I drive for Uber and of course I like my long airport trips. I do not, however, call riders and then cancel on them if I don’t feel that the fare will be worth my time once I have accepted a ride. This morning my 19 year old daughter called me crying at 6:20 am because 3 drivers canceled on her after accepting her ride request. She even begged the third driver to not cancel on her, he said he wouldn’t, and then canceled. She had just busted her hump working 10 hours over the graveyard shift at a hotel and just wanted to go home and rest. She did call Uber to complain, but since the drivers canceled, Uber said that there is no records of the issues. I have advised her to take screenshots of the driver info now when driver’s have accepted her ride and I will personally take her to the Greenlight Hub with the information should this happen to her again. For the record it would have been a $45 fare to drive her home from downtown Denver because the weather is awful today. She banks doing room service at a swanky hotel ($350 a night average in tips) and tips really well to boot, so those drivers lost big time. The route to get her from point A to point B would have been about 20 minutes on plowed highways. This scenario is one of the reasons we have a bad reputation. Shame on the drivers that do this.
I’m pretty sure Uber actually lets them cancel a certain number of times, so because it was 6:20a they were probably all sleeping in their cars because it was so slow, and then all of them were napping probably waiting for the busy time around 7a, or perhaps they were all eating.
People often exist in patterns which only the government sociologists can see using Mapping Metadata.
I guarantee if you ask an Uber Analyst they HAVE the information, so they KNOW the driver’s are doing this, they CAN SEE THE PATTERNS. But the company has obviously not ordered an analysis to see why something like is happening, 3 is kindof a pattern.
I’ve noticed the same thing, there are times when there simply aren’t any around, which says that they’re having trouble keeping driver’s, which obviously just means they have to raise pay rates and rider’s fairs at the same time, which they haven’t done for some reason?
Perhaps they’re worried about pricing people out of the market? Of other ride-share services, they’re still directly competing with taxi-companies and more private car services, anyone with money can hire a driver directly and have them drive their car, so there are markets they simply haven’t gotten access to because of a lack of premium services as well.
So Uber’s not as smart as they pretend to be and because of their poor customer services they’ve become the target of the government, which responds directly to Public Opinion, and the general opinion of both DRIVERS AND CUSTOMERS is that Uber needs to learn a lesson, which likely means they’re going to lose their case and they’re going to have to raise pay rates for driver’s.
The times of thin uber service are in direct response to the money they are paying per hour, Supply and Demand at it’s most direct and easily understood form.
Hi. I understand how frustrating that can be. I have had it happen to me personally as well. However, i will state that I cherrypick some rides. When driving in San Francisco, one has to!
Example: (Lyft ride) Today I left SF to work in the East Bay (Oakland and surrounding area) after about 4 hours of working in the City. I noticed crossing the Bay Bridge that traffic heading back into SF was backed up about 1.5 to 2 hours. That told me that I would not take a customer back into the City. My third ride once I hit “arrive” showed me the customer was heading back to SF.
I cancelled him.
I do feel bad when I do that, but making a third of minimum wage waiting in traffic for hours doesn’t pay for my vehicle, gas and time. Especially when you only have about 5 hours of prime morning time to get paid. I only cancel for transbay trips and when customers are openly rude at the outset. Never because I just don’t want to go! I always want to go!
It doesn’t sound like either of those situations applied to your daughter, and so that would also make me upset. Like I said, i have had it happen to me as well. Here in the Bay, it’s just something you get used to though.
Both Uber and Lyft used to show the destination as well as the pickup location before you accepted the ride. They stopped doing that years ago. That is when I noticed all this began. I never had to cancel a ride because I never had to accept one that I did not want.
This situation IMHO is the fault of the companies and not the drivers!
Just my .02.