[HN Gopher] FTC takes action against Uber for deceptive billing ...
___________________________________________________________________
FTC takes action against Uber for deceptive billing and
cancellation practices
Author : pinewurst
Score : 252 points
Date : 2025-04-21 17:22 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ftc.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ftc.gov)
| gkapur wrote:
| I'm convinced I get more "deals" (temporary discounts) from Uber
| without Uber One/after canceling it, which offsets the benefits
| from Uber One.
|
| I don't see those deals on Uber Eats so it feels like the real
| value of Uber One is for heavy Uber Eats users.
|
| PS. Worth going through the cancellation flow when you are up for
| renewal as they will probably offer you 50% off Uber One.
| xeromal wrote:
| My brother did this for about 6 months. I can't remember
| exactly how but he was always getting cheaper meals than me on
| uber one. lol
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It's only worth it for Eats, yes. (I've had Uber One since 5
| years)
| candiddevmike wrote:
| The deals for any of these meal services are bullshit in my
| experience. There's a lot of hidden fees or minimum order
| amount stuff that isn't apparent until you get to the checkout,
| definitely not the great deal they have you believe you're
| getting.
| cogman10 wrote:
| It's markup on markup on markup.
|
| We have a restaurant where I can order a $10 meal and pick it
| up myself. The same meal done through uber is $30. Everything
| has a percentage added and there's at least 3 extra "you used
| us" fees that get tacked on. All the menu items can have
| anywhere from a 20->100% markup. It's quite insane.
| paxys wrote:
| Uber's sales reps convinced my company to sign up for a
| business account for employee travel. Soon we started noticing
| that advertised fares for the exact same ride were 20-40%
| higher when the business profile was activated. Now the
| guidance for employees is to always book rides using the
| personal profile and file for reimbursement. I'm convinced that
| Uber is only able to survive by scamming customers.
| gruez wrote:
| FWIW I used a business profile a few years ago because that's
| the only way to not use your uber gift balance (we couldn't
| expense gift balances), and didn't notice any discrepancy
| between personal and business rates _for the base fare_.
| Selecting "business" disables any promos, which is likely
| where the discrepancy is coming from.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| > Users can be forced to navigate as many as 23 screens and take
| as many as 32 actions to cancel.
|
| I complain about dark patterns _a_lot_ but this one takes the
| cake!
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Still better than having to call
| oyashirochama wrote:
| Fuck onstar to hell for their shit, you HAVE to call and
| theres no way to digitally cancel.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Unless I had to call to make the order in the first place
| I'd just chargeback at that point.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Sirus wasn't bad, but it was still a call which is
| annoying.
|
| The worst I've experienced was equifax. I signed up for a
| free trial to see where my credit sat and what was up, then
| cancelled. It was a phone call, 30 minute wait, and SUPER
| weaselly behavior in the call center script. Something to
| the effect of Them: "Hey we want to give you this free
| gift", Me: "Will that gift keep my subscription active?"
| Them: "yes". Repeated several times as they tried just a
| bunch of avenues to not cancel my account. I literally had
| to say "No, I just want you to cancel my account" or "Are
| you going to cancel my account" like 20 times. It took over
| an hour.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| Or go in person, like many gym memberships.
| stogot wrote:
| yes and have to do 2 months before end of plan, and they'll
| still bill you for the next full month
| gearhart wrote:
| Worth noting that in the UK if you say << this is
| obviously predatory and isn't going to hold up in small
| claims court >> this requirement almost always disappears
| and they tell you that just this one time they'll be nice
| and cancel from today.
| m463 wrote:
| I had to send a registered letter to hq.
| ohgr wrote:
| Was in my local gym trying to set up a membership and
| someone was in there screaming that it'd be easier to "burn
| the gym to fucking ashes" than cancel the sub. Turns out
| the cancellations person was only there on a Tuesday at
| 10AM or something useless.
|
| I walked out before I became another victim.
| 3D0MR3991N wrote:
| Just tell them you moved, that's why you're canceling, and
| you live nowhere near any of their other branches therefore
| it would be physically impossible for you to come in.
|
| This works for me, and I have no qualms lying to circumvent
| stupid tactics like these. I have turned into a LIAR when
| speaking to customer service for stuff like this because it
| just makes me more sympathetic as a customer, even though
| it's insane and unfair that one has to do this as a sort of
| social hack instead of the business just doing the right
| thing.
| gruez wrote:
| I'd take that with a grain of salt. I've went through the
| process to cancel an uber one trial recently, and I would say
| it's not anywhere near "23 screens". Maybe the user in question
| got unlucky and got hit with all the A/B trials, and they're
| being super generous with what counts as a "screen", but the
| process was relatively painless.
| cogman10 wrote:
| What was the process?
|
| In my mind it should be something like 3 or 4 screens/prompts
| max.
|
| Account (1) -> Cancel (2) -> Are you sure (3) -> Why did you
| cancel (4).
| gruez wrote:
| The complaint has some screenshots starting at page 15,
| which I think is representative of the cancellation process
| I went through. If you're being super generous (ie. start
| counting from you first launched the app, and also
| scrolling down as a "screen"), I can count 9-10 screens.
| I'm not sure how you can get 23.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Annoying, but doable. The biggest issue is the "you can't
| cancel within 48 hours" screen which is BS.
| scoofy wrote:
| I've literally experienced (not with Uber, probably around
| 2010):
|
| 1: Account
|
| 2: Cancel
|
| 3: Call this number.
|
| 4: Call number.
|
| 5: Welcome to Customer Service press... ... ...press 9 to
| cancel.
|
| 6: We need to confirm who you are. Give birth date, etc.
|
| 7: Are you sure?
|
| 8: Agent gets on the line.
|
| 9: Why do you want to cancel?
|
| 10: We are offering you a discount to continue and not
| cancel, how about that?
|
| 11: Cancel
|
| 12: Are you sure again? (This time for real)
|
| 13: Cancelled, but we are offering you a BIGGER discou...
| this is when I hang up.
| gruez wrote:
| >3: Call this number.
|
| For Uber? In the handful of times I've canceled uber one
| trials I've never seen this. It's always through the app.
| Not even the FTC complaint alleges this.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Are you in Cali? They have a state law that says "if you
| can sign up online you have to be able to cancel online".
|
| I ran into this with a NYTimes subscription I tried to
| cancel. They detected I wasn't in a state with such
| protections and removed the cancellation options while
| not providing a way to cancel. Made things real hard to
| shutdown.
| NoTeslaThrow wrote:
| Presumably they're specifically referring to uber rather
| than the broader conversation about dark patterns in
| canceling. I, too, remember how hard it was to cancel
| ZipCar--I think I just ended up closing the credit
| account it was backed by because I couldn't successfully
| navigate the labyrinth of phone-based customer support to
| cancel.
| scoofy wrote:
| I'm saying in general. Dark patterns _in general_ get
| more ridiculous than most people can imagine.
| tomp wrote:
| Last time I tried to cancel a service (mobile phone,
| Three, in the UK) they offered me the service for 5PS
| (it's normally 20PS or more).
|
| I should (pretend to) cancel more often!
| bee_rider wrote:
| Seems like a good job for a bot...
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > I should (pretend to) cancel more often!
|
| I used to do this with the cable company but they seem to
| have gotten wise to it. Last time I tried in 2020 they
| basically told me to pound sand.
|
| Fortunately I got fiber now and got to tell them to pound
| sand instead.
| rurp wrote:
| This actually works reliably with quite a few companies,
| especially large ones with low marginal cost services.
| They will often have a standard script where they will
| offer anyone calling to cancel a large discount for 3-12
| months. People can, and many do, call back at the end of
| each promo period to say they're cancelling and refresh
| the discounted rate.
| PebblesRox wrote:
| I was part of a faith-based health sharing program for a
| few years. When it came time to cancel my membership, I
| had to call in and speak with a rep. I got past several
| rounds of retention attempts and succeeded in cancelling.
| The rep offered to pray for me before we ended the call
| and asked if I had any prayer requests. I mentioned
| something about getting over a bad cold and she said,
| "you know, one of the benefits that we offer--"
|
| I felt a little bit bad about hanging up but mostly I was
| just mad.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I mean, in my case, I was literally forbidden from canceling.
| I got a screen saying I couldn't cancel within 24 hours after
| the monthly renewal.
|
| Very clearly intended to combat "oh shit I need to cancel
| that one" when the charge shows up in hopes you forget again.
| rideontime wrote:
| I'm trying to play Devil's Advocate, but I literally can't
| think of another reason they would do this.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Pretty sure that's straight up illegal in many
| jurisdictions
| bradly wrote:
| Both Uber and Lyft's pay-to-not-wait is about as dark as I've
| encountered recently. It makes it extremely hard to get an
| reliable wait time.
| NoTeslaThrow wrote:
| Not to mention they don't refund you you when they fail to
| deliver the car on expected arrival.
| cameldrv wrote:
| This is my biggest aggravation. They consistently
| underreport estimated pickup times. Dropoff times are
| essentially universally significantly later than the
| estimate before booking.
|
| It's things like this that make agents potentially
| exciting. So much of enshittification is wrapping an
| essentially good service in a crappy and misleading UI to
| drive extra revenue. If you can replace the lying UI with a
| more honest one, and then do a fair and automatic
| comparison between Uber and Lyft, a lot of the annoyance
| goes away.
| zippergz wrote:
| This is the same thing the food delivery apps (including
| Uber Eats) do. I have screenshots showing the estimated
| delivery time pretty consistently jumping up anywhere
| between 20% and 50% from what it shows on the initial
| screen to what you get once you've placed the order. And
| then often they don't even make that time estimate.
| Fade_Dance wrote:
| An accurate estimate isn't really possible with the food
| delivery business model. Couriers will have 2-3 orders,
| so if you are order 1 or two, there is a new variable
| that enters the equation after you purchase the food.
| They obviously add other items on a similar route, but
| wait times and such are fairly random). Of course they
| could do 1 order to 1 driver but that would double the
| labor costs (sequential orders would be 2-3 deliveries
| per hour max per courier, vs 4ish when optimized).
| nrb wrote:
| The estimate is not really that accurate even when you
| pay the $4-5 more to be the first delivery.
| cameldrv wrote:
| Uber could provide a range or a point in the middle, but
| it seems like they just estimate the best case scenario
| and then it's usually not the best case.
| redbell wrote:
| This isn't just a dark pattern -- it's _dark matter_. The kind
| where it says 'cancel anytime,' but when you actually try, it
| throws up a screen like: _' Please proceed by faxing us from
| the moon.'_
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| > Some users are told they have to contact customer support to
| cancel but are given no way to contact them
|
| A company can save a lot of money by not handling edge cases.
| Loughla wrote:
| Have an issue with my business listing on Google. They say I
| need to contact support.
|
| There is no support. It does not exist.
|
| Why do they do these things?
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Because 1) it's cheaper 2) fuck you, that's why.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| > Why do they do these things?
|
| Because they can get away with it. Nestle has gotten away
| with killing nearly ten million children since 1960.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Nestle_boycott
|
| Companies have no morality. Unless someone holds them
| accountable they're going optimize for making money.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| But I get called all the time from Google saying my business
| listing isn't up to date! Google has fantastic, proactive
| support. (/s)
| jannyfer wrote:
| In my experience, when you're within 24 hours or so of an
| upcoming renewal, you have to contact support to stop the
| renewal. And there isn't a prominent way to contact support,
| because the contact form is hidden until you view a past order.
| That's not really an edge case...
|
| On another note, an actual edge case that happened to me is
| that I was in a different country when my Uber One was about to
| renew, but I had no way to cancel because the app kept
| geolocating me and displayed a UI specific to my visiting
| country. I got no Uber One benefits in that country anyway. So
| I had to send an email to stop renewal, and while I was waiting
| for a reply, I got charged. Support said they can't refund me,
| and I ended up having to do a chargeback.
| creddit wrote:
| I was always able to cancel very easily. I've done so many X free
| months of Uber One and it's been so much easier than cancelling
| any number of other subscriptions (NYT has still been my worst
| experience on that front). I'm surprised to see that as a
| complaint tbh.
| ivape wrote:
| Anecdote:
|
| Uber Eats markets a 2 for 1 deal that I would have only ordered
| due to the deal. They always add both items when you take the
| deal to the cart, but they suddenly changed it. I didn't realize
| I had to manually add both, and only had one delivered. I called
| them up and they only refunded a portion, and not the whole thing
| without accounting for the fact that it was an opportunity cost
| for me. I would have just bought something else, or not at all.
| It's tin-foil hatting, but they coerced a purchase imho.
| gruez wrote:
| >It's tin-foil hatting, but they coerced a purchase imho.
|
| That's not what "coerced" means. "Deceived", maybe.
| thatcat wrote:
| Finessed a sale through intentional misunderstandings
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| Similar to CA's requirement for online cancellations if a
| subscription is purchased online, there should be a rule that
| requires the _same amount of steps to cancel as it takes to
| subscribe_.
|
| Yes it could still be gamed, but anyone who's worked on user
| funnels knows that every added step reduces conversion, so it
| would be self-balancing.
| oyashirochama wrote:
| God I wish OnStar held that standard.
| m463 wrote:
| "same amount of steps to cancel as it takes to subscribe"
|
| I wonder... what if you artificially padded the signup process
| with feel-good stuff?
|
| - screen: Did you know, <picture of Scarlett Johansson>
| Scarlett also uses this service?
|
| - screen: Since you are signing up, we are adding a Free 10%
| off voucher for <stuff!>
|
| - screen: Our customer Service Representative (attactive
| person) is always standing by!
|
| etc...
|
| - screen <n>: click [Yes] to sign up!
| 9283409232 wrote:
| This is a good way to lose a sale. Like the person you are
| responding to said, I have done user funnel work and every
| step between the desire to purchase and completing the
| purchase is dropping users out the funnel. This is the idea
| behind retailers like Amazon introducing one click purchase.
| If someone has the impulse to buy you want to get as out of
| their way as possible.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Someone's gonna try interpreting that as actual keystrokes.
|
| "We made you enter your name and address and password and
| credit card details. That's 204 steps!"
| kmeisthax wrote:
| The current head of the FTC's first act was to kill that exact
| rule.
| janalsncm wrote:
| I use virtual credit cards for most of my subscriptions. If I
| can't cancel via normal means, I cancel the card. We can do this
| the easy way or the hard way.
|
| Can't say whether this is the recommended method for all services
| but it works for me.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| I tried that with my real card and it turns out that if you
| report a card lost/stolen and get a replacement behind the
| scenes your bank will still forward some transactions from the
| old card to the new one without having to update
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Many years ago, I had an XBox 360 with a valid credit card
| attached. With a ten year+ gap of service, I then connected
| my account to a new Xbox. Somehow Microsoft was able to still
| use and charge a ten year old credit card account even though
| I have had many replacement cards in the intervening years.
| olyjohn wrote:
| [delayed]
| JohnMakin wrote:
| I'm disabled and rely heavily on food delivery apps and stopped
| using uber/postmates about a year ago. I somehow got tricked into
| paying $40 on a $6 order. I went back through the flow to see
| where I messed up, the screen did show my order amount that I
| expected, but after many many emails and messages with support,
| this discount didnt apply because I didn't hit some "minimum" on
| the order, so they went ahead and charged the full amount (not
| what was displayed, or if it was, was done in an extremely
| dishonest/obfuscated way).
|
| I am far from a novice computer/device user. you're already
| making a decent amount of money off me and the slave labor wages
| you pay your workers, why try to aggressively milk every penny I
| have? I stopped using it after their joke of an outsourced
| customer support would not do anything but run me in circles. How
| much did losing my business cost them in revenue vs. the blatant
| petty theft in dark patterns would have gained? There has to be a
| day where all these user hostile apps triggers some response from
| people like "no, enough of this."
| acdha wrote:
| For us the line for several of those companies was when we had
| several massively late orders where they lied and blamed the
| restaurant rather than the fact that they were trying to keep
| their costs down by underpaying drivers. I think the underlying
| problem is that companies like Uber pitched themselves as tech
| companies like Google or Facebook and locked in expenses like
| compensation at correspondingly high levels, but there just
| isn't that much margin in food delivery or unlicensed cabs not
| matter how hard they squeeze, and it's an inherently local
| service so they're always vulnerable to competition in their
| most profitable markets.
| martin8412 wrote:
| Buying a few million worth of Trump coins will make that go away.
| schmookeeg wrote:
| Here I assumed I just fat-fingered something when doing an Uber.
| I never sign up for the recurring charge stuff and recently saw
| the UberOne subby and canceled it.
|
| I guess now I'll be a party to the class action and get a gift
| card in 10-12 years from this BS. Neat!
| paxys wrote:
| The latest dark pattern in all these apps is that they will mess
| up your order/ride and then "refund" you in the form of account
| credit. There's no way to actually get your money back. Trying to
| contact support results in an endless loop of help screens and
| chatbots. If you are able to figure out the magic combination of
| options that will get you to a support agent they will say "sure
| we will refund your money" but that is still only going to your
| app account. The last time I had an issue I literally had to ask
| them 3 times "I want you to confirm that you are refunding my
| credit card the amount it was charged" for them to finally agree
| to it. It is crazy what they can get away with.
| tristor wrote:
| The worst part is I have never figured out a way to spend any
| of my Uber credits. I have hundreds of dollars in Uber credits
| I've accumulated over the years, and I regularly use Uber, and
| yet have never spent any credits.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| When you choose your payment method in the ride selection
| screen you should be automatically using credits (unless
| those credits are for something specific, like Eats, or
| something else).
|
| I'm able to see this in my Uber app today (set a destination,
| then at the bottom of the screen is a row for payment
| options, clicking that will show you Uber balances (uber
| cash), payment methods, and vouchers) and am located in the
| US.
|
| If you are not seeing this, I'm thinking you need to reach
| out to support via email and have a long (probably
| frustrating) conversation.
| tristor wrote:
| I do not see this, it always direct-charges my Amex. The
| only credits I get auto-spent are my $15/monthly Amex
| credits. Definitely will reach out to Support at some point
| (whenever I get fed up and have time to burn, probably
| while sitting waiting to board a flight).
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| Okay, are you able to at least see your vouchers and
| other credits? I currently have a $5 credit applied from
| a cancellation dispute so I think it should be working
| for all credits.
| hammock wrote:
| Submit a credit card chargeback. They cannot charge you for a
| service not rendered
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| Then you can't use it anymore... that's kind of a problem
| when there's a duopoly in the rideshare space.
| MrDarcy wrote:
| What's the threshold for getting banned? I've done a few
| chargebacks against Lyft since they removed all forms of
| customer support and haven't gotten banned yet.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Uber is likely a lot more aggressive banning people as
| that's how they operate all aspects of their business
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Uber was (and I have no idea if still is) the culture-bro
| and rape-do-nothing-about-it company. I never forget that
| when they come up in discussions.
| acdha wrote:
| The answer to that problem is not giving them more money.
| They're going to use that money to try to drive competitors
| out of the market and lobby for laws which harm riders and
| drivers.
| rs186 wrote:
| It's not a choice for many people, like, easily many
| millions in a city.
| Retric wrote:
| Where exactly is Uber the only option?
| mparkms wrote:
| There are lots of places in the US where if you don't
| have a car your only reasonable options are an Uber/Lyft
| or calling a cab that may or may not arrive.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| In a city?
|
| Cabs, busses, bikes, trains...
| rd wrote:
| Don't be intentionally obtuse - even for people living in
| a place with public transport as encompassing as say NYC,
| you _need_ some form of ride-sharing service eventually
| in day-to-day life. Being banned from the duopoly of
| ride-share services is a life-altering thing to happen.
| bdangubic wrote:
| though the commenter might have been obtuse to say that
| _banned from the duopoly of ride-share services is a
| life-altering thing to happen_ is quite mad. I live in a
| city and have _never_ used a ride-share service. out the
| pool of another dozen friends /co-workers 10 of them
| seldom-to-never use it (we are all in 40's / early 50's).
| so most definitely not "life-altering thing"
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Have you ever considered that perhaps others conduct
| themselves differently?
|
| I live in a small city. When I travel, I generally have
| to be at the airport or train station between 4 and 530
| AM. Uber put the taxis out of business, so the choice is
| Uber, Lyft, wasting a half hour and alot of money
| parking, or trying to find a black car service.
|
| I was in Rome for business. The choice is Uber or the
| local cab hailing app, which the cabs don't always
| respond to, and the cabbie frequently tries to ripoff a
| dopey foreigner.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Heh, Rome!! The meter wrote EUR40, the taxi driver asked
| for EUR60. He tried verbal-aggression and threatened to
| call the police. I took a photo of the meter and asked
| him to please call the police, I will show them the photo
| and tell them that he threatened me. He took the EUR40
| and went his merry way.
|
| Once upon a time (around 2005-2006) I had a colleague
| whose father was a taxi driver. He (the colleague) was
| openly telling us that every cabbie cheats. Once in a
| blue moon you find an honest one, or one whose cheating-
| meter-subsystem is broken.
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| What do you mean? You can easily get by without ride
| share in NYC. Not everyone even has a cell phone.
| acdha wrote:
| It's the opposite in cities: you're far more likely to
| have alternative options like taxis, transit,
| bike/scootershare, etc. than in rural areas.
| teeray wrote:
| The worst thing is that you can't even do a chargeback,
| otherwise you get banned. There is no recourse for the
| consumer. If this is their solution for fighting chargebacks,
| they should get banned from accepting Visa / MC / AMEX.
| csharpminor wrote:
| Another sketchy practice: if you get Uber Cash through a card
| like Amex, when you go to use it the price for the ride is
| automatically $15-$20 more than someone who doesn't have an
| Uber Cash balance.
|
| I've checked this side by side with colleagues at the airport
| getting ride quotes to the same hotel. When you have Uber
| Cash they will quote you more. You can find numerous Reddit
| threads on the topic as well.
|
| This feels very illegal to me, but not a lawyer.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Send in a complaint to your state attorney's general
| vecinu wrote:
| I notice this with my Uber cash credit I get from my AMEX
| Gold card. The prices are always higher.
| c420 wrote:
| Here's a story today about this practice:
|
| Bay Area traveler says Uber gift cards boosted fare
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43751945
| OptionOfT wrote:
| https://www.nysun.com/article/dynamic-pricing-at-major-
| groce...
|
| The less they know about you the better. Good reason to not
| have Gift Cards inside of the applications.
| paxys wrote:
| Who is Visa / MC / AMEX going to side with? The company that
| gets them hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue every
| year or a random account holder? It doesn't really matter who
| is right or wrong.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| If it becomes a systemic problem, the CC companies will
| absolutely drop merchants or entire industries.
|
| CC companies, especially in the states, almost always favor
| the cardholder over the merchant.
| paxys wrote:
| For individual chargebacks and small scammy merchants,
| sure. Uber meanwhile processes $40 _billion_ worth of
| transactions a year. There is zero chance they are facing
| any kind of "discipline" from credit card operators. At
| that volume they write their own terms.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| CC companies have little choice. Laws in EU give
| right/priority to the customer, and the burden of proof
| to the company. Now, imagine pissing 1 million Europeans,
| and them all going to their banks and file a complaint.
| And Uber (or any other vendor) be hit by 1 million claims
| that they have to fight for one-at-a-time.
| bz_bz_bz wrote:
| Earlier this month Uber sent me an email that they "discovered
| that [I was] charged for an additional period of Uber One
| membership after [I] contacted customer support. This was
| because [my] scheduled payment was already in process before
| [my] cancellation request was received." I knew they must have
| gotten in trouble with a regulator because the incident they're
| referring to was 2+ years ago.
|
| How did they rectify this issue they "discovered"? They gave me
| Uber credit...
| neom wrote:
| Interesting (in Canada), if my order is wrong I just click the
| item that is wrong and the chatbot automatically refunds me
| either on my card or via a credit, and often gives me an extra
| $5 in credit for my trouble, wonder what account flag I have
| you don't.
| gU9x3u8XmQNG wrote:
| In my experience, in Australia; you don't get to select the
| item that was wrong, and simply get a refund on the cheapest
| item.
|
| Seems the vendors are catching on, with orders often
| dramatically wrong without any consequence. This is pure
| speculation, however.
|
| I also found vendors would often substitute items out of
| stock with those of a lesser value, but write a semi-cute
| message on it. Nothing like buying some fancy cola, only to
| get a can of coke and a love letter..
|
| Endless chatbot and help option loops; I gave up, and refuse
| to use their services - though use was rare anyway.
| neom wrote:
| I've never had any of these problems at all with uber eats,
| probably part of why I use it so often. I click "help with
| a past order" and the first option I get is "my order was
| wrong" if I click it, it presents me with my order and
| everything I paid for and asks me what to pick that is
| wrong, it then asks for a photo if it's a larger $ item
| (unless it's missing) and then it asks me if I want a
| refund via card or credit, and as I mentioned, it typically
| gives me a credit for the trouble.
|
| Super interesting to me we have such different experiences.
| Maybe because I have UberOne?
| nradov wrote:
| I still can't fathom why so many customers voluntarily subject
| themselves to abuse by food delivery services. Overpay for
| cold, late food (which the driver might have already sampled).
| I mean I can sort of understand the use case for customers who
| are stuck at home due to illness or something. But I've seen
| plenty of young people in good health waste scarce funds on
| UberEats and similar services. Why?
|
| When I want take-out food I just call the restaurant to order,
| then get in my car (or on my bike) and pick it up myself.
| tuesdaynight wrote:
| The last part is the answer for your question: they just
| don't want to get in their car if they can pay someone else
| to do that job for them. It's the same reason people pay for
| cleaning services.
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| UberOne is why I almost never use UberEats any more and instead
| use a local competitor.
|
| Shortly after it was introduced it seemed every order of mine
| would get surprise delayed after pick up as the driver would have
| to first drop off a different order at >90deg different direction
| from me, no doubt for the user who would get priority for being
| on UberOne.
|
| I don't order food often enough to justify a subscription, so I
| just switched to Mr D(elivery), a local South African company
| where the delivery time is at least almost always consistent. I
| also feel a bit better about less of the money leaving the
| country.
| NoTeslaThrow wrote:
| I can't express how angry it makes me that I only had access to
| taxis for a couple years in the city before they were all pushed
| out and rates were jacked, screwing both the customer and the
| driver providing the value. It will take decades to reverse this
| course even if everyone has decent intentions, and shareholders
| rarely do.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| The taxi companies were dumb though. They should have embraced
| the internet and apps. I am still not sure how to even call a
| taxi in my town.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _They should have embraced the internet and apps._
|
| In some cities, they did, even before Uber existed.
|
| But they still had to pay their drivers a living wage. Uber
| didn't, and people went with the cheaper fares.
|
| Then there were no more taxis, and all the taxi drivers were
| making a third the money driving for Uber.
| fuomag9 wrote:
| Here in Italy I don't know if I hate more uber or the taxi
| drivers themselves. Most cities do not have uber because of
| them striking and paralyzing cities. Most taxi drivers will
| try to scam you if you are a tourist, will not take credit
| cards and will under-declare profits to avoid paying taxes.
| Taxi licenses are limited in number and re-sold between taxi
| drivers and new potential buyers. No new licenses are emitted
| because the government is scared of them.
|
| The situation is a complete mess here :/
| Animats wrote:
| But they paid the bribe!
|
| "CEO donors who gave $1 million include Sam Altman, head of
| OpenAI; Tim Cook, head of Apple; and Dara Khosrowshahi, head of
| Uber."[1]
|
| [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rich-people-and-
| corp...
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| I know, its veering into court-politics- but is the FTC now
| "selectively active" as in, if the king deems your company out of
| favor for lack of tributes, it becomes active?
| sailfast wrote:
| Now please investigate their teaser rates to get you to choose
| Uber as a transport option when they know your driver is vapor
| and/or will cancel then charge 3x congestion pricing on the next
| refresh when it's too late to pick another option. Infuriating
| practices, and the drivers seem to keep getting screwed on the
| gigs.
| YVoyiatzis wrote:
| I've long suspected these shady practices, and I'm relieved
| they're finally being exposed. Utilities and others aren't far
| behind, sending invoices no reasonable person wouldn't question.
|
| Since 2019, I've relied on ride-shares and delivery services,
| consistently questioning their fee structures. During this time,
| I've spent an unconscionable amount on Uber and Uber Eats alone.
|
| A big shame both to the ones running the show and the ones who
| trained them to think this is acceptable.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| If you've regularly patronized these services isn't it you
| who's trained them to think it's acceptable?
| ethn wrote:
| A welcomed development in these consumer subscription services.
| bilekas wrote:
| > When customers try to cancel, Uber makes it extremely
| difficult. Users can be forced to navigate as many as 23 screens
| and take as many as 32 actions to cancel
|
| Funny enough I had to take an uber today but it was taking too
| long so I wanted to cancel the request and call a taxi, I was
| asked 4 times if I wanted to really cancel, small things like
| that really do just inflict a little bit of pressure it's a
| horrible practice. The fact that a company comes up with these
| dark patterns to squeeze every cent from you says everything you
| need to know about them.
| rubiquity wrote:
| Uber is worth a case study in absolutely horrendous customer
| service and borderline theft. I haven't used them since they
| stole $150 from me for an UberEats order I was 10 minutes late to
| pickup in a one hour window, stating that the pickup windows are
| firm even for non-perishable goods and failure to show up during
| the window is a forfeit without refund. They even fought my
| credit card dispute on the matter. Vile company.
| superdude12 wrote:
| Another dark pattern is consistently underestimating the time to
| be picked up by a driver. The estimate is always something like 3
| minutes, but often the wait time is more like 7 minutes.
|
| Same for Uber Eats. They estimate 25 minutes for a drop off, but
| it's often more like 45 minutes.
| dcliu wrote:
| Glad to see this happen. As described in the article, I recently
| got signed up and charged for Uber One, despite having opened the
| app in weeks.
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