretty fungible.

The interesting bit is that black is often pretty much the same price a UberX about a third of the time.

What does "licensed driver" mean? The driver has a valid driving licence?

Assuming OP is in the UK, they're talking about hackney carriages which are subject to more stringent regulation than other private hire vehicles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackney_carriage

I think this would be similar to the medallions of yellow NYC cabs

It won't be a full-blown Hackney license, Hackney licensing is because unlike these "ride sharing" apps and what the UK would call a "mini cab" service, which require only a "public hire" license - the Hackney license authorises you to literally pick up strangers on the street, which was of course a completely normal way to use a taxi in a major city decades ago and is still somewhat common at say airports. That's what the glowing "Taxi" sign on the roof is for.

This needs more driver quality insight because e.g. passenger gets in your vehicle, you drive them to some secluded spot and their body is found the next morning - there's no records for murder cops to start from, unless there was a witness there may not even be a description of your vehicle. The UK has had this happen, but it's very rare because the sort of person likely to escalate to murder is not going to get licensed.

In contrast a mini-cab or Uber-style driver has records of who was dispatched to pick up somebody, where they were picked up etc. So if you take to murdering your fares the murder detectives will show up at your door with company records implicating you.

It varies a lot by country.

In my experience in west europe, booking a uber XL you usually get a full size van (vw caravelle/multivan, Mercedes v-class or a bigger Renault Trafic) with usually 7 to available seats.

Booking a uberXL in Mexico City gets you a miniSUV with only 4 available seats and if you get too much checked luggage it goes on a roof rack.

Same here. To alter-quote The Simpsons, "My eyes! The classes do nothing!"

Shortly after pandemic, I noticed "corridor fees" on vastly different routes which, mysteriously, bumped-up the price by the same percentage across each route--but only after the ride had completed. The price I was quoted was not remotely close to the price I was charged.

I did the customer service messaging thing. The first time, they removed it. The second and third time, they declined to remove it.

I now "decline" riding Uber unless there's no other option.

As much as I love to hate on Uber and Lyft, tacked on fees like this are often due to state / federal government, and the rideshare service hands are tied. Uber tags on a very long list of random fees when I Uber out of SFO, but when I investigated them, they were all random taxes from the city / state.

If they want to jack up the prices they can just increase them - they don't need to add random fees.

SFO is not really municipal. It's a private commercial property.

If we don't like we can choose a competitor /s

The main problem here is that the stated and billed sums were much different.

Sure the state and Uber can add whatever fee they like. But not after I accept the ride.

Not knowing what you'll pay for something until the moment you actually pay is considered normal only in the US.

Where I am, Uber shows a price, I pay that price. Whatever fees are included is not my problem.

My core concern was the amount charged differed greatly than the amount quoted by not by any intra-route traffic or temporary circumstance, and it was the same percentage across all three rides. This also occurred in 3 different parts of the U.S. during the same few months.

Additionally, these municipal fees are fixed so if that were the case, Uber would know about them in advance, be label them as such, and/or fold them into the quoted price.

Uber seems wilfully deceptive in so many ways. The initial listing of rides including details of vehicles and prices, which looks like an actual offer, but the app then goes off to try and find something similar. Try being a shop, selling someone an item and then going out back to rummage around and see if you actually have anything like what you sold. And then the 'fixed price' you agreed on gets arbitrarily changed on half the trips if traffic gets worse or the driver takes a different route. If I book a trip from the airport, the airport's charge for rideshare lane usage isn't an "unanticipated expense". It's just skeezy.

Tip: You can take Waymo to just outside the economy lot, then hop on the shuttle to the terminals. The shuttles have their own dedicated lane for going around the loop, so this isn't even that much more time. It's my new favorite way to get to LAX.

Ah, I saw the economy lot as a potential option. I tried to get the location to resolve on the app, but I think I only tried the lot itself and not directly adjacent to it. Thank you for pointing this out!

Charges for goods not delivered as agreed falls under the protection of the Fair Credit Billing Act. If you made a good faith attempt to resolve with the merchant (which you did) you should use your credit card to charge back the amount (some let you request a partial charge back, but if not you can request a full one and explain in the extra info that you want a partial one).

This might not seem worth it for $3, but if they get a lot of these the credit cards/banks might start giving them a hard time about it, so I think it's worth the minor hassle (everything can be done via the credit card app usually)

And then you're forever barred from using the service.

Why would you want to continue using a service that is ripping you off? If you're at the point where your only recourse is to charge back, that's kind of a bridge burning moment.

Let's retain a sense of proportion here; it was $3.

IMO it's attitudes like this that allow companies to continue ripping us all off for small amounts here and small amounts there. They know it's a small amount and most people won't push back, so they keep getting away with it. I suppose the only thing that stops me from hitting the nuclear button every time this happens is that there are a limited number of companies offering many categories of services, and I'd eventually have to charge back each of them and lose access to an entire industry composed entirely of shitty companies.

It would be much better if companies were inclined to amicably settle small dollar disputes rather than the default which seems to be to stonewall, and then ban when the customer uses the only tool they have to push back.

> IMO it's attitudes like this that allow companies to continue ripping us all off for small amounts here and small amounts there

I'm not asking for inaction, but for a response proportionate to the injury. If you spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for a service and they make what may be a $3 mistake, is it worth it to you to burn the service immediately?

At $3 your credit card company is just going to comp it to you and move on.

Many, Many millions have been made on pennies pulled from consumers daily.

$3 in a personal vacuum is one thing (and still adds up if you consider each service that could do this) $3 across 20% of users, lets say, globally, daily. Adds up.

Consumers have the ability to also contribute to and define how engagements with businesses look. If the government won't help us, we have to continue on our own.

Here are some examples:

Cramming schemes

TMobile - 2014 The FTC sued Tmobile alleging it knowingly kept 30–40% of fraudulent charges Tmobile settled for $90 million: at least $67.5M refunded to consumers, $18M to states/AGs, and $4.5M to the FCC

AT&T: $105 million for unauthorized premium SMS billing

Dodd‑Frank’s Durbin Amendment (2010): Congress required the Federal Reserve to cap debit‑card swipe (interchange) fees—typically a few cents—forcing banks to drop excessive micropayments to retailers. Because previously they were. And it was resulting in millions

State Attorneys General vs. Marriott (2021–2022) Hidden “resort fees” tacked onto hotel bills—$10–$35 per night. The Pennsylvania AG and coalition sued; Marriott settled and began disclosing mandatory fees upfront

Walmart: $45 million settlement no admission of guilt, but Walmart agreed to compensate shoppers who bought specified items from October 19, 2018, to January 19, 2024 for a max of $500 even though they knew they were overcharging customers

WholeFoods had a similar case, purposefully misweighing items

The list goes on and on.

The question on the table is: why pursue $3 for not getting the thing you ordered. Is it fair? Does it matter?

Based on continuous corporate fraud, I would say not calling it out will make it worse.

Give me $3.

Are you going to provide me a useful service on a regular basis? You're really missing the point here if not.

The point is a bad one that should be missed. $3 isn't negligible. It isn't usually [0] worth spending $4 to recover, but it is nonetheless money. People can't just arbitrarily charge each other $3 for nothing.

[0] Game theory says sometimes it makes sense to be unreasonable.

It's not arbitrary. It's part of an ongoing relationship that is worth significantly more. That $3 came out of the trust they have with the company. But even though they're wary now, they still have some trust and want to use the service in the future.

Some random guy asking for $3 is a wildly different situation.

It's not about the $3, it's about the relationship.

A close analogy would be Netflix going up $2. If you keep paying that, it doesn't mean you think the money is negligible, and it doesn't mean you would give that money to someone else. And this holds whether Netflix got consent before the increase or scammed you out of it or anything in between; those things affect the decision but they don't change the fundamental nature of it.

The company is valuing the relationship at <$3. In practice there can be no "relationship" with an entity that wilfully steals $3; even in the commercial sense. It is strictly transactional and they're signalling that on any transaction they're willing to cheat you.

You can keep using them if you want. But history has no meaning when dealing with that sort of company.

Keeping an account in good standing, able to continue to purchase services, qualifies as a relationship here.

You can't view transactions in isolation because of the ban possibility.

Yes they're willing to cheat me. But I can limit that and I don't have many choices.

What's your Venmo?

You get barred from a whole suite of services. Anything Google/Alphabet owns or may acquire in the future. People often don't have a choice here.

We are talking about Lyft in this example ("I took Lyft instead") so your point is somewhat moot but a good reason to never charge back Google!

I took Google to a tribunal (think Australian equivalent of small claims) a few years ago, over a defective Pixel they refused to repair 2 years and 1 month after purchase.

Under Australian Consumer Law, I wanted to make the case that a premium phone should last more than 2 years.

Google’s representatives initially sent letters arguing that the license agreement forces me to arbitrate, to which I responded by adding another claim that binding arbitration is an unfair contract provision under the same ACL and should be declared void.

A couple days before the case, I received an offer to settle for a brand new phone and my filing fees, to which I accepted.

No chargebacks, no ban, just the legal system working as it should while being accessible to everyday folks.

That's a fantastic outcome, and honestly, a bit of a unicorn from my perspective here in the US. Your story about the Australian Consumer Law having actual teeth is a breath of fresh air. Here in the US, it feels like we're playing a whole different ball game, and the house (of Google) always wins.

A buddy of mine, let's call him "Dave," had a strikingly similar issue with a Pixel phone a couple of years back. His device started bootlooping out of the blue about 18 months after he bought it. Not exactly what you'd call a "premium" experience. He went through the standard support rigmarole, which I'm sure you're familiar with – the endless chat bots, the canned email responses, the escalations to senior support agents who just read from the same script. The final word from on high was, "Sorry, you're out of the one-year warranty. We can't help you."

Dave, being the stubborn engineer type, decided he wasn't going to take that lying down. He'd read about people having success in small claims court and thought, "How hard can it be?" He did his homework, found the correct legal entity for Google in his state, and filed the paperwork. The filing fee wasn't outrageous, something like $75. He wasn't asking for the moon, just the cost of a replacement phone and the filing fee.

This is where the story takes a decidedly American turn. A few weeks after filing, he didn't get a settlement offer. Instead, he got a thick envelope from a fancy law firm. It was a motion to compel arbitration. Buried deep in the terms of service that we all click "agree" to without reading, there was, of course, a binding arbitration clause. And not just any arbitration, but one that would be conducted by an arbitrator of Google's choosing, in a location convenient for them (Northern California, naturally), and he'd have to split the cost of the arbitrator, which can run into thousands of dollars.

So, his $75 gamble to get a new phone suddenly had the potential to turn into a multi-thousand-dollar boondoggle. The letter from the lawyers was polite, but the message was clear: "drop this, or we'll bury you in legal fees." They weren't just trying to avoid paying for a faulty phone; they were making an example of him.

Dave folded. He couldn't afford to take the risk. So, not only did he not get his phone replaced, but he was also out the filing fee and a good chunk of his time and energy. He ended up just buying an iPhone out of spite.

This is why arbitration on consumers should be illegal - aka, arbitration should only be legal when both entities are approximately similar in power/capability.

The whole reason for existence of courts is to ensure that parties with unequal power can be fairly treated. Arbitration seems to remove that via a loop hole.

> Why would you want to continue using a service that is ripping you off?

For the same reason that I'm going to continue using Uber despite them ripping other people off, as described in this very thread. People systematically overweight their own negative experiences and underweight those of others; I believe that every single negative story about Lyft and Uber I've read in this thread is likely to be true. In other words, they do sometimes rip people off. On the other hand, am I likely enough to be ripped off the next time I use Uber that it doesn't make sense to use it? (And do what instead, walk?) No. It's unfortunate, and I support social solutions to the problem like better regulation of businesses, but if I personally dropped every company I think sometimes rips people off, I would do business with no one ever.

I have many times walked home when I didn’t trust the bus timetable or the taxi equivalent. Always expected to get mugged but it hasn’t happened yet. I guess people often think someone walking is someone to not be messed with. Very place dependent obviously

Right, I didn't mean to imply an across the board policy of always taking Uber, never walking, wherever you go. But there are a ton of situations in the United States where walking + public transportation can't take you where you need to go at all, even putting aside safety.

I once did a chargeback of almost $5k to PayPal when someone scammed me (and PayPal sided with scammer). I still have my account, though I don't use it for anything I'd actually need protection on now.

On the other hand I did get banned from an online local selling site (rhymes with Canary) for charging back a small purchase where the wrong thing was delivered and their system for reporting it was broken and they refused to refund. I even tried having a roommate create an account (same address) and they banned that when they made a purchase.

Apple screwed me once so I did a chargeback

My account was soft banned - everything I own

It should be illegal to allow services to ban you for a chargeback

Those don’t happen just willy nilly - it means your credit card reviewed your dispute and you won

They should obviously not be able to do that, I hope you now will stop relying on such services that put you utterly at their mercy. I hope you also tell everyone you know to not fall in the same trap

Yeah bro but what are you supposed to do? We live in a moment in time where you can’t take a step without stepping in shit

I don’t want to turn streaming content into a personal hobby and spend time/money trying to set up home streaming services just like I don’t want to buy physical media

Ditto for phone/apps - the play store is just as bad and I have no interest in running a jailbroken iPhone as that comes with its own set of headaches

> Those don’t happen just willy nilly - it means your credit card reviewed your dispute and you won

Here's how that review works at the online seller of downloadable software accompanied by an online service that I do some work for.

1. A customer asks for a chargeback.

2. Their card company notifies us and asks for proof the charge is legitimate (e.g. made by the customer and what they ordered was delivered). For proof the charge was made by the customer the card company wants us to fax them a copy of the receipt that the customer signed, which of course does not exist. We also can't really prove delivery--I've yet to see a credit card company that will accept download logs showing that someone later downloaded the software from the same IP address that the order was placed from. Since we can't really dispute the chargeback it is approved.

Even when it should be obvious from the credit card company's own records that the charge is legit they want to see that signed receipt. E.g., if the customer bought a monthly subscription 2 years ago and we've been successfully charging them every month since then, and now they suddenly ask for a chargeback on their most recent charge claiming they don't recognize the charge and have never heard of is or bought any service from us the credit card company doesn't consider all those past undisputed charges as relevant.

That's not quite willy nilly but it is leaning that way for things that are entirely online.

Ironically, taking them to small claims court is likely more effective if you want to send a message without getting banned. It will get more attention, consume more valuable resources on their side (and yours of course), and likely not get you banned unlike the chargeback process where you'd just get auto-mindlessly sorted into the "fraud" bucket.

> you should use your credit card to charge back the amount

Don't you end up getting a new credit card number and have to deal with updating your details everywhere after doing this?

> This might not seem worth it for $3

It seems it's also painful and seemingly not worth it by design. Whenever they can make the process so painful that going through it essentially pays way less than your wage they can get away with it 99% of the time.

I’ve never had to get a new card/number after a chargeback.

You just get the charge removed or some amount deducted if it’s approved. You aren’t requesting a new card.

edit: This was for a purchase I made but didn’t receive exactly what I paid for. Now for fraudulent charges I didn’t make, yes they send a new card. I’m in the US, maybe it’s different elsewhere.

Once during the first year of the covid pandemic, I requested a couple meals for me and my wife through the Uber eats for lunch, my wife was accompanying in the hospital my mother-in-law on Sunday, then after suddenly the place informed the meals was delivered, but I didn't received anything. After I tried to discuss with Uber eats, I had appealled for the credit card, they full refund me.

The problem with charge backs for small amounts is that the bank might eat it instead, as there's a cost for them to process a charge back

Before Uber and Lyft destroyed the functioning taxi market, you got Mercedes by default for a traditional, regulated taxi in many EU countries.

You didn't have to argue, interact with a surveillance company, interact with customer service etc. All you needed to do is pick up the phone and get a luxury ride without tracking or surveillance.

>the functioning taxi market

Was it? In many EU countries a lot of taxi drivers act like scammers: take you the long way around, they don't issue you receipt by default because they do tax fraud or steal from their employer, you can't pay by card because suddenly the card machine "doesn't work" so they drive you to an ATM, then you pay cash and they try to keep the change, they don't speak English or even the local language, they don't know the local streets or landmarks you're referring to because they're not from there, etc. All that is super annoying. Multiply it if you're a tourist or on a business trip or job interview.

Ride sharing fixed all that since you just punched in the destination in the app (in your own language) and got the price upfront and shielded you from the antics of scammy drivers and the friction of getting to your destination. That's why ride sharing apps were so successful initially.

It wasn't about the price, it was about the friction or lack thereof.

>you got Mercedes by default for a traditional, regulated taxi in many EU countries

Mostly IIRC Berlin, Brussels, Stockholm and some other rich countries, definitely not EU wide.

In the Mercedes running countries taxi rides are also something you do very rarely because they cost a lot.

The rest are like the poster above me described. In Romania, the taxi drivers tried to strike in the capital when Uber showed up and everybody basically laughed at them.

The surveillance is exactly why Uber and Lyft works. If drivers misbehave, evidence is all there. I’d honestly trade reliability over a temporary luxury ride in a Mercedes.

Before Uber, in France half of the time you got an irascible driver who never had change and whose credit card terminal was non functional.

Yeah, before Uber and Lyft I would get a Mercedes.

Except that it took forever. I had no idea when anyone would show up. The driver was annoyed and drove like an insane person. The few times I've actually feared for my life have been on highways with taxi drivers. It was incredibly expensive.

Oh, and half the time they ripped you off.

Yup. And there was no tracking. So if that person wanted to say, drive an insane route? Enjoy. Take a detour. Done. Or dump your body in the woods. You were totally at their mercy.

The taxi system was horrible. The pinnacle of protectionism carving out its niche of crap.

pfah, I remember my Mercedes trip to Paris airport where I had a physical fight with the driver (10 years ago). SO glad to see the taxi business go down the toilet. Easily over 50% of them were scamming tourists.

My experience in my first-world country is that all I needed was to spend 10min on the phone to be told there’s no taxi available, or to be told it’ll take 30min and actually it take 1h30. Drivers aren’t any more amicable than uber drivers either (less, if anything).

Not to speak of many countries where taxis are outright scammers and getting into one is taking a real danger.

Lol. Before Uber 'destroyed' the functioning taxi market in Amsterdam, getting a taxi after going out meant waiting for sometimes up to 45 minutes. It meant standing in a line and when someone cut the line in front of you, saying something about it could get you in a fight. Taxi drivers often were (former) criminals who cashed in their savings of black money to get a taxi license and a quiet life. Occasionally tourists were robbed or taken on detours, good luck to get your money back in those days. And I'm not even mentioning the outrageous prices yet for a taxi drive in the city in those days.

Uber might not be 100% perfect but it has been a real blessing, a salvation of all the misery that we had to endure in the 'functioning' taxi market.

I often tried taking taxis after reading about shady practices of Uber and Lyft. I usually came away saying “never again.”

You wait too long to get picked up by a smelly dirty old car and then they pull stuff like pretending the card reader is broken to get you to stop at an ATM so they can avoid taxes.

The worst experiences were in SF. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these companies started there. Of course SF is uniquely dysfunctional in many ways.

I’ve read many comments online over the years to the effect that people would pay more for Uber and Lyft to destroy the taxi industry.

What’s wrong with the taxi industry is that it’s a cartel, especially in major cities, and everyone knows when you have a monopoly or a cartel everything starts to suck.

Uber and Lyft priced out those needless amenities and transferred into their profit margin. If customers has properly priced those in, the market would see that they are retained. Efficien-en-en-ent!

And thank God Uber and Lyft destroyed the dysfunctional Taxi racket, might I add.

I had the opposite once with Uber. I paid regular price (UberX or whatever it's called), then a guy showed up in a black BMW 530 with leather seats.

I've had the same many many times. I think almost universally it's fair that the product/provider upgrades your experience when you agree to pay for something, but when they are specifically telling you "pay x and we'll give you y" and then they give you <y that's, I think, shitty.

Of course, that happens, but the point is that it's a crapshoot, and you don't know what you're gonna get until the driver confirms, and you don't know what the car's actual condition is until you get in. And regardless, it's always reasonable for someone to provide you a better service/product than you paid for, but it's never ok to do the opposite.

With Waymo, you know what you're going to get every time. I've also never experienced a Waymo interior that was in bad shape when I got in the car, though I'm sure that does happen to people.

Same for cabs who used to be horrible until uber was the alternative. You need to use the vote button on Uber or Lyft. And not get into the car that is crap.

$3 isn't this kind of a small problem?

I miss rideshare service, in Denmark we have mess of expensive high quality taxis that you cannot get hold of when you need one.

I'm not sure I'm reading you correctly, but if you mean it's a small problem because $3 isn't much money then, heck yes, it's a microscopic problem (is there something smaller than microscopic because if so then it's whatever that thing is)! But I didn't bring it up to complain about the $3 per se. I can elaborate, but I'm not sure if that's what you were specifically referring to or if I'm misunderstanding your question.

> $3 isn't this kind of a small problem?

Its the principle, not the size of the cost. If a company with good customer service accidentally overcharged me $200 but I could call someone and have it fixed easily that would set me off far less than a company that screwed me out of $1 who has shit-tier dark pattern customer service.

> $3 isn't this kind of a small problem?

You're right -- it's surprising Lyft wouldn't just give back $3 (such a small amount!) to keep a customer.

this is so rampant but they know they have a captive market (in many places, only uber or lyft are an option) so they abuse their position

I've had good experiences with Uber. I know others don't, but I have. I used to use Lyft but they treated me like shit so now I don't. If Uber starts treating me like shit I'm going back to taxis. If taxis treat me like shit I'll take the bus, walk, buy a car, or any of the dozens of other ways to get around, even if impractical. The market is only captive because people are lazy and weak willed.

A tiny problem, that would cost them nothing to fix, and they chose not to. This is a story about shitty customer service, not $3 being lost.

You can dispute via your credit card. They'll care quickly enough.

Lyft will ban your account if you issue a chargeback. You’ll get your money back but if you want to continue to use the service this is not a good option.

Do it anyway. You get your money back, it costs them more money, and the more they ban people over stuff like this the faster you run shitty companies out of business.

To do anything else promotes them doing the same thing to you in the future and other people.

And soon enough you don't have any apps to use.

Sometimes you gotta pick your fights. Chargebacks to gatekeepers are the worst because life is long and you will always lose.

it's why you take them to small claims court. Unfortunately, the terms and conditions have made sure they are clear of small claims by forcing you to do arbitration, which is more expensive for you than them (in relative terms, unless they also put into the T&C to pay for your arbitration costs - which some companies have done iirc, such as epic games).

Chargebacks are the last resort - only really worth doing if it is a large amount that you will miss if not charged back.

Chargebacks are the reverse of these kinds of small thefts. A company is free to take you to small claims court over a chargeback, it’s really not worth their time though.

As such it’s often preferable for an individual vs arbitration.

> it’s really not worth their time though.

no, but a company has more levers than just small claims court - such as banning you from doing business with them, and removing all existing relationships.

Google, for example, could ban you off gmail, remove your storage in gdrive, and take away all of your youtube videos.

A big enough company with your data/process/utility that you must rely on and is locked in, would have enormous leverage over you that a small claims court won't have.

Google can do that to you, they can’t do that to a billion people without serious repercussions on their business.

This is why they don’t delete Google accounts of everyone using an add blocker for example.

no, they cannot do it to all their customers, but they dont need to. The threat of having it done to you makes you compliant. It's why consumer laws need to exist, and need to have teeth.

The threat of being kicked off of Google isn’t enough to make me or likely billions of other people to stop using an add blocker on the web.

The only time they actually push people on that issue is with YouTube due to their very strong market position.

Both Uber's and Lyft's arbitration agreements explicitly allow you to use small claims court.

This is true, but when there's only a couple options in town you have to assess if you're going to need to use that service in the future. That said, I find it a bit strange that it's legal to retaliate for making use of a right afforded to you by law. It would be like taking them to small claims court, winning, and being banned as a result. (Now that I wrote that I'm wondering if it's a thing that happens.)

It might actually be a good thing to get banned. Possibly it's in your interest not to continue to do business with companies like this, but on any given evening you might abandon your long term interest for the sake of short term convenience and use the bad car ride service.

Just get a new account?

$3 is small enough that almost everyone will just eat the cost. I have a theory that they do this intentionally in some things(well Uber I've never used lift). Almost every time I order food and something is wrong or missing they'll give me a refund that is $2-3 off what it should be. Like if I order a $5 item and it's missing their service will refund me $2. At that point I can chose to spend literally an hour going through different support flows to try to reach a human who will correct it and give me the extra $2 or I can eat the loss. It's happened to me at least a dozen times now so I imagine it's common enough across the whole world to add millions of revenue each year.

Doordash did to me for 70cents or so once. There was a missing item in an order, no big deal, app let's you report it, and the exact item that was missing.

But instead of refunding the $2 it cost, they refunded like $1.19 or something to that affect.

DoorDash.. either the drivers can selectively identify the most expensive entree and remove it without disturbing anything… or restaurant owners figured out they could just leave it out without any real penalty. Happened so many times I got tired of arguing and chargebacks and moved on. No issues with other services.. someone figured out a grift.

Speaking of small costs, some time ago I paid 2 euros with my credit card in order to enter the central train station toilets in Milan, Italy.

The toilets were awfully dirty, there was no toilet paper and no soap. I took some pictures just in case, then I filed a chargeback with my bank. After some weeks, they gave me my 2 euros back, and the company that manages the toilets probably paid a small fine to MasterCard or whatever.

Was it a waste of time, for just 2 euros? Sure. But if nobody starts complaining, nothing will ever be fixed.

> Was it a waste of time, for just 2 euros? Sure. But if nobody starts complaining, nothing will ever be fixed.

This is how I feel. Money is money. If you don't complain, why not just start donating to these corporations? It's effectively the same thing. I've successfully argued over a difference of $0.90 on a restaurant order (they rung up a different appetizer than I actually ordered). If you don't push back, they'll never get better.

Funny you say this, a year or two ago I contacted Amazon about adjusting the price for something I had ordered the day prior, since it went on sale. It hadn't shipped yet, and they said no problem, we'll refund you the $7 price difference - but we can't do that until the item arrives, just contact us when it does.

So I get the item, contact support for my price match and they say sorry, we can only give you $5 back. I get upset because that's not what I was told, and have a screenshot of the chat to prove it.

We went back and forth forever, I got more and more angry and eventually returned the item for the full amount, and prime had just recently renewed and was in the refund window, so I got a refund for that.

Unfortunately I need Prime where I live, so I signed up for it again a few days later, but used a free trial month.

The whole thing was a giant waste of time, and felt very "optimized".

The $3 often makes the difference between someone that should not be allowed to have a drivers license, and a someone that's been driving high-end limos for years.

For example, I once had a driver that heard regenerative breaking was good for fuel economy, so decided to cycle their busted prius between 60mpg and 70mph every few seconds on the freeway. I was carsick for 2 hours after that ride. Another time, I had an angry line of people tapping the windows and politely giving the driver some unsolicited advice. (The mob was right; I mostly just tried to hide my face.)

So, the $3 is a big problem, but has nothing to do with money.

$3 sure but you're already paying $XX for the service in the first place.

It's the point. I've noticed the same, in Australia on Uber, and have stopped bothering asking for the 'comfort' vehicle.

It's the same car. They just charge you $3 more for thinking you're going to get something nicer. You're not.

Worth knowing that Uber bought Dantaxi, Denmark's largest Taxi company a couple of weeks ago. The Uber app will tap in to Dantaxi driver pool. https://www.uber.com/en-DK/newsroom/dantaxi/

I wonder if strong worker unions and regulations forced Uber to buy an existing company rather than starting their own presence.

all "cab"-like cars that are not shaped like London Black Cabs are failures. The seating and luggage carrying is so much better than a regular car it makes me sick.

And then you'll find plenty of people on here that hate on Black Cabs as ridiculously over priced.

An issue unrelated to the shape of the vehicle and its capacity to carry humans and luggage.

I'm on holiday in Japan at the moment and I notice the cabs look like London cabs and are mainly black too. Made by Toyota. I haven't yet taken one, so I don't know if the similarity extends to the interior layout.

Agreeed. My last uber and Lyft rides were an unpleasant experience of late pickups, cancelled pickups, and old rickety rides. I use the train over uber and lyft

I would pay extra just to never ride in a Tesla. They always make me carsick.

    > ... Tesla. They always make me carsick.

I never heard this once before HN. What is particular about Teslas? Is it the rapid acceleration from the electric motor... or lack of familiar engine sound?

I'm calling it, it's mainstream media induced psychosomatics

> Is it the rapid acceleration from the electric motor

Yes. The hard acceleration and braking.

First, thank you to share you first-hand experiences. This is one of the best features of HN discussions.

I promise that I am not trolling with these follow-up questions:

Have you ever ridden in a "super car" (Ferrari, etc.) that also has very fast accel/braking? Do you experience the same?

If a Tesla driver just drove a bit less aggressively, would you not get car sick? Did you ever try "FSD" on a Tesla on regular streets? Is the accel/braking still strong enough to make you feel car sick?

I ask all of these question honestly. If I was an electric car maker, I would definitely be concerned about it. To me, it fits the same problem of VR headsets where some people get "VR sick" (like car sick) when using them. They probably spend an enormous amount R&D trying to reduce this effect to a minimum for as many people as possible.

I would take these “first hand experiences” with a grain of salt when the commenter is unaware of some basic facts.

> Have you ever ridden in a "super car" (Ferrari, etc.) that also has very fast accel/braking? Do you experience the same?

No. Plenty of luxury vehicles but nothing sporty like a Ferrari.

> If a Tesla driver just drove a bit less aggressively, would you not get car sick? Did you ever try "FSD" on a Tesla on regular streets? Is the accel/braking still strong enough to make you feel car sick?

Hard to say. If they focused on not hard braking I imagine it would not make me car sick. I have not tried FSD on regular streets. I think a major part of the problem is these are typically uber/lyft rides where the driver isn't focused on providing a smooth riding experience.

FWIW, I haven't experienced car sickness in Waymo rides that I've taken.

You may have experienced Mad Max mode, but now with continued software updates it’s gotten a lot smoother and is called “Hurry” mode.

There is also Chill mode which would presumably be the default for a Robotaxi.

People don't hate automation. They hate BAD automation.

From your description seems like: Waymo -> Good Automation, Call Center -> Bad Automation.

The day we will have a chatgpt level automated customer care experience, we will complain every time humans answer our requests, with their accents and attitudes!

"Hi, how can I help y—"

"TALK TO A ROBOT"

Oh man, hope it's ok to poke a little fun. I think we just violently agreed with me praising automation from one company and deriding automation from another. So I'll update your "seems like": Riding with Waymo (IME) -> Good Automation, Lyft customer support when they "stole" $3 from me and didn't provide me with a way to fix it -> Bad Automation.

>> People don't hate automation

This is not true.

In the broad sense, people are in favor of automation. Most people aren't clamoring for the days before the stove, dishwasher, and car (all automated versions of past technologies).

That being said, I think a lot of people are against automation when it does something worse than the manual version. Think automated customer service over a human being.

Most people don't like change so are resistant to it. It's the same with electric cars a lot of people are resistant to it because of false range anxiety but when people actually use ev for extended period most of then stay with electric.

I don't see people hating that their network packets are automatically routed through the internet

Do you think it's bad automation? I think it's a cost optimisation thing, we don't give refunds and we don't give people a channel to complain. We only measure revenue from trips and as long as that stays up the service quality is ok.

People paying more for Waymo doesn’t surprise me. I also once called for a comfort car, but it was a filthy Lexus. I’d much rather ride in a clean and well maintained Corolla.

I pay more for Waymo and I’m happy to do it (as long as Waymo can detect when its interior is dirty so it can return itself to home base for cleaning.) I don’t have to sit awkwardly in a car with another guy who may drive in a way that annoys me. I can talk on my phone or with my family without having a random person listen in.

Though, the cameras on the Waymo are always on and pointed down at you looking at your screen.

I have only used car share once in my life. (My mother ordered it, and it was fine.) To me, a dirty car is pretty much unforgivable as a car share service. Do you report it on the app or just give a one/zero star rating and hope the car share service will fix it?

    > I don’t have to sit awkwardly in a car with another guy who may drive

You hit the nail on the head. I cannot belive that I am 100+ posts into this discussion and no one has mentioned it. It was the first idea that popped into my head. How about if you are woman? I would gladly pay a bit more to have no other strangers in the car with me.

Instead you will have all of Google listen in.

The Uber comfort designation frustratingly has nothing to do with the condition of the vehicle. I believe the parameters are age, seats, and model.

From the driver's point of view, it just means that you are allowed to accept comfort rides but most of the time you're probably going to be picking up UberX passengers which are more plentiful. That means you're only slightly more likely to get one of the good comfort vehicles if you actually select the comfort tier.

Another recent anecdote.

A friend was recently in Milwaukee (first time ever. He was there for a conference).

He, his wife, and another friend, wanted to go out to eat.

They were given a wrong address. Could have been the source, or it could have been they screwed up writing it down. It was definitely a wrong address, though, that they gave to Uber.

The driver picked them up, and took them to the address, which was deep in Da Hood. Not a good area for three middle-class white folks to be wandering around.

The driver insisted they get out, even though it was clearly a wrong address, and a downright dangerous neighborhood (my friend has some experience with rough neighborhoods. If he said it was bad, it was bad).

My friend offered to pay whatever it took, to get to the correct address (they had figured out their mistake, by then), but the driver refused to do that. It was probably algorithmically prohibited.

My friend had never used Uber before (and never will, again), so wasn’t aware that you are supposed to be able to appeal to Uber.

I have a feeling that my friend offered to rearrange the driver’s dental work (Did I mention that he was familiar with tough neighborhoods?), and got the driver to drop them off in a better area, where they caught a cab.

Sounds like a bad customer experience. I doubt Uber ever heard the story. My friend never bothered contacting them, and I will bet that the driver didn’t.

The only difference with the Waymo experience would be that there would be nobody your friend could threaten to assault for putting in the wrong address.

The Waymo also can't force you to get out. Probably you can just give it a new address.

Have you ever used a Waymo?

Is that relevant? It's a driverless car. Simply don't get out. Maybe it drives you back to dispatch or to the police station. Maybe the police show up to the current location. Regardless its got to be safer than wandering around a neighborhood you definitely don't belong in.

Heh, from the sounds of things it’s more likely the Waymo would have simply driven to their actual destination.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44281694

these tales are generally the apocryphal dreams of suburbanites. the uber driver would have pulled a gun on you?

i’m sorry but i grew up in urban America, nobody is mugging people under an account tied to their name/DL

I grew up in substantially more dangerous environs than urban America.

It's entirely possible to live quite safely, in urban US areas, but the opposite is also true, and those folks are the ones that like people that live in the bubbles.

If your friend thinks it's okay to threaten to assault a driver, especially for an issue that wasn't the driver's fault, then it sounds like "da hood" is where he belongs...

Not sure if he did. He probably didn’t have to. He’s a big guy, but also one of the most decent people I know (but let’s not assume anything). He never said he did. It was my assumption (ASS out of U and ME). It’s also possible he bribed the driver enough. He could certainly afford it. I didn’t actually ask him. I do know that he (and the two women with him) were pretty terrified of being left in the middle of that area, and scared people can get pretty pithy. This guy used to run night clubs in Miami. It would probably have been a lot less of an issue, if he had been alone.

What he was amazed at, was the driver’s insistence that they get out, without any recourse or care. A Waymo could do the same, I guess, but they could also sit in it until the company contacted them, or the cops showed up.

A New York cabbie would probably threaten him right back, but would also have known they were headed for a bad patch, and maybe have asked if they had the right address. This was their first time ever, in Milwaukee, and I suspect Milwaukee cabbies are of a similar stripe to New York cabbies. I know quite a few former cabbies.

Funny how the least verifiable thing in the story is the one everyone hooked on. I guess I could ask him. It happened last week. Not sure if I’d want to spoil everyone’s good time calling him a criminal, if it turns out he was just able to shame the driver into accepting a couple of Jacksons to get out of there. If he did, I suspect Uber would sanction the driver, for accepting a fare, outside their system.

So basically, you’re admitting key elements of your original story were made up?

> A Waymo could do the same, I guess, but they could also sit in it until the company contacted them, or the cops showed up.

How’s this different from an uber? If this guy is as big and strong as you say, the uber driver has no more ability to force him out than a Waymo does.

> So basically, you’re admitting key elements of your original story were made up?

Sure, and I regret it. I didn’t think it was a “key element.” The part that struck me, was the inflexibility of the driver. A real cabbie might laugh at you, but happily take more money to get out of there.

If he had refused to leave (which he did), then the driver might be legitimately worried. It sounds like the driver didn’t really understand which neighborhood he was in, or he would have been a lot more scared. A classic robbery technique against cabbies, is getting them to drive to bad neighborhoods, then robbing them.

The thing that struck me, was the complete lack of situational awareness, or customer service ethos, on the part of the driver. That seems to be an inevitable result of the Uber business model, and folks that sign up as Uber drivers, need to be aware of the dangers and responsibilities.

When you have people in your car, you have their lives in your hands, and your employer’s brand integrity, as well. The driver’s behavior resulted in some brand damage to Uber. My friend’s behavior may have resulted in a permanent ban, but he certainly didn’t care, as he’s done with Uber, anyway.

If, on the other hand, the driver had been sympathetic and helpful, he could have had three grateful, enthusiastic evangelists for Uber. Any experienced customer service person knows that having an upset customer, that admits they are in the wrong, but is also upset, is gold. It can easily be mined for the advantage of the service provider, or turned into a complete shitshow (which is what happened, here).

In the end, it sounds like it turned out OK for everyone (except Uber, who permanently lost three customers).

Heh. Just as another point. I mentioned the story to another friend, who used to be a cabbie, and he said "Oh, that was a gypsy cab robbery. Classic."

Apparently, the way that it works, is that the cab takes you to a bad neighborhood, then tells you to get out, unless you pay. If my friend had tried getting physical, he would have been staring into the muzzle of a .38, so the talk of physical threats was likely bullshit face-saving. He also said that the driver won't relent for less than $100, so it's likely my other friend was fleeced pretty bad.

The way it works, is that the "cabbie" looks for parties with women and/or children, because that means there's unlikely to be a problem. They look at hotels, because that means out-of-towners, and there’s a lot fewer cops around than airports (this chap was disturbingly familiar with the technique. Many of my friends are former Bad People).

With Uber, and the way that they track drivers, he suggested that the person who picked them up, was probably not the contracted driver, but was in cahoots with the driver. The call was canceled by the real driver as a "no-show," and the ride was never on the clock, or the driver drove empty.

People suck.

The original story was that your friend gave Uber the wrong address, and the Uber refused to take them onward after that, even for more money.

Now the story is that the Uber intentionally took them to the wrong address, and then offered to take them onward in an attempt to extort more money.

Those are completely different stories! Which is it?

Hey, listen, we operate on the information we're given at the time we're given it. They are completely different stories, because they reflect completely different sources of information.

It doesn't seem that matters to you, anyway. I'm not into fighting, so I guess our correspondence is at an end.

I'm not at all averse to admitting when I could be wrong. Not very "American" of me, I know. We're supposed to ride Wrong like a battle tank.

Considering how common the gypsy cab gamut is, I'm surprised no one here considered it. I guess I'm not the only one who is maybe not as worldly as I might think I am, eh?

it’s also just so premised on a ridiculous fantasy of how urban america functions

Interesting that you're repeating this all over. I guess there's a story, therein.

I can tell you that urban (and suburban) areas in the US can be quite ... interesting. Where I live (NY suburbs), it's not difficult to be in gang areas, about fifteen minutes in any direction. They usually keep their predations to themselves, though. The city neighborhoods that are run by the mob, on the other hand, are some of the safest in the nation (unless you're a crook). I have a friend that lives in Howard Beach, and he says that he sometimes forgets to lock his front door, and doesn't worry about it. Burglars end up in ICU, after "falling down the stairs."

Anyway, as I mentioned in another unread comment, the driver that picked them up, was probably not the driver associated with the account. Basic common sense. The person that explained it to me, mentioned the ways that the gypsy cab people have probably adapted to the new paradigm. Crooks are a lot smarter and more creative, than folks give them credit for.

The gun is unlikely to be used, unless the driver feels the need. They don't want trouble, they just want money, but even legit cabbies often go armed. They are ripe targets, and cab robbers are quite dangerous.

This is the second time your story is changing.

Yup.

New information, new story. If I'm wrong, I promptly admit it. I'm weird, that way, apparently. I guess what I'm supposed to do, is refuse to admit fault, to the end. Sorry to spoil the fun. I didn't know the rules.

Funny how none of the worldly cynics, here, figured that out (I didn't, and I thought I was worldly and cynical). When I mentioned it to my cabbie friend, he popped it out instantly. It's a well-known issue, around here. The local airports and train stations have posters about it. I admit that I've seen the posters, but they didn't register, when I first heard the story. It seems the same folks have figured out how to ply their trade with modern ride-hailing apps.

Have a great day!

there’s a certain genre of story that has the flavor of ‘urban crime apocrypha’, examples like ubiquitous roofie-ing and PCP laced marijuana.

others can judge the frequency of an Uber driver in the US robbing you at gunpoint (with an account tied to their SSN/DL) or whether that is common enough that you can assume a gun will be pulled without seeing it.

The absurdity here is that any cabbie would be happy to continue driving you around as long as you're able to pay for it. It's the entire business model after all.

Ubers aren't cabs. They are paid for the ride itself, not for the time of the ride. There is no meter to run.

Honestly, in a city of any significant size, I prefer taxis. Taxis have accountability. And they know that it's about moving fares, so in a decently populated area, you do better by getting more fares rather than more out of a fare.

If I was that driver, you bet I'd be contacting Uber to try and get your friend banned for life. Threatening a driver is never ok, even less so when it's not his fault.

Then maybe don't threaten to leave a family in a dangerous area while they're offering to pay it

This is the address they gave to the driver,full stop. After the job’s done, you can’t just tack on extra requests like it’s a buffet. He delivered exactly what you asked, not a mind reading bonus round. It’s not his fault you gave the wrong address, he’s not clairvoyant.

I don't think that'd hold up against a legal review. It seems like an unreasonable position that some neighbourhood is so terrible that standing there for 20 minutes is an imminent threat. It might even be true, but that isn't a baseline a judge should really accept. The residents who live there obviously get through the day.

It may well have been very dangerous, but realistically it is hard to make dropping someone off in a residential area a crime. Threatening a driver with physical violence is definitely a crime though.

The driver is under precisely zero obligation to provide you a service. He provided the service asked for, too.

Threatening someone for being a complete asshole is always okay, and even cool.

I really do not care how uncomfortable it makes the driver to move a family a few extra blocks to somewhere vaguely safe. I’d similarly threaten him if he tried to drop my family off in a forest, or on the side of a highway, even if that’s what the GPS, God’s Position System, tells them to do.

If your job ends in a way that someone who was your customer is now in danger, you absolutely deserve to be threatened.

Edit: and if you dislike the fact that you need to have a vague level of care for your fellow man, stop working exclusively with people.

> Threatening someone for being a complete asshole is always okay, and even cool.

I disagree, but I wasn’t actually there. I only heard one side of the story.

You are disagreeing with the concept, and then saying you only heard one side of… what story?

I just do not care if my customer service agent has a bad time after putting me in a dangerous situation.

Do people not realize that this is how the world works? If you are serving customers, putting them IN DANGER, yes EVEN if it was at their own request, is what is actually wrong.

You don’t let someone ride a roller coaster unrestrained. You don’t let someone eat room temperature meat. You don’t drop a family off in an extremely dangerous neighborhood. Any employee would be right to be ridiculed for allowing any of these things - ESPECIALLY when a child is concerned.

> extremely dangerous neighborhood

I've lived in urban areas my whole life. Including some of the largest cities in North America. While there's places I consider higher risk, and routes I wouldn't typically take, simply existing in some neighborhood in Milwaukee isn't some existential threat to life and limb.

Keep your head down and walk a few blocks to somewhere safer and get a cab/uber/lyft out of there if needed.

Heck, book another Uber, you know at least one driver is in the neighborhood.

I lived in Baltimore. There’s some truly scary spots, there.

As for booking another Uber, anyone that has lived in less-than-pristine areas, knows that these neighborhoods can be “blacklisted.” You can’t get Ubers or cabs to come in.

Sure, and you know what? If we were talking about Baltimore I might concede some ground here. But unless I'm WAY off base, Milwaukee isn't anywhere close to parts of Baltimore when it comes to "existential danger from walking in the streets".

Once you spend time in an actually dangerous neighborhood - one where people can spot your out-of-place-ness before you even get out of the car - one where the good guys are the ones telling you to get the hell out before you find yourself in a real bad situation - ones where the gas station attendants are hard as hell - you’ll understand that your experience of walking through vaguely poor neighborhoods is not akin to dangerous neighborhoods.

Nobody who has ever been in a dangerous neighborhood would have this opinion unless they’re truly callous

Well, there were no children. It was three adults, but two were women.

I don’t think that it would be OK to threaten any customer service person with physical harm (but it happens all the time, nonetheless. Check out notalwaysright.com), but I also know that customer service people have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their patrons. Kicking folks out in a bad neighborhood could have cost Uber quite a bit, and it’s surprising that there seemed to be no recourse. It’s entirely possible the driver was ignorant of company policy.

> Threatening someone for being a complete asshole is always okay, and even cool.

"Being an asshole" is in the eye of the beholder. Plenty of people thing CEOs are assholes, you are saying that it is "always ok, and even cool" to threaten them? Some people think that religious folks are assholes. Some people think blue haired lefty folks are assholes.

I think you need better criteria for violence than "I think this person is an asshole". Even if you had a standard definition for asshole, threatening violence is an escalation. Someone flips you the bird, sure, they are an asshole, doesn't mean you can move to threatening to punch them.

The driver doesn't know these people, doesn't have any protection against them should they do something unpredictable or make a mess of his car outside of the Uber ride. The driver is also making a threat assessment here -- "why did they have me drive to this place and then insist I drive somewhere else? Is this a scam somehow? Is this a precursor to a violent crime?"

lol, three innocent people begging to be taken somewhere safe sure are scamming you. Stop pontificating on situations you’ve never experienced anything within a thousand miles of.

I've been homeless in a big US city. People are running all sorts of scams out there.

I mean, we're talking about a literal crime here, getting banned from Uber is not an adequate punishment for threatening someone with assault.

Huh? Your friend paid uber to take them to an address, and they did.

Actually, it sounds like my friend was robbed. Classic gypsy cab robbery.

The confusion around getting the address wrong is an interesting tell. If you think you’re not likely to make that mistake, anyway. It’s also a bit late to realize at that point since you’re already in the bad area.

But it reminds me of tech support scams which usually have an element of convincing the victim that they made a mistake.

Yeah, but the route is on your phone as well. The driver cannot deviate from that course without you knowing.

Unless they cancel the ride, and you ignore the notification.

I was talking to someone recently, and they were telling me about how they got a (Lyft, I think) ride from the airport (JFK), and the driver picked them up, and said that the ride had been canceled (as they got into the car), but that for $20, he'd take them where they were going (I assume the ride was less than $20).

Apparently, this is fairly common. There's been a couple of articles about how the Uber and Lyft drivers around JFK and LaGuardia have learned to game the system. They can also conspire to drive up the pricing.

why do you think you will get better service with waymo when it's as established as the others?

the whole market is a race to the bottom to extract rent from what should have been a municipality cost center.

oh, do you like waymo automated support and driver better than Lyft automated support? or just can't imagine a world where tomorrow waymo will have aging cars too?

This is the kind of comment I'd expect to see on trustpilot, not hn

You’ve got to invest with the VC money. As companies mature and enshitification begins, jump onto the next hot thing that’s going to disrupt the now incumbent.

There’s no free lunch, but this is the closest we’ve got.

another anecdote taking Lyft - they showed me $10.76 price for a trip to the airport when Uber showed $21. obviously i called Lyft and they placed a temporary charge on my credit card for $10.76. Once the driver dropped me off, i noticed that the base charge jumped to $16.76 + airport fees and my total with tips came to a bit over $27. I contacted Lyft and they denied and claimed that they always showed me $16.76. smh. i have proof from my credit card that they placed a hold for $10.76 and yet they refused to adjust the price.

Why did you cancel on the Tesla Model Y?

He said "that cancelled" so I think it wasn't on his end.

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