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Uber charges driver for completing a 13-mile fare

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Re: Uber charges driver for completing a 13-mile fare

#121

Post by jobigoud »

dnautics wrote: post #63
hyperdimension wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the ride automatically ended, geo-fenced to the destination. Is that not the case?

nope. As a driver, you never know when your passenger is gonna be like, "I'm gonna change my mind, let's go all the way to santa barbara instead". Both you and UBER/lyft want that ride. Surprised-not-surprised that uber doesn't send the client app a message asking for approval.

I once suggested my driver to drop me off before the destination as it was more convenient and he said no, that he really had to go to the exact agreed upon destination. I presumed it was for insurance purposes, like if something happens in the interval I was supposed to be in the car.

Re: Uber charges driver for completing a 13-mile fare

#122

Post by strken »

3np wrote: post #119
strken wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that at no point did anyone sit down and say "let's charge drivers for trips". It's clearly the unintended consequence of real product decisions, but it's equally clearly not a new strategic direction to bill the supply side of the market. It's terrifying because it illustrates the lack of trust that the general public has in tech. Instead of "looks like someone's having a bad day at the Uber office,…

They had many years of time to address this class of issues, and sometimes it has consistently gotten worse, not better. Why would the trust not go down?

I don't know, why would the trust not go down? Is this a riddle? Of course trust has gone down.

I'm not saying it's unexpected, I'm remarking on adverse market conditions that will affect most of HN.

Re: Uber charges driver for completing a 13-mile fare

#123

Post by gher-shyu3i »

hn8788 wrote: post #70
_eqet wrote: post #56

People try to take any chance to make a villian out of big tech, it's just a damn bug people! They might not be the most decent "being", but the fact that this post is trending bothers me

And it bothers me that there are people who think they need to white knight for a company valued at billions of dollars when a bug causes a driver to pay money to work, yet here we are.

A company that provided jobs and services for millions of people. Nothing wrong with being valued at "billions of dollars" as long as things are done ethically.

Re: Uber charges driver for completing a 13-mile fare

#124

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

manigandham wrote: post #103
yuliyp wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disputing charges with a credit card is an interesting thing. It's a consumer being able to unilaterally say "give me my money back" and the merchant basically being stuck with the tab. Doing a chargeback means the relationship between consumer and merchant is ineffective that they can't resolve their differences normally. That the merchant doesn't want to risk more money on serving such a customer in the future is p…

It's not a guaranteed refund. It's just another dispute resolution, but done by the card issuer rather than the merchant. Often they will side with the consumer and will refund the charges through their various policies, but they also investigate the case and will let the payment go through if there's no actual problem found. There are plenty of cases where consumers didn't even contact the merchant at all and yet st…

I think most chargebacks are by fraudsters and carderz.

Re: Uber charges driver for completing a 13-mile fare

#125

Post by pwdisswordfish8 »

manigandham wrote: post #106
pwdisswordfish8 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had a long trip which I updated after departing to be a short trip Bugs notwithstanding, if intentional, then that's a pretty scummy thing to do. Not all drivers are given the full details of the offer they are accepting (it's the norm not to have details), but some offers that drivers receive do include things like "guaranteed $X trip". So even if unintentional, someone would be getting screwed there (e.g. Uber,…

Situations and destinations change. There is nothing "scummy" about changing where you're going on a trip you're paying for. Any guarantees to the driver are an issue for the company to deal with.

Why did you chose to direct attention to the one set of circumstances that the comment you're responding to deliberately and visibly contains a hedge for? Arguing against the comment on the unintentional side of the issue doesn't even make glancing contact with the subject that's actually in focus.

If intentional, lying about the ultimate destination and then changing it after pickup is a scummy thing to do.

Re: Uber charges driver for completing a 13-mile fare

#126

Post by pwdisswordfish8 »

randallsquared wrote: post #75
pwdisswordfish8 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had a long trip which I updated after departing to be a short trip Bugs notwithstanding, if intentional, then that's a pretty scummy thing to do. Not all drivers are given the full details of the offer they are accepting (it's the norm not to have details), but some offers that drivers receive do include things like "guaranteed $X trip". So even if unintentional, someone would be getting screwed there (e.g. Uber,…

> if they were forced to cover the difference to the driver The rider isn't guaranteeing a $X trip, if anyone is -- that's a contract Uber is making with the driver, and they should absolutely cover the difference. If they find themselves losing money on that, then they can and will update the guarantee message, right? Guessing or investigating the internal negotiations between a service provider and their own servic…

> that's a contract Uber is making with the driver, and they should absolutely cover the difference

No one here is arguing otherwise.

> If they find themselves losing money on that, then they can and will update the guarantee message

What is your conception of "update" here? Someone receives an offer for a given payout. The driver accepts and goes to pick up the passenger. The passenger gets into the car and then changes the destination, nullifying the entire set of conditions that were in play for the original arrangement. Does your "update" involve something magic, like a time machine?

Re: Uber charges driver for completing a 13-mile fare

#127

Post by randallsquared »

pwdisswordfish8 wrote: post #126
randallsquared wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if they were forced to cover the difference to the driver The rider isn't guaranteeing a $X trip, if anyone is -- that's a contract Uber is making with the driver, and they should absolutely cover the difference. If they find themselves losing money on that, then they can and will update the guarantee message, right? Guessing or investigating the internal negotiations between a service provider and their own servic…

> that's a contract Uber is making with the driver, and they should absolutely cover the difference No one here is arguing otherwise. > If they find themselves losing money on that, then they can and will update the guarantee message What is your conception of "update" here? Someone receives an offer for a given payout. The driver accepts and goes to pick up the passenger. The passenger gets into the car and then cha…

> No one here is arguing otherwise.

I thought you were, actually:

> someone would be getting screwed there (e.g. Uber, if they were forced to cover the difference to the driver).

This is a little meta, but it seems weird to describe company C getting screwed if they are "forced" to cover their contracts, even while agreeing that they ought to cover their contracts.

> What is your conception of "update" here?

No time travel required; "update" meant as Uber moves into the future and makes adjustments to how they approach new agreements. If riders change destinations in such a way enough, Uber can start lowering guarantees or use language like "expected" instead of "guaranteed", or charge a floor to future riders, or both.

In the specific case of this specific ride, Uber ought to pay out the amount they guaranteed, as you agree above, but there is no obligation of the rider to determine if or how their behavior impacts contractual language between Uber and the driver.

Re: Uber charges driver for completing a 13-mile fare

#128

Post by zaroth »

pwdisswordfish8 wrote: post #64
zaroth wrote: post #40

Another Uber bug I ran into a couple weeks ago. I had a long trip which I updated after departing to be a short trip. After getting out of the Uber I clicked to pay a 20% tip, and it paid it on the original (much higher) amount. Worked out to be almost a 100% tip. I called support, walked the very nice woman through what happened, she filed a bug report and reset the tip to a normal amount.

> I had a long trip which I updated after departing to be a short trip Bugs notwithstanding, if intentional, then that's a pretty scummy thing to do. Not all drivers are given the full details of the offer they are accepting (it's the norm not to have details), but some offers that drivers receive do include things like "guaranteed $X trip". So even if unintentional, someone would be getting screwed there (e.g. Uber,…

I totally agree if intentional it would be scummy.

The details are kind of irrelevant so I had left them out. I was going home from the airport, with a stop on the way to drop off a friend. I had a 10am call I needed to take in private, and the pickup and first stop took too long, so I re-routed my final destination to a co-working space nearby to be able to take the call.

I didn’t feel bad at all because the new drop-off point is a hugely busy spot for Uber. Driver already had another fare on queue. The original destination was out in the sticks and driver would have had to come back to the city for their next fare. It definitely worked out better for the driver with the change!

Re: Uber charges driver for completing a 13-mile fare

#129

Post by dnautics »

jobigoud wrote: post #121
dnautics wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nope. As a driver, you never know when your passenger is gonna be like, "I'm gonna change my mind, let's go all the way to santa barbara instead". Both you and UBER/lyft want that ride. Surprised-not-surprised that uber doesn't send the client app a message asking for approval.

I once suggested my driver to drop me off before the destination as it was more convenient and he said no, that he really had to go to the exact agreed upon destination. I presumed it was for insurance purposes, like if something happens in the interval I was supposed to be in the car.

Definitely lying to you. Thinking about it, what happened to you is kidnapping. If you ask to be let out of the car,the driver MUST honor your wishes and drop you off as soon as it's safe to do so.

Re: Uber charges driver for completing a 13-mile fare

#130

Post by praestigiare »

derefr wrote: post #45
Analemma_ wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses deliberately plan for and rely on people like you making that distinction, even though you shouldn’t. Why should it matter? The consumer is fucked either way.

For the same reason that if some kind of Cordyceps-like brain-parasite were to infect a person and make them murder people, that wouldn't be that person's fault. Especially if the brain parasite could be removed, reverting their personality to normal. I wouldn't hold that against the person going forward (unless they for some reason actively pursued further brain-parasite infections as a general preference.) Companie…

I don't know where the talk about evil individuals came from - Uber's billing is not the result of a single "potentially evil" individual. Instead it is the result of the company culture and processes. This incident was not an intentional decision to charge drivers to work, but still a predictable outcome of the way they operate, and thus indistinguishable from actual malice from the perspective of the customer, both in terms of result and predictive value.
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