The $357 Uber Ride | Hacker News Reader

The $357 Uber Ride

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109 pointsshravvmehtaa69 comments

While I do suspect that he might not have paid close attention to warnings of surge pricing (I'm an avid Uber user, and I've always known if price is surging), I do think he is right to be irritated at the company's lack of response. Even if what he's claiming is totally false, there's a good chance he fully believes in his side of the story, whether out of malice or honest misunderstanding, and Uber should treat this as an opportunity to reacquaint a user with their service, rebuild a relationship, and minimize any possibly damaging PR.

The lack of customer support is a problem with many of the software-eating-the-world startups, one that I think will hinder wider adoption. When you're automatically charging customers variable prices for services of variable quality that often deal with your safety or personal property, you should probably provide customers with effective recourse.

for services...that often deal with your safety or personal property, you should probably provide customers with effective recourse

^^^ This is a well stated, & concise summary of the main issue.

Case in point: I can afford Uber, but don't user Uber, because these stories make it hard to trust them

The post is from December, 2013. Uber added the surge confirmation thingie in February, 2014.

Perhaps the type-it-in confirmation bit, but they've been very plainly notifying users of surge pricing since at least 2012:

http://blog.uber.com/2012/03/14/clear-and-straight-forward-s...

Uber should really update the price, not get people to sign off on a "multiple".

They are doing every thing they can to avoid disclosing the price, because of "sticker shock".

That's simply shady marketing, howver effective.

On that page it shows a fare and a multiple...it would be trivial for them to show the "adjusted price".

http://blog.uber.com/2012/03/14/clear-and-straight-forward-s...

Instead, the "old price" is in a tiny font and the "new multiple" is in tripe size font.

The whold concept that by agreeing to a "multiple" is the same thing as "agreeing to a new price" belies the fact that they are not disclosing the new price.

They are leaving only the information that allows it to be inferred.

This is not the first time I've seen people bring up Uber's plain shit customer support. In fact, I've had my own problems with them as well to justify that bold of a statement.

Back in the fall of 2013 a cab driver charged me $30 in Chicago instead of what the meter said (which was around $8). After this happened, I had contacted Uber support and they merely gave me some automated style response saying there was nothing they could do because the city sets the cab pricing. First off, they treated me like I was an idiot with a response like that. Of course I knew the city set the rates, that wasn't the issue I was contacting them about. Secondly, they completely ignored my problem all together. I wasn't complaining because the price per mile was higher than UberX or something like that. If I had, what they sent would have been a perfect response. But no, I was complaining because the cab driver down right stole money from me, and there was nothing I could do about it. They could clearly see in the receipt that the time traveled, distance, etc. could have no way in hell been worth $30 that I was charged. In fact, it was a cab ride to work so I had plenty of other receipts that showed it was typically around $8-10. So, like OP, my support ticket was marked "solve" and I was duped $20, and never contacted again (even after I replied trying to further explain my problem). It was after this that Uber always left a bad taste in my mouth. It was a straight slap in the face to me (the customer) by Uber.

Wait, what? How does the driver have any control over what you are charged besides pressing the trip start/stop button on the phone? The Uber provided iPhone handles all the charges and then they pay the driver.

I'm not sure, to be honest? This was in fall of 2013, so I wonder if back then the taxi drivers manually inputted the price?

...But my confusion is case in point that Uber's customer support did not address anything like they should have. If you are right, then they could have explained that to me. And that would also just mean it was clearly a bug in their system that charged me more. And had that been the answer, I should have gotten a refund. But I didn't, so maybe instead of the cab driver cheating me, they were just straight cheating me. Who knows. All I do know is that I was charged $30 for a ride that should have been $8-10, and I never got a real response from their customer support to refund me, help me out, explain what maybe happened, investigate, etc. That's the main problem I wanted to explain.

For the regular taxi service the driver manually inputs the fare from their taxi meter into the Uber app. So if you're not paying attention, the driver theoretically can type in whatever they want.

Do you have a link to this ticket or something? It's hard to take you at face value when you seem to have quite a bit of vitriol for the company.

It's nothing that's far fetched or unjust. Everything I've ever said about Uver is completely backed. I will look for the ticket number and post back, if you are curious though.

We got charged $130 for a ride that was only 6 blocks away but ended up taking 15 minutes during surge pricing in Los Angeles. Ever since that experience, I've switched to Lyft and been pretty happy with them so far.

Why would anyone call an Uber for 6 blocks? Honest question. That's about 1/3 to 1/2 a mile!! Even if you'd paid half or a quarter of that, wouldn't you say that's a bit much for six blocks?

There have been reports that Uber has an internal website only for drivers that advertises "More surge pricing than Lyft, etc if you switch to us!" or something along those lines.

They are clearly advertising that they will make sure that there are more surge pricing opportunities and this seems to be the result of that kind of attitude.

EDIT: Seems like I'm being downvoted by a bunch of Uber employees, but unfortunately the downvotes won't really accomplish much. I'm not stating any wild opinions. Just facts and reasonable assumptions.

There must be a screenshot of that somewhere if it's true. Otherwise I find it hard to believe that Uber would be that dumb with their advertising, especially considering their recent surge pricing fiasco.

There was a screenshot of it leaked to the press and there was a story quite recently (a month or two ago?). I can't find it right now though.

If anyone finds it, feel free to post.

>There have been reports that Uber has an internal website only for drivers that advertises "More surge pricing than Lyft, etc if you switch to us!" or something along those lines.

It's interesting how companies try to message differently to different groups, and how a message intended for investors really sounds bad to customers.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/05

Not saying it's right or wrong, I'm just saying that it's one more data point that could lead to their eagerness to surge their pricing.

This sounds close to what you're describing (warning, Valleywag):

http://valleywag.gawker.com/uber-forced-driver-shortage-to-b...

But Uber recruited new drivers for UberX, and then intentionally prevented them from driving on Valentine's day so that surge pricing would come into effect.

You're more likely being downvoted because you didn't post the source along with the claim. The assumption that you're getting downvoted by "uber employees" doesn't help, either.

I've referred thousands of users to Uber and managed to earn over $100,000 in credits. I was only able to use $40,000 worth until they suspended my account for reasons unknown. I've been trying to contact their support for weeks now and like OP, they always ignore my messages and mark my case as "solved". Uber is fraud and more people need to know this.

are you the guy who changed your referral code to uberfree25 or something similar?

No, but I will need to tell my story soon enough.

Please do.

How do you even use 40000. For a non uber user and someone who has only taken a cab a few times, that sounds like an incredible amount of money

Been using them for the last 2 years, not too hard when you take an Uber literally everywhere.

> they suspended my account for reasons unknown.

Unknown? I think it's pretty fair to say they found you abusing their referral policy [1]. I'm interested in you managed to get 5000 referrals (assuming each referral got you $20)?

[1]: http://support.uber.com/hc/en-us/articles/201830716-How-do-I...

To me, the only issue in this scenario is that Uber didn't show the author surge pricing before confirming the ride. For what it's worth, the app has always warned/informed me of the price hike before I confirm the pickup (though I've only started using the app in the past two months, and this was written in December of 2013.)

Whenever surge pricing above a certain amount (2.0X, I think) is in effect, it makes you manually type in the multiple - both digits, e.g. "3, 0, confirm" before it will let you even order a ride.

This guy's full of shit if he's claiming he didn't know it was surging until after the receipt came. It's quite literally impossible to order an uber at 2.0x or above and not be painfully aware of the surge.

This has been my experience every time I've used Uber. I've seen it ask me to confirm 1.75x surge pricing on Android.

They also send you a push notification that mentions surge pricing when the car is arriving.

Is it possible that all these fail safes were bugged in the author's circumstance? No software is 100% bug free.

That's possible. But it's also possible that the author is really upset at having paid such a large amount of money, and is exaggerating (lying) by saying there was no way to know the price beforehand.

Highly unlikely. Sounds like the author knew full well surge was in effect, he just didn't expect the bill to be so high and now he wants them to cut him a break.

Also this is nonsense: There was absolutely no excuse whatsoever to be charged the surge price—not even their "supply and demand" cop-out justification, which falls short in this instance.

Bar closings etc have nothing to do with it if they are trying to get more drivers on the road. There could be 10 or 100 cabs around, it doesn't mean they are barred from enabling surge pricing.

Since we're on anecdotal evidence, I've certainly been charged at 2x+ the normal rate without it giving me any sort of notice.

Further, they've had the surge confirmation feature since at least March 2012:

http://blog.uber.com/2012/03/14/clear-and-straight-forward-s...

I've only used the service a few times so I don't remember if this has changed, but I can't imagine they would have dropped that confirmation.

Ditto re app telling me of surge pricing. Maybe the app has a corner case bug or even A/B testing (weird version of it) is being executed. Either way Uber should look into it and sort it out.

If you paid with your credit card, you can always file a chargeback if the pricing was unclear and customer support was unresponsive. Better yet if you paid with your AmEx.

...which will result in Uber permanently banning you from future rides.

If you had an experience bad enough to warrant a chargeback, why would you want to ride with them again?

What is the chargeback excuse? It was more expensive than I thought it was going to be?

Actually, that is one of explicitly listed allowed reasons for chargeback.

The price must be explicitly made clear to the customer before billing, and it's responsibility of the merchant to make sure that it happens.

Then every variable type charge (like a taxi ride) can be charged back? The taxi and Uber terms are given to you up front so I don't think this sounds very reasonable.

There is a difference between a variable type charge, and unexpectedly large charges; the boundary being a bit subjective but possible to resolve in most disputes. Variable charge means that your fare costs 50$ or 60$ depending on traffic/route; but if you reasonably expect the fare to be $50 and they charge you $350, without making it explicitly clear that the fares are such, then it may be a reason for dispute.

For example, a somewhat common scenario for such chargebacks is seedy clubs charging $1000 per drink to tourists. The fact that they had that tourist drink in their menu doesn't change that it's both unreasonable and unexpected, and according to mastercard/visa agreements chargebacks may be possible.

In general, the credit card companies are motivated to protect cardholders, so their agreements with merchants sometimes put stricter conditions than local consumer right legislation - the merchant can either alter their behavior; or pay chargebacks; or not accept those creditcards.

"surge pricing" or not, does no one question how a glorified taxi ride can cost $350+ for just 14 miles? $25 a mile? In what world do we live that we can find people who are willing to pay a dinner per mile?

I'm pretty sure when they realize how much they pay they never return.

Surge or not, they would lose me as a customer over something like this. That is an obscene amount of money for a glorified taxi.

Luckily, I've had great experiences with Uber. Only once did I give a low star-rating, and they contacted me and adjusted the fare because of it.

I'm living in Moscow, Russia and, despite all the bears lurking in my neighbourhood, we have Uber here too. I'm frequent user of Uber, riding at least five times per week. Yes, sometimes, like once in two weeks I see their surge pricing thing and it is usually Friday, 3pm. Which is rather strange, considering that all Muscovites finish their jobs on Friday at 5pm-6pm earliest.

As for the user support - I would say it is just excellent. At least here in Russia. Once I had a ride with a driver who forgot to turn on the meter. When I received the receipt, it showed very different route from the route from my office to my home. I marked my experience with two stars and gave a "Wrong route" reason. Next day I got an email from Uber support person, explaining the problem (forgotten meter). The also gave me a rebate in amount of 30% or my ride.

So, I'm not considering them as evil, even despite they ruin gypsy taxi business.

This is the first time I hear about Uber in Moscow, and I live there. Never seen it advertised or anything.

Its unsurprising. I cant understand why anyone would use an unregulated taxi company. Predatory surge pricing is part of the reason taxis are regulated. Safety for the customer being the other large reason.

Forgive my ignorance, but this guy must have specifically typed in the 3.75x multiplier before his ride was ordered. How can you complain about such things when you so implicitly agreed to it?

The lack of customer service really is the crux of this article (putting aside the issues surrounding whether surge was agreed to or not).

On one hand, I can appreciate that Uber doesn't want to provide a 'service level agreement' when the service providers are third parties (the taxi/car driver).

On the other hand, not helping someone resolve an issue (that is well more than trivial) is worrisome.

Much has been said and promised of Uber (yes, I use it and love it). However, this could well be another example of a company that scales quickly promising a level of customer service that simply can't scale (either operationally or financially). The real question is how many repeat customers Uber has over time. Buying once is nice, buying everyday is what they need.

I just checked my history and I have had 44 Uber trips in a variety of cities since 2012 and have not had a single negative experience. Am I just lucky? (not trying to be sarcastic, honestly curious)

People need to start blogging their mundane experiences.

"I got a coffee. They got the order right; charged me a reasonable amount; served me in an acceptable time. The place wasn't too crowded or noisy, and it was clean. I drank it - it was nice coffee, and then I left. We said a cheery 'goodbye!' as I left."

Not to detract from this individual's experience, but a close friend of mine was given money back when her Uber driver didn't take the most efficient route. This happened two weeks ago and the kicker is that it was completely unprompted by her. She was happy with the service she received and they emailed her to refund her money she hadn't asked for. She's now sold on Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, et al.

$357 is completely exorbitant. My longest Uber ride was to the airport. A black car picked me up and drove the 30 or so miles and it didn't cost me more than $100. I can't fathom why the ride in this posting was as expensive as it was. My experience and that of my friends has been exceptional.

On a totally off-topic bit. After reading that page I have horizontal bars all across my vision when looking at everything else.

Pure white text and pure black background seems to cause trouble like nothing else.

A while ago my Uber account got banned when I had to leave for a flight at the SJC airport. I wasn't able to contact customer support or even get in touch with someone till almost 3 days later, after various tweets. Really disappointed in how they treat their customers. They also asked me to send pictures of my Drivers License and Debt Card over email to unfreeze my account for no reason. Luckily, I caught a Lyft. Uber needs to work on this.

1. People use rap genius as a blogging platform? 2. I have never, and know none who has ever, taken an Uber during surge and not been notified about it.

The options are i) Uber maliciously doesn't notify some users of surge ii) There was a bug which caused this user to not be notified of surge (locking in rate after clicking confirm), iii) this guy is full of shit. iv) something i haven't thought of.

I've never used Uber (not available in my city). Are surge prices not reflected accurately in the app when booking a ride?

They are reflected quite well in my opinion. Here is a blog post detailing the system they implemented in March 2012 http://blog.uber.com/2012/03/14/clear-and-straight-forward-s.... They also have useful notifications for when surge pricing ends. Not sure what happened in this situation though.

In fact, they've changed and improved the system since then. Now you have to confirm surge pricing by typing in the multiplier.

Recently they made it so you have to not only agree to the surge pricing, but also type in the surge amount, e.g. "1.75".

Glitch in the system? If there was no known reason for the surge pricing (not New Years, not bad weather etc) maybe he was not notified beforehand of the surge pricing because it shouldn't have happened in the first place?

I think there is room for a company offering lower fees.

Someone is angry they didn't read their dialogs close enough.

> Oh, they're real alright, buddy.

What's real alright? That quote is completely unrelated to the rest of the article.

I won't even go into caring what the BBB thinks. This article doesn't seem to be well-put-together.

Fuck Uber. I've only been gouged by their app -- never Lyft. Lyft clearly warns and all the additional money goes to the drivers as an incentive. If I'm paying more than twice the cost of a cab I could wave down on the street, what's the point?

Just to be clear, I have no affiliation with either company. I'm just glad someone with a voice is complaining.

When you are paying more than the cost of a cab for an Uber, try getting a cab. Go out on the street and stick your thumb out or call a dispatch line. You'll soon figure out why Uber prices are surging.

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