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UberEats took unauthorized amount (and not willing to pay it back)

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Re: UberEats took unauthorized amount (and not willing to pay it back)

#131
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked at a used car (at a new car dealer) a few years ago, and got phone calls , one or more per day for weeks, until I called them back. I realize that maybe the person was forced to do it by their boss, and people hate being ghosted, but it was so far out of my idea of social norms that I didn't want to talk to them even more. If they're not taking the hint after 10 calls with no response, what are they thinking…

wonder if this is just because these places are operated/owned by older people who are used to an era where people called all the time? Norms might have been different then… but even if that’s the case, they should be aware of the current norms.

I don't think older people expect to be treated like that.

The salesman was ~half my age, and I knew someone ~twice my age who had bought and serviced a car there and simply said they had no such experience, like I had.

I guess that older people do feel it's more of a faux pas to not return a call. But it's never been normal to go nuclear even so.

I have wondered if the reason for weird stuff at car dealers is simply that, with a commission-based position, you can basically let anybody who thinks they can do it try, and some of them are going to be weird overconfident people.

But I also figure that as a rule, really weird "customer service" is probably management coercion for some stupid reason.

Re: UberEats took unauthorized amount (and not willing to pay it back)

#133
post #38

I once worked on a reasonably complex e-commerce system with millions of products, add-to-cart, taxes, promo codes, etc. Every so often, an order total changed between the time that the user saw the total on the confirmation screen and when they actually hit the button to place the order (which seems to be what happened here). This happened because of promo applicability changes, product price changes, products being…

> Every so often, an order total changed between the time that the user saw the total on the confirmation screen and when they actually hit the button to place the order (which seems to be what happened here). I don't see any reason from the post to believe this kind of race condition is what happened here. Uber's CS says the promotional code used was not valid for this restaurant, but presumably the app accepted it…

If I have to guess, something something microservices/event-system. One separate team handles code consumption which is not he same who handles the validation, and because its a distributed mess, it is eternally broken.

Re: UberEats took unauthorized amount (and not willing to pay it back)

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, except with an atomic transfer this is impossible. You can literally stand at the door, check that the food is there, done. The worst case is that the restaurant scams you and it's not good food. This happens far far less than the middleman scams or pseudo-scams like oversubscribing delivery drivers so that everything is cold or late.

I'd like to hear more about the industry of delivering food without prepayment.

I mean, almost all pizza delivery was cash on delivery until fairly recently, which is food delivery without prepayment. The driver would tell you how much you owed, and you hand them the cash plus a tip. Yes, sometimes pizza places would have issues with people prank ordering a bunch of pizzas to someone else’s house, but pizza shops had ways to try to mitigate that risk.

If you are really too young to remember this, you can watch “Home Alone” to see some examples of how this worked.

Re: UberEats took unauthorized amount (and not willing to pay it back)

#135
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never had to do this, but I always figure that I can just cancel the transaction as fraud via my credit card. Possession is 9/10 of the law and all that. Is there some limitation to this approach that I'm not aware of?

It depends - can you do without whatever account you are disputing a charge for? Amazon, Uber, Apple, Google and so on will basically just immediately close your account when you dispute any transaction. No more access to apps or books or movies associated with that account.

> Amazon, Uber, Apple, Google and so on will basically just immediately close your account when you dispute any transaction. No more access to apps or books or movies associated with that account.

Interesting, this makes total sense

Re: UberEats took unauthorized amount (and not willing to pay it back)

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, except with an atomic transfer this is impossible. You can literally stand at the door, check that the food is there, done. The worst case is that the restaurant scams you and it's not good food. This happens far far less than the middleman scams or pseudo-scams like oversubscribing delivery drivers so that everything is cold or late.

I'd like to hear more about the industry of delivering food without prepayment.

foodpanda

Re: UberEats took unauthorized amount (and not willing to pay it back)

#137
post #105
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends - can you do without whatever account you are disputing a charge for? Amazon, Uber, Apple, Google and so on will basically just immediately close your account when you dispute any transaction. No more access to apps or books or movies associated with that account.

That's probably a good thing. Leaving an open credit card in the trust of companies without support is a recipe for trouble. If you purchased something download it immediately if you can't don't purchase vapor. Your movies/books should be local. Your apps still exist on your local android phone. Amazon seems to have customer service same as Apple but Google and Uber? Those places laugh at you when you need support..

FWIW, I've generally gotten quite good support from Uber in the past. I can't think of an interaction that didn't go very smoothly, on either Uber or UberEats.

This makes sense, as the feedback loop from how you feel about their product to how much revenue they make is immediate, unlike Google. If Uber were to piss me off enough, I wouldn't think twice about just opening Lyft every time I needed a car instead of Uber. I'm not very price-sensitive, but even my price-sensitive friends find it too much of a burden to check both options every time they call a car. This means we're all locked into an equilibrium where we spend large amounts of money with a single company, but can shift into a different equilibrium for very minor reasons. Hell, I think the last time I switched was because I got tired of all the little usability papercuts the Lyft app is filled with.

Re: UberEats took unauthorized amount (and not willing to pay it back)

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, except with an atomic transfer this is impossible. You can literally stand at the door, check that the food is there, done. The worst case is that the restaurant scams you and it's not good food. This happens far far less than the middleman scams or pseudo-scams like oversubscribing delivery drivers so that everything is cold or late.

I'd like to hear more about the industry of delivering food without prepayment.

Er, basically every takeaway I've ever bought?

Is this a joke? Come to mine and we'll get an Indian in? lol.

Re: UberEats took unauthorized amount (and not willing to pay it back)

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to hear more about the industry of delivering food without prepayment.

I mean, almost all pizza delivery was cash on delivery until fairly recently, which is food delivery without prepayment. The driver would tell you how much you owed, and you hand them the cash plus a tip. Yes, sometimes pizza places would have issues with people prank ordering a bunch of pizzas to someone else’s house, but pizza shops had ways to try to mitigate that risk. If you are really too young to remember this…

Right, the fancy delivery apps aren't even ten years old yet. You couldn't even pay by card at all until ~2010 in the UK, I'm sure the odd weird pizza shop might have allowed you to read out details over the phone...?

Re: UberEats took unauthorized amount (and not willing to pay it back)

#140
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll share my less dramatic experience, on the off chance others have seen the same: Every few weeks I get an email from Uber Eats with a generous-looking promotional code, to the tune of 25% off. If I line up an order on the website and enter the promotional code, no discount appears on the order. If I refresh the page and re-enter the code, it tells me That code has already been used . This has happened to me 3 tim…

I have a coupon code that keeps showing up in my email for something like $20 off from Uber Eats. I usually use Doordash, so I don't end up using it. Eventually they send an email warning that the coupon is going to expire soon, don't let it go to waste, etc. I don't care, so it expires. Then two days later, I get another coupon code for the same offer, and the same set of emails repeat. This has repeated at least si…

This has repeated at least six times. I'm just morbidly curious how long this cycle will go.

Possibly forever. This is the Bed, Bath, and Beyond advertising model.

Flooding your in/mail-box with coupons is a way of keeping the brand fresh in your mind. Considering the worthlessness of the coupons, and the small number of people who use them, it's more than worth the expense.

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