Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

When are Lyft and Uber going to add a “refund” button within their app?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 40 posts

Re: When are Lyft and Uber going to add a “refund” button within their app?

#11

Post by nibnalin »

ajford wrote: post #5
nxsynonym wrote: post #2

It would leave too much room for fraudulent or abusive behavior. Would exponentially increase the time their claims/customer service team has to spend digging through refunds to sort the real ones from the bs. As a bad customer: I don't like the drivers name - refund. I thought the driver was too slow - refund. I just want to see what I can get away with - refund. Believe it or not, most people will exploit systems t…

Exactly! As for the driver calling to ask you to cancel, that should be on him. He should cancel, not the customer. That seems like a scam from his end. Trying to up his numbers, or keep from getting the ding from the cancellation.

The problem with this method is that when I tried it, the driver just agreed to come, and I wasted 15-20 minutes to get a ride that had a wait time of 4-5 minutes.

Moreover, with drivers rating riders now, I’m quite sure the driver gave me a poor rating(so did I, but this exercise is just counterproductive really)

Re: When are Lyft and Uber going to add a “refund” button within their app?

#12

Post by rhino369 »

nxsynonym wrote: post #2

It would leave too much room for fraudulent or abusive behavior. Would exponentially increase the time their claims/customer service team has to spend digging through refunds to sort the real ones from the bs. As a bad customer: I don't like the drivers name - refund. I thought the driver was too slow - refund. I just want to see what I can get away with - refund. Believe it or not, most people will exploit systems t…

I agree. The real problem is that app charges you after 5 minutes when the driver is nowhere near the pickup.

If the initial estimate is 2 min, and then the driver just drives in a different direction for 5 min, they shouldn't charge the 5 dollar fee in the first place. Especially since its now common for drivers to do this as a method of forcing riders to cancel to help their metrics.

Even if the driver is legit lost, that's still not the customers fault.

Re: When are Lyft and Uber going to add a “refund” button within their app?

#13

Post by mnm1 »

They intentionally charge you the $5 because they are assholes who like to commit fraud. Dispute it with the credit card company. Don't even bother with Uber. Go straight to your credit card website and put a dispute on it as soon as it comes out of pending. I have not seen the fee with Lyft myself, but Uber's charging of fees is absolutely ridiculous. They claim to charge a fee after you've been waiting for a few minutes if you cancel, despite the fact that the only reason you've been waiting long enough to trigger the fee is because they are a bunch of fuckwads who can't provide decent service within a reasonable amount of time. The fee is fraud and you should treat it as such. As far as I can tell, the credit card companies do not even contact Uber anymore, they immediately refund you the money because they know it's fraud. Oh, and write your representatives, if you think that will make a difference--it won't.

Re: When are Lyft and Uber going to add a “refund” button within their app?

#15

Post by mnm1 »

tarentel wrote: post #3

I have requested a refund because a driver asked me to cancel from the app. I'm on iOS but if you go Your Trips -> Find it -> I would like a refund. I was refunded in a very short amount of time from what I remember. edit: This is from the Uber app, not sure about Lyft.

I've done this on the Android app a few times and have always been denied by a human. Now I just issue a chargeback with the credit card and don't even bother to contact Uber.

Re: When are Lyft and Uber going to add a “refund” button within their app?

#17

Post by EdJiang »

Uber actually already does this on occasion. Request a refund from My Trips > Trip > I would like a refund. Depending on your reasoning, and the details of the trip, it may issue a refund automatically.

For a cancellation fee, I’ve definitely gotten an automatically issued refund in the past.

Disclosure: I work at Uber.

Re: When are Lyft and Uber going to add a “refund” button within their app?

#19

Post by lhorie »

The cancel->refund pattern falls under the umbrella of a dispute. Drivers don't want to drive 10 mins toward a rider and then see them cancel on a whim with no consequence. In a case like that, the rider made a commitment that they would pay some money, which would ultimately offset the cost of the driver driving to the pick up spot, so the driver would want things to be made right if the rider decided to cancel.

Determining who is right in each case requires human intervention. Human intervention costs money. In some cities, it costs A LOT of money. Someone has to pay for it. One solution would be to hide that cost in the price of all rides, but no company is going to do that if it means having higher prices than competitors across the board.

If it was more common that a driver is at fault in a cancellation than a rider, the default behavior of the app would logically be to refund. The fact that it is not tells you something about the incentives for all the parties involved and where the potentials for abuse lie.

Re: When are Lyft and Uber going to add a “refund” button within their app?

#20

Post by muthuraj57 »

Ola (similar to Uber/Lyft in India) have refund button and it works pretty well. One time I booked a ride and the driver cancelled it after 20 minutes because of traffic, but I got charged for that. The Ola app had refund option and I choose the reason "The driver cancelled the ride" and I got the money back (to Ola wallet).
Post reply on HN