I’m a big fan of Uber. I’m in New York City this weekend and have had great success using it. The fares, though high, have been below the cab fares and the cars don’t play those horrible ads that assault you in New York’s Yellow cabs. Plus I had 2 good conversations with a driver from Ghana and a driver from India who’s a Muslim refugee.
I had something happen 2 hours ago, though, that makes me wonder. I don’t know if this is a scam: thus the question mark at the end of title. I just wonder if it is and I wonder if others have had this experience.
I walked in 14 minutes to a Chinese restaurant 2 long blocks and 13 short blocks away to get there by noon when it opened. I timed it perfectly and gave the take out order. I wanted to get the food back to our hotel room while it was still hot. I didn’t know how long the food would take and so I waited until it came out before I ordered an Uber. My strategy made sense, I thought, because when I got on Uber, it looked like only a 4-minute wait.
So when the food came, I contacted Uber immediately and it looked like that same 4-minute wait. The fare would have been only about $6.50. A driver named Mohamad accepted. Then Uber started tracing his path and it looked as if he was moving away. That might have made sense because of the way he might have been aiming along with all the one-way streets there are. But then the estimated wait turned into 5 minutes, then 6 minutes. Then a minute or two later, it turned into 8 minutes and he was clearly driving even further away. Had I been confident that it would have been 8 minutes, I would have hung tough. But I wasn’t. I knew I could walk it in 12 minutes. So I cancelled and, of course, was told that there might be a small cancellation fee since Mohamad had accepted and was on his way. That made sense to me. But now it looks, from my credit card statement, as if the fee was about $12.
I’m not familiar enough with Uber to understand all the ins and outs to be sure that the $12 fee is for this and not for some other trip. It’s just that there’s no other trip I’ve taken in the last few days that would have had a fare that low.
So here’s what I’m wondering. Are there some Uber drivers who will accept the trip and then reconsider and look for a better fare? Then they drive away, thinking that the customer might get fed up, as I did, and cancel. Then they get both the cancellation fee and the next customer, who probably is going further.
I’m asking this as a customer but also as an economist who wants markets to work well and who believes that they normally do. Is this a case where they don’t work really well? Any insights from people who have used Uber a lot and have canceled at least a few times would be appreciated. Comments that are not informative or insightful will not be appreciated.
READER COMMENTS
entirelyuseless
Mar 17 2018 at 4:10pm
I don’t know if it is a scam or not but this happened to me once, starting at 15 minutes and increasing until it was at 30 minutes. I could see on my phone that the driver was getting farther and farther away. I cancelled and got the notice that I might be charged, but I was not in fact charged anything.
I would recommend complaining to Uber’s customer service and my guess is they will refund the fee. I have complained a few times (e.g. when a driver officially made the trip start before they got to me), and their customer service has always fixed the problem.
Bob
Mar 17 2018 at 4:18pm
I used to drive Uber. I used to do this for cheap income. Not proud of it but it’s not uncommon.
Peter Lewin
Mar 17 2018 at 4:22pm
I hope you called Uber and demanded a refund.
Lars
Mar 17 2018 at 4:57pm
This has happened to me with Uber in London. I think Uber reimbursed me after I complained about it.
Mark
Mar 17 2018 at 5:33pm
There’s a brief window of time during which you can cancel a ride without a cancellation fee. I wonder if they have considered making it such that, instead, you can cancel until the driver makes a certain amount of progress toward your location.
Can drivers actually ‘shop’ for other fares after having accepted another one?
Charlie
Mar 17 2018 at 5:56pm
Uber is very good about refunds. Go to “your trips†and click on the trip and you can choose some default options like “my driver and I didn’t connect†and ask for a refund.
As for the ride, no I don’t think it was a scam, in the sense it doesn’t happen often. But uber’s time to pick up are certainly imperfect.
Maybe the driver meant to not accept the ride. Maybe he was finishing a lift ride but switching to uber. Maybe there was construction or traffic that Uber didn’t know about the driver was navigating. Who knows? The truth is a more experienced Uber user would just know that the type of precision you were looking for is just beyond the current capabilities of the app.
Mark
Mar 17 2018 at 6:22pm
Charlie,
“Maybe the driver meant to not accept the ride. Maybe he was finishing a lift ride but switching to uber. Maybe there was construction or traffic that Uber didn’t know about the driver was navigating. Who knows? The truth is a more experienced Uber user would just know that the type of precision you were looking for is just beyond the current capabilities of the app.”
It may not even be a matter of switching from Uber to Lyft; I believe Uber sometimes connects customers with drivers who are still on another fare; usually, it’s someone who is just dropping someone off in your area and so it’s more convenient to assign them to you after they’re done with that one rather than giving you a free driver who’s far away. This makes me wonder if Uber might assign a driver to you who is driving by you to drop someone off far away (whereas maybe they should only be assigning him to you if his current passenger’s dropoff point is near your location).
Or, it’s possible that David’s driver really was the best possible driver, and that he was dropping off a current passenger, say, 10 minutes away, and there was no one else closer; but the estimation of time to arrival was erroneous because it was based on his current distance from David’s location rather than basing it on the distance to the dropoff point for the current customer plus the distance between the current dropoff point and David’s location.
I’d imagine there are people at Uber that have thought of these issues, but I’m not sure how they’re assignment algorithm or time to arrival estimates actually work.
Francois Godard
Mar 17 2018 at 6:32pm
Happens to me regularly.
Alan Goldhammer
Mar 17 2018 at 6:43pm
We are in Oakland this week visiting our daughter and using Uber (no cabs in Oakland afaik). Our driver this morning said there was a problem with the software. My phone showed that he was three blocks away when he was just across the street waiting for is. This would have been around the time you had the problem. Thus, not a scan but a software glitch!
Michael Crouch
Mar 17 2018 at 7:12pm
I am a former driver: I believe that the driver is not capable of seeing your destination until the driver inputs into the app that you are in the car with them. This prevents discrimination based on length of trip. The “Uber to Lyft” story also seems plausible. Construction could have been an issue.
gwern
Mar 17 2018 at 10:22pm
I used Uber extensively for the first time on a trip to SF recently; this happened to me but in a somewhat different way – the car ran over 2 big construction nails (!) and we pulled off to inspect the tire. When it was clear the tire was gone, I canceled my ride and called another Uber (still got to my appointment in plenty of time because the next one showed up almost immediately). I noted that my bill was higher than expected, but I didn’t complain because I felt bad for my driver.
I also did notice the no-destination info too: a friend and I called an Uber in Mountain View and when we were about to get in, the driver moaned that he didn’t want to go back to SF because he’d made the trip 5 times already that day. We didn’t push the point and simply called another, but it struck me as a little odd – wouldn’t long familiar trips be superior, for a driver, than short likely-unfamiliar ones? Because you are spending less time navigating odd streets and dropping off and (trying to) pick up and dead time in between trips. Our best guess was that maybe he lived in the MV area and didn’t want to risk deadheading back or something along those lines, since it was fairly late at night.
Shane
Mar 18 2018 at 1:49am
I had this happen to me too… but on Lyft. Driver accepted then I watched a 6 min estimate turn into 19 min. The driver just kept driving further away. I finally cancelled and was charged. I was livid. I contacted Lyft’s CS and they gave me a promo code for the amount of the charge. I complained again and said I don’t want a promo code I want a refund for this nightmare (cause I know had to get another Lyft/Uber and had to wait another 15 min). They finally relented. I wonder if the driver was even “dinged” for this? Definitely a flaw in the systems… they should allow 0 cancel fees if drivers drive more than x min in the wrong direction (or if x min elapses vs first estimate).
David O'Rear
Mar 18 2018 at 5:54am
It surprises me not at all that Uber drivers — i.e., people undercutting licensed taxi drivers — might stoop to over-charging their passengers. Nor does it bother me greatly that Uber customers — i.e., people avoiding paying licensed taxi fares — might be cheated by their drivers.
My Karma, your dogma?
Grant Gould
Mar 18 2018 at 7:17am
I had this experience at Logan airport in Boston. The second driver I called gave me the following explanation. This was a year ago, and one driver’s speculation, so the situation may have changed since.
In highly variable traffic situations (like the terminal roads near the waiting lot at an airport) the driver does not know how long it will take them to reach you; moreover the traffic prediction in the app is bad (uber) or nonexistent (lyft). If traffic is terribly backed up, then, the driver can easily face a long period of traffic jam getting to you, for which you are not paying them.
What some drivers will do in such a situation is to accept the ride, start driving there, discover that the traffic is bad, switch to the other app, and look for a customer in the opposite direction instead in order to escape the traffic. The unfortunate first customer then has to wait for the ride to time out (or cancel and pay a fee, although that will be refunded if you challenge it and are not a frequent canceler).
He told me that the drivers are dinged for this, but not enough to make a difference if they work a highly in-demand time or place.
Dale Courtney
Mar 18 2018 at 10:21am
I had this happen once in Cape Town (South Africa).
My son and I were waiting for an Uber pickup, and because of the one-way streets and construction, the driver was having a really difficult time getting to us.
As others have said, you can request a refund from Uber. They are pretty good about that. I had a driver one time miss an exit and it added an additional 10 minutes in LA traffic. Uber reimbursed the difference for those 10 minutes.
best,
Dale
Mike
Mar 18 2018 at 10:35am
Drivers working for Uber & Lyft is a real thing and pervasive. I’m in NY this weekend as well and have found cab rides to be slightly cheaper. Uber cars are cleaner, the drivers are nicer, and the time they pick you up is more predictable.
Curious to see how well this works when Uber & Lyft start charging the real cost of the rides. My guess is car & driver quality quickly approach taxi levels. Softbank, please keep subsidizing cheap nice rides. Thank you.
Phil
Mar 18 2018 at 4:25pm
I believe I read a news story about uber drivers that changed their Facebook profile picture to some freaky gross zombie picture or something so that riders would see that when they booked a ride and then decide to cancel rather than ride with someone who’s face looks like that.
Anony Mouse
Mar 18 2018 at 6:25pm
This behavior is a well known vector for fraud in the ride sharing industry.
I work at Lyft where we developed a program that identifies when we determine a driver is ‘willfully’ driving in the wrong direction. If we detect this is happening we automatically assign a new car to the passenger and mark the incident on the driver’s file. Drivers with an outlier number of marks get deactivated from the platform.
You don’t have to publish the comment, but your intuition is spot on and driver fraud is a huge category of problems for ride sharing companies.
Joseph E Munson
Mar 18 2018 at 7:33pm
I use uber instead of owning a car.
I’m not sure if its money-making purposes or they are just trying to get out of the ride (maybe something came up and they don’t want to give the ride anymore) but this kind of thing seems to happen to me once a week and I make ~20 trips a week.
Basically, they go in the opposite direction hoping for you to cancel because if they cancel it lowers their acceptance rate and the app algorithm punishes them. Lyft does this as well, though Lyft seems what superior in that they tell you what the fee will be for canceling, also drivers don’t get much from canceling, so it happens less often.
It’s difficult to tell though, I’m sure there are a percentage of them who are legit directionally confused and a (probably larger) percentage of them who are trying to fool people into canceling. Also, if you wait long enough they’ll generally be forced to either cancel or come, though for most people this is not ideal.
In my experience, Uber gives me refunds when I ask them to, without even double checking, but if they do double check they should be able to see whats going on.
Hazel Meade
Mar 18 2018 at 11:24pm
I wouldn’t be surprised if some drivers were gaming the system. The gaming of surge pricing is already a known phenomenon.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/uber-drivers-game-app-force-surge-pricing
Uber obviously tries to adjust the rules to prevent gaming, but especially in markets like New York, there’s bound to be drivers who are a step ahead of them.
Steve
Mar 19 2018 at 7:15am
Not uncommon at all. I ride in Ubers regularly in NYC, and in this situation I cancel and then ask for a refund. The company is almost always very understanding and prompt in giving the refund (in fact, if you do this through the app it will sometimes be granted automatically without a person even reviewing the request).
Alan Goldhammer
Mar 19 2018 at 7:53am
Mike wrote,
We are just back from a trip to Oakland to visit our daughter. Of the nine Uber drivers we had, four were also Lyft drivers. We also used the Uber advance booking feature for our Sunday morning trip to SFO (there are absolutely no taxi cabs in Oakland) and it went off without a hitch. Uber gives you a 15 minute time window and they search for a driver a minute before the window starts. Our driver was at our hotel at 6:40 AM. Pretty nice feature.
Bob
Mar 19 2018 at 10:33am
I am a long-time Uber driver and I’ve seen it all. In broad strokes, 25% of this discussion probably represents real technical glitches in the Uber space. The rest of it are likely the drivers’ desperate attempts to claw back some, not all, of the losses they are suffering while struggling to see some profit at Uber. Uber believes that the driver corps are bottom feeders and are expendable. Their strategy is called “consumer push-through” being the low price option for the consumer along with the convenience quotient tends to “forgive” other gross operational mistakes that Uber makes (London is a good example).
I drive in the NY Metro area with probably some of the worst road surfaces on the planet. I’ve put 3 new front ends into my car at amounts so embarrassing that I won’t repeat them here. Uber pays us 74 cents per mile and adds nominal amounts for time spent. The IRS figures that it costs us 54 cents per mile to break even on operating your personal car. This leaves a spread of 20 cents for the driver. Again, embarrassing. And their new FLAT RATE pricing feature allows them to skim an additional, increased amount from the passenger that they keep for themselves and don’t share with the driver. Currently, there are 2 Federal lawsuits challenging this practice.
So it’s likely that experienced drivers have developed strategies of their own to maintain a modest profit level that they and their families can live with, at least for the time being…until Uber reaches its stated goal of driverless cars.
Uber is for many, an employer of last resort and setting the P&L component aside for the moment, meeting a dirverse and collegial group of mostly business passengers lessens the pain a bit. Oh, I mostly serve business clients, last time I drove in an inner city, my car took a random bullet in the hood, missing the engine, but more importantly, me! The new hood cost over $1500 out of pocket.
Joe
Mar 19 2018 at 5:42pm
Used Uber in Indonesia a couple months ago. Seemed like what you’re describing was pretty common there
Phil
Mar 20 2018 at 6:57pm
On a slightly different bent…
Now that Uber has killed someone with an autonomous vehicle, I would like to see the wise economists pontificate on such technology. Who should bear the cost of this death? Those who programmed the underlying technology? Those who built it? Those who authorized its use on public roads? The person who programmed the particular trip? The human who was present as a(n evidently incompetent) safety observer? The answers to these questions have significant real-world implications for those who design, build, sell, and use such vehicles.
Until such time as these issues are sorted out, I do not want any AVs on the road, and I will continue to drive my simple car with my two eyes, ears, and brain. I can boast a much safer driving record than Uber and expect I always will.
Louis
Mar 21 2018 at 10:40am
I drive for Uber.
The only reason that I can think of for a $12 cancellation fee is that you’re in an area with a surge. That increases all fees for any trip, including cancellation fees.
If the driver was not heading toward you in a reasonable time, that’s not normal or acceptable. You should contact Uber, explain what happened, and request a refund of the fee. They should give it to you.
The only normal explanation for such a thing is that you put in the wrong pickup address, which happens from time to time, but then it would have shown the time counting down to the wrong pickup location.
I have heard stories like this, and attribute it to drivers accepting rides when they’re doing something else, and not actually ready to give a ride. The driver does receive a cancellation fee if you cancel.
While you have a ride lined up, you can’t accept a different ride, so you can’t really “shop” for a better ride. Also, all rides are allocated by Uber to the closest driver, and you don’t know where someone is going until you pull up and start the trip, so you don’t really know anything other than the pickup location and rider rating when you accept a ride.
Hazel Meade
Mar 22 2018 at 1:38pm
The human who was present as a(n evidently incompetent) safety observer?
This is of course the correct answer. All autonomous vehicles in operation still have human drivers behind the wheels. Those human drivers are responsible for taking over the car if the autonomous navigation fails. Those human drivers carry insurance which covers personal liability, by law. I fail to see any legal difference between a human accidentally hitting a pedestrian themselves, and a human failing to take over manual control when the autonomous software makes a mistake. Between machine with human backup, human with machine backup, and human alone, I doubt human alone is going to have the best accident record.
The only thing this indicates is that there’s still a need for competent human backups behind the wheels of autonomous vehicles.
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